Many companies are criticized for managing to the quarterly earnings report. Employees are let go and expenses are slashed just to meet the expectations of analysts and investors. Some argue that very little strategic thinking or planning happens when firms simply look to meet a quarterly projection.

Still the power of the market and the focus of investors do have value. Investors value a well-run company that doesn't waste money, is a leader in its respective market and has room for growth. Often, however, the very traits that make a company attractive to investors today will hurt it for years to come. If a company's executives manage for short-term results, why would they fund an R&D project that might produce a marketable product two years down the road? It's a public company's catch-22.

Over the past 18 months many public companies in the financial industry have been forced to manage with a much shorter time horizon. After all, many didn't even know if they would be around tomorrow, much less next year. But while it certainly is challenging to manage for the long run with a limited budget and resources, it can be done, as seen in the successes of this year's Gold Book honorees.

All of the companies highlighted in this year's Gold Book are, obviously, in the industry that remains at the epicenter of the global financial crisis, and all of them faced cost pressures of some sort. Yet despite the pressures, these companies did not sacrifice their longer-term goals. NYSE Euronext (Steve Rubinow, page 17), for example, is still building two new state-of-the-art data centers -- multiyear, multimillion-dollar projects.

Most important, these companies were in a position to weather the financial storm because of years of planning and prudent use of technology dollars. You can't build a solid technology foundation and investment methodology overnight. These companies didn't suddenly wake up last September and decide to be smart when it comes to technology investments. Rather, many of the projects that are highlighted in this year's Gold Book were kicked off in better times, only to show their value years later (e.g., the risk analytics technology that helped BlackRock navigate the financial crisis, Goldman Sachs' algorithmic trading capabilities).

So while it may be necessary to manage to a quarterly number every once in a while, if you use this year's Gold Book honorees as a measuring stick, it seems that truly successful companies don't abandon the future just to satisfy short-term financial objectives.