Each year, BusinessWeek and Boston Consulting Group collaborate on a worldwide list of top innovation companies. The list is compiled from a combination of financial metrics and evaluations by executives in high value companies.
The 2008 BusinessWeek-Boston Consulting Group survey of the world’s most innovative companies ranks the top ten thusly:
- APPLE
- TOYOTA MOTOR
- GENERAL ELECTRIC
- MICROSOFT
- TATA GROUP
- NINTENDO
- PROCTER & GAMBLE
- SONY
- NOKIA
All are known for world class products (in Google’s case, a world class customer experience). Robert A. Rudzki notes an interesting variable in these innovative companies — their age. Google is the only new player…in fact, half the world’s ten most innovative companies were founded in the 19th century.
- APPLE 1976
- GOOGLE 1998
- TOYOTA MOTOR 1937
- GENERAL ELECTRIC 1892
- MICROSOFT 1975
- TATA GROUP 1868
- NINTENDO 1889
- PROCTER & GAMBLE 1837
- SONY 1946
- NOKIA 1865
Counterintuitive but true. You can argue with the list if you like (Nearly 3,000 executives in the 2500 largest global corporations by market value responded to the survey, which received an 80% weighting in the analysis. Stock returns received a 10% weighting and three-year revenue and margin growth were each weighted at 5%). You may wonder where Facebook stands (number 25) or how General Motors made the top 10 (their presence owes to GM’s renewed emphasis on design and emerging products like the Chevrolet Volt).
Glancing down the top 10 and beyond, what seems beyond question is that old doesn’t equal out of touch or fading any more than new guarantees fresh and — you can see this coming — innovative. Which leads to the conclusion that, if your company is innovative (or if it isn’t) the reasons lie in who you are and why and how you do what you do today. And that is almost entirely in your control.
The rest of the top 25…
11. AMAZON.COM 1994
12. IBM 1889
13. RESEARCH IN MOTION 1984
14. BMW 1913
15. HEWLETT-PACKARD 1939
16. HONDA MOTOR 1948
17. WALT DISNEY 1923
18. GENERAL MOTORS 1908
19. RELIANCE INDUSTRIES 1966
20. BOEING 1916
21. GOLDMAN SACHS GROUP 1869
22. 3M 1902
23. WAL-MART STORES 1962
24. TARGET 1902
25. FACEBOOK 2004
As Rudzki notes, time will tell if Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Google, Microsoft and Research in Motion will continue creating the kind of value that could put them on this list a century downstream. But then, the same can be said for the oldest company on the list, Procter & Gamble.
A question for you and your colleagues:
What do our business practices in each of these categories reveal about who we truly are and why we really do what we do?
Hiring, firing + retention
Design, manufacturing + distribution
Marketing, sales + customer service
Corporate citizenship + sustainability
Leadership + succession
Accounting
What do our answers — and the process of reaching these answers — suggest about our will and capacity to innovate as we move forward?
