The World’s Most Admired Companies

Singapore Airlines is truly a 5 stars airlines in Asia. Their attentive inflight services as well as the superb cabin products simply makes them shine in this industry. Good job, SIA. You’re indeed a very great way to fly.

As a retired GE employee I am not sure I believe the results of this analysis. GE is a good company with many fine people however upper management needs to drive a few behavior changes to make this corporation truly shine and complement its many other outstanding characteristics. My suggestion’s would be to eliminate internal conflicting goals, create a sense of brotherhood (not competition) with in the business’s and treat all employees (especially senior contributors and women) with a greater respect. Good luck GE….

Northwestern Mutual continues to provide me steady growth in a market that swings from one extreme to another. The life insurance is a great companion to my mutual fund portfolio. There’s a reason Fortune ranks them number one for 24 years!

NORTHWESTERN MUTUAL is very OVERRATED as a company. Having had first-hand experience with this particular company, I can attest to the fact that they run their sales operation as a cult.

Northwestern markets their products, as do most life insurance companies, as investments. Don’t even think about buying a product from a life insurance company for investment purposes unless it’s a low-cost mutual fund, which you will likely NOT find.

Never buy permanent life insurance as an investment, and never buy a variable annuity for investment purposes.

Come on, wise up and run the numbers, and make sure you understand how returns are calculated when you examine a presentation.

It does get a touch tiresome reading about “the World’s best … whatever” sometimes.

These surveys tend to be conducted by US agencies/companies and the contributors of votes are predominantly in the US. Just have a look at the Top 50 … companies such as CostCo, Walgreens, Best Buy and Home Depot are practically unknown outside the US … and as for Northwestern Mutual … who are they (globally)???

Whoa! Fortune, Practical knowledge versus articles.
Now “U” Company Airline
Innovation 10
People management 11
Use of corporate assets 10
Community/environment 10
Quality of management 11
Financial soundness 9
Long-term investment 9
Quality of products/services10
Globalness 10

Should be:
Innovation 8
People management 3
Use of corporate assets 1
Community/environment 7
Quality of management 4
Financial soundness 9
Long-term investment 10
Quality of products/services 7
Globalness 10
Personal experience, no real retirement plan, why do think people are planning to leave in the next few years. Companies don’t want to pay for retirement obligations specially when they borrowed the money in the first place. Many bad experiences since 9/11 that they could have improved but chose an unreasonable road. It has affected the company on a long term. Getting rid of a lot of dead weight to replace it with no weight is not the best way to deal with systemic problems. Customer satisfaction is spotty depending on the regional area and facilities. There are a lot of good people still there at U Airlines. God Bless them nowhere else to go for the moment. There is something wrong when a CEO a company makes more than the net profit of the company. It is an observation when CEOs of companies in general make more than the President of the United States makes.

Continental does similar things but at a smaller scale per employees I interfaced with.
American all the majors have systemic problems and I have to admit it is hard to make money with fuel charges that are high but this should have been rectified with Airlines creating their own refineries to provide a much needed commodity jet fuel. It is volatile but not as volatile as the supply which leads to vulnerability like electricity and gas generation. We as investors and voters sat around and watch it happened hoping others will make the necessary changes to correct it.
The end result to apathy is a harder life and hoping we do not lose the insight to make the changes early to avoid the bad humps in the market. We are humans? Aren’t we?
Go figure?

I think there needs to be a tenth key attrbute added, for starters; having to do with how employees feel working for these companies.

Overall, I can’t help but wonder how a company like Wal-Mart gets rated higher than Disney, when there is no valid industry rank data. I wonder, too, about how a company like Circuit City, who trims it’s workforce closer to the bone than a Christmas goose, rates a “7″ in people management. Clearly, there’s room for improvement on this list. Thank you.

Well we can’t be truthfull when we are employed with them.

I have worked for Cisco a little over nine years and it is by far the best company to work for. The culture here is very professional and ethical. Prior to Cisco I worked for a traditional hierarchical multi-national which made you feel like an assembly line clone. Cisco is all about what you bring to the table and everyone is empowered to basically run their own business. Results, not the effort, is what is valued here and everyone is encouraged to contribute. Of special note is the concept of natural workteams whereby groups are formed based on expertise needed to solve a specific problem and once that problem is resolved the team disbands. This happens naturally at Cisco on a one-on-one basis without going through any type of management permission process and is one of the keys to making this company such an empowering place to work.

Cisco Systems claims to hire only the best and the brightest. Since I work there, I would have to agree.

