The first place went to company which has been extremely innovative during the past 10-15 years and especially after the company developed products called iPod and iPhone. Probably everyone can already guess what is the name of the company, it is Apple. The big part of Apple's huge success is CEO Steve Jobs who is often considered to be one of the best marketers and CEO's in the world. After Steve Jobs made his comeback to Apple in 1997, the success of the company has been marvelous. However Steve Jobs is not the only reason for this success, we can't forget to mention Jonathan Ive who is the design guru for Apple and he is the man behind shapes of iPod, iPhone, MacBook and various other products.
Two other companies which were very pleasing surprises for me were Toyota motors in the 3rd place and of course our Finnish pride Nokia in the 42nd place. Toyota really earns its place in the 3rd since it has become the biggest car company in the world after the U.S car giants General Motors and Chrysler are nearly bankrupted or actually would be already without funding of the U.S government. Nokia is also struggling since people are not buying new models during the recession and Nokia's new "iPhone"-killer Nokia 5800 has faced problems with 3G-connection in U.S and the farce culminated in this week when Nokia removed Nokia 5800 from the markets in America. However Nokia is the market leader and it still has stable place in phone markets and probably its going to defeat those minor problems.
Then the surprising companies; Three big banks from U.S which are already more or less in the hands of the government, 15th Goldman Sachs Group, 20th J.P Morgan Chase and 26th Bank of America. Especially the banks from the places 15 and 20 are really surprising, in current situation who really is admiring those banks? Probably no one, since the whole financial crisis last fall started from the bank sector and because of sub-prime mortgages.
In the end I want to point out the biggest surprise; 32nd place goes to Nestle but that is not the whole story, according to FORTUNE they are number one in their industry when comparing social responsibility. Nestle is the biggest consumer food product company in the world, but still personally for me it is very hard to find anything admirable from the company. It is one of the most boycotted companies in the world and they have a very bad reputation what comes to operating in third world countries. I don't know where the social responsibility disappears when it comes to poor countries who really could use some help?
It's interesting to see how the list will change in next year...
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usually these lists do show the results of data and surveys made a little while ago, and the effects of economic crisis will show up in a while.
ReplyDeleteQuestion for you - how would you connect the best companies to the politics?
I think economics and politics are closely related.
ReplyDeleteMy text wasn't only about the list of Fortune, it just pointed out some interesting companies from the list, and most of the companies have lately been closely dealing with politics and governments due the financial crisis. The banks that I pointed out from the list are basically owned by the U.S government. I took Toyota from the list because of its struggling competitors GM and Chevrolet, which are fighting for their survival in recession time. Who are trying to solve these problems and for example save the U.S car industry? Politicians.
Also in Finland Nokia has been lobbying to get through a new law, which is favorable for the company. Specially in the U.S. companies are sponsoring politicians, so in whose benefits politicians are interested?