The country’s most valued company, Reliance Industries, has been named among the top 25 global champions for 2009 which managed to outperform the competition in midst of meltdown in the financial markets.
Reliance Industries is the only Indian company in the 25 A T Kearney Global Champions for 2009 list, which has been topped by Japanese firm Nintendo, followed by US-based Google and Apple at the second and the third positions respectively.
Even as the proportion of companies headquartered in emerging countries has dropped from 40 per cent in 2008 to less than a third (33 per cent) in this year’s list, Reliance Industries along with Mexico’s America Movil managed to maintain their status as Global Champions, A T Kearney said.
RIL has been ranked in the 11th position ahead of global biggies like Jacobs Engineering, World Fuel Services, ABB, Amazon.com and America Movil.
The list includes firms which managed to outperform the competition in the midst of the meltdown in the financial markets, as they combined long-range strategic planning with nimble execution.
“The financial crisis has greatly accelerated the rate of change in underlying global business conditions. Companies that were able to align a disciplined growth-oriented strategy to the transformed economic landscape were the ones that dominated,” A T Kearney chairman and managing officer Paul Laudicina said.
The top ten companies in the list include South Korea’s Doosan (fourth), Hyundai Heavy Industries (fifth), French firm GDF Suez (sixth), South African firm MTM (seventh), US-based Monsanto (eighth), Spain’s Inditex (ninth) and Australia’s BHP Billiton in the 10th rank.
“This list is yet another demonstration that sustainability is not in conflict with, or independent of, business success. Rather, a focus on sustainability is a sign that the company is looking well beyond the horizon,” the report said.
Laudicina said: “neither size nor market position is a necessary pre-condition for superior growth or protection against market turbulence. Instead, the themes that emerge include an in-depth understanding of what the market needed at a particular time, an ability to plan beyond the immediate environment, and focus on flawless execution.”
The constituent of this year’s list were identified from the world’s 2,500 largest companies operating internationally, with 2008 sales greater than USD 10 billion and at least 25 per cent of sales derived from outside their home region.
Earlier this month, Boston Consulting Group had ranked RIL as the fifth biggest ‘sustainable value creator’ in a list of 25 top companies globally in terms of investor returns over a decade