Out of all the airlines I’ve flown on, I have to say, by far, UNITED AIRLINES is the SINGLE WORST airline to fly with. The service is extremely poor and it’s high time to update the seats and have better seat planning so that seats in the back of the plane are not next to the toilet (not at all appetizing during dinner!). Additionally, I can safely say that EVERY SINGLE international flight I’ve flown in the last 3 years with United has had audio and video problems… I noted this to the supervising flight attendant once who was very empathetic, but said the equipment was from 1969!! Apart from the few flight attendants who pride themselves in what they do, the general level of service on flights is so low, it’s embarassing. The cost of the tickets continues to decrease but the level of service and quality of the flying experience continues to decline… who’s doing their math?? Over the last few years the meals are getting smaller and smaller with 14 hour flights having only one and a half meals…as opposed to TWO meals! Additionally, it’s an absolute joke that INTERNATIONAL passengers (as of about a year ago) have to PAY for the alcoholic beverages… Not that I drink any alcohol on flights, but to even enjoy a beer on a 14 hour flight that you have paid literally a couple of thousand dollars for, you are still expected to pay for a beer! (of course, my concerns are for the majority who fly economy).
UNITED AIRLINES needs to reach out and learn how European, Australian and Asian airlines are functioning. My flight experiences have been so horrific with United that I’m seriously considering writing a book -for kicks.

Unfortunately, I’m stuck as my mileage is with them… and if you have lots of miles with an airline, it’s hard to pull away, lose (invisible) privileges and start all over with another airline. Having said that however, I’ve started with QANTAS…now that’s well worth the thousands they charge! At least you have a wonderful flying experience with On Demand visuals at every seat. Excellent job QANTAS… keep it up!

I have flown several hundred thousand miles in the 5 years or so and mostly with United – not by choice, but because

A company can be most admired from the outside, much like a kid looking in the window of a candy store. But once inside and eating the candy, the kid sees just how bad the candy really can be. Am I right or am I right?!?!?

Why is Sun not the leader in innovation here? Didn’t they innovate the Cool servers that use minute power and low heat output in our increasingly compute centric world? This company alone could counter balance the cause of global warmth. When I think of IBM I think of cigar smoking blue suiters counting money and laughing with smoke stacks in the background billowing pollution. Dell is a “but it now – chuck it into a landfill in 12 months” company and HP is the same – don’t we realize that technologically we could refill our printer ink for pennies, and with very little pollution – yet to make money they are pumping garbage into the world. Wake up, Think Green
and thank Sun for their innovations.

Having flown over 2 million miles in the last 15 years and experienced virtually every US airlines and most International airlines, I can say, with utmost conviction, that no US airline deserves to be on any “best” list. The gap between airlines like UAL, AA, Continental and their overseas competitors (Singapor, Cathay, Lufthansa, Virgin, etc.) is so vast that it is laughable to put them in the same category. US airlines, in general, have completely lost site of what friendly, enthusiastic service is… at all levels.

I think these ratings are based on stock performance–it couldn’t be for for anything else. I worked for GE years ago–transportation division. I left because I never saw my wife or new born baby for months on end. By the time I got home they were asleep. In one stretch our group worked 6 months straught without a Saturday or sunday off. And because we were salaried all those overtime hours were “booked”. Meaning it would look good on your record that you sacrificied all that time for GE. The other reason was integrity. I told my boss I would not let the “job” influence my integrity any longer. As you can imagine that was the kiss of death for my career.

It’s difficult to believe HP only rates a 5 in environement, innovation and financial soundness categories, thwy have one of the best recylcing programs in the industry and the stock has gone up 45+ percent since CEO Mark Hurd took the reigns. HP’s products are consistently rated as some of the best class in the world by leading consumer ratings (HP printers 14 years in row the best in the world)

You are kidding, just joking around, Continenal Airlines most admired. I don’t think so. They have a hard time meeting there schedules — and they are the one who made out those schedules. They do have some great people working for them and are trying to do their best in seeing that passengers get from point A to point B even if they have to fly anothe airline.
Continental Airlines changes its’ gale location on a whim. Case in point, we were booked and given boarding passes that showed we were to be at a certain gate at a certain time. I noticed that the gate that were assigned to didn’t advertise the place we had to go to. About twenty minutes before boarding time I noticed on the DEPARTURE MONITOR that our flight had a new GATE NUMBER. With no verbal instructions from the Continenal Airline clerks that the gate number had changed, we took off only to discover when we arrived at the gate that they had to get another flight off before our airplane could be brought to our gate. About one and one half hours later we finally boarded our flight.
Something will turn to ice before I ever take another flight with this airlines. Oh by the way my wifes’ suit case arrived my it arrived a day later. Go figure.
It’s really to bad to have good people trying to do the right things in face of some very vehement, Oh by the way, to confirm this story check out flight #1789, original gate #C35 Boarding time 8:40 pm on 14 March 07. Gate changed to E7 and we definetly didn’t take off at 9:15.

I also quit flying United Airlines years ago due to rude ticket agents and flight attendants. The employees are rued and put out if you ask them anything. They took customer service to a new lower level. UAL is a lousy company and deserves this ranking.

I suggest that UAL’s senior management fly there own airlines incognito and experience what most of us business travelers have seen for years.

