  Any research on strategies for reaching business excellence aims at revealing
the appropriate course of actions any executive should consider. Thus,
discussions take place on how effective a performance measurement system can be
estimated, or/and validated. Can one find an adequate measure (i) on the
performance result due to whatever level of investment, and (ii) on the timing
of such investments? We argue that extreme value statistics provide the answer.
We demonstrate that the level and timing of investments allow to be forecasting
small and medium size enterprises (SME) performance, - at financial crisis
times. The "investment level" is taken as the yearly total tangible asset
(TTA). The financial/economic performance indicators defining growth are the
sales or total assets variations; profitability is defined from returns on
investments or returns on sales. Companies on the Italian Stock Exchange STAR
Market serve as example. It is found from the distributions extreme values that
outlier companies (with positive performance) are those with the lowest but
growing TTA. In contrast, the SME with low TTA, but which did not increase its
TTA, before the crisis, became a negative outlier. The outcome of these
statistical findings should suggest strategies to SME board members.