I don’t understand UAL’s poor rating. I love the airline and its commitment to technology. They clearly have the most usable website and airport kiosks. I find it remarkable that even during such tough times, senior management has committed itself to implementing new technologies. Kudos the United!

What a joke to see Exxon close to top of the list!
They are still living in the 1800 Century, they havent even discovered the climate change or they do not care as long as they can sell oil.

I agree with Mats comments from Sweden, it is a joke that Ford and GM are on the list. I am a former Ford employee who took the buyout to get out. Ford is completely bureaucratic and no one is accountable, least of all the management. In addition, how can Visteon be on the least admired list. Visteon, the former Ford parts activity is managed just as Ford is.

To drive the point home, as they are loosing $12.7B this last year they are concurrently handing out $250,000+ retention bonuses to many in mid and senior management. What’s to admire about that?

Having worked at FedEx Ground it is a wonder how they made the top 10 given their 60 hour work weeks, low industry pay, and average management tenure of 5 years compared to 15 years, 50 hour work weeks, and high industry pay at UPS where I also worked.

It is wonderful to see UBS (ranked #2 as a megabank) receive the accolades it well deserves. Those who have worked with UBS know this is a bank that attracts and retains the most talented professionals with fantastic benefits and competitive pay, while remaining financially sound and well managed.

On the other hand, although GE has millions of admirers, I have never met a single employee who actually enjoys working for the company. From the outside, it may look like an innovative giant that manages to remain competitive. Look closer and you may find a different reality: brutal employee relationship management, insecure managers working under tremendous pressure, poor work/life balance, and a horrible job outsourcing strategy.

I quit flying United Airlines years ago due to rude ticket agents and flight attendants. You can measure a companies management by observing their employees’ behavior. UAL is a lousy company and deserves this ranking.

I suggest you jump on a Continental flight and enjoy an airline that really appreciates you as a customer. Better yet, charter a Continental jet and fly the entire UAL Executive team from LA to New York. That will shake ‘em up!

How can Continental airlines be ranked #1 in Globalness among other carriers like Lufthansa, British, Air France-KLM?

I think it would be interesting next year to incorporate a statistically valid sample of employee responses to your most admired companies versus just feedback here. It’s clear that many employees closer to the reality of how their applicable company is truly managed question their own company being on the list.

How can companies such as Ford and GM even make the list. Shouldn´t the market cap count for something. I work for Atlas Copco AB(Swedish)and we have a higher cap than both of them. I suggest that you boot those two underachiever off the list.

Re comment on the oil industry and Chevron and BP. BP was not among the leaders but grew by acquisition starting in the mid 1990s. Large numbers of management and skilled staff of the acquired companies were shed over a relatively short time period, i.e., Arco, Amoco, etc. By around 2003/2004 BP’s operating problems began in earnest. An independent panel headed by James Baker (the full report is due March 20 2007) found that all five of BP’s US refineries lacked operating and safety “discipline” – and of course the Texas City refinery explosion (killing 15 and injuring 180 persons), as well as the Prudhoe Bay pipeline leak were highly publicized. Without casting specific judgment, BP’s market valuations now incorporate this. For some time leading into 2006 BP shares led XOM and Chevron, but have dropped by 15% below. With current market cap of around $200 billion, this corresponds to nearly $35 billion loss of shareholder value. During this period it also has not been replacing its crude and gas reserves. BP has placed high priority on building its public image while at the same time has not been taking care of its fundamentals.

Last week Peter Kiewit was the number one rated company for Engineering and Construction. Now they are not even on the list! Why not?

Well, this simply confirms my feelings of being aquired by GE. I am currently working for Abbott Lab’s Diagnostics Division (ADD), but we are in the throws of being converted to GE employees. Particularly for us “ADD’ers” we are very excited about the possibility of having adequate funding for projects, etc, and we strongly feel that we will turn this division 180 degrees, for we honestly believe that GE will take us to the next level, forthwith! Well, it will take a little time. We love Abbott, but I know that this is the best move. I will miss Abbott and the people. Thanks Abbott and Hello GE!

I find it interesting that inside the Oil industry, Chevron is #2. Outside the industry, BP is #2 (for Oil Companies in the top 50 list) and Chevron isn’t even in the top 50. Perception outside and reality inside can be two very different things.

What a joke! I’ve worked for GE for 6 years now,and I can honestly say that as far as managing a company,GE is just about as UN-admirable as it gets.Maybe I have a somewhat biased view,given that I’ve only worked in the Wind Energy division,but backwardness and micro-management are rampant and uncontrollable.It’s a textbook case of the left hand not knowing what right hand is doing,nor do they care.

What companies do you admire most? Tell us what you think.

What makes a company admirable – social responsibility, excellent talent, sharp marketing, smart managers, or just plain profits?

What do you think of the corporations on Fortune’s Most Admired Companies list?