Built To Last: Successful Habits of Visionary Companies - Companies Identified

Companies Identified

The list of eighteen companies identified as visionary:

  1. 3M
  2. American Express
  3. Boeing
  4. Citicorp (now Citigroup)
  5. Disney
  6. Ford
  7. General Electric
  8. Hewlett Packard
  9. IBM
  10. Johnson & Johnson
  11. Marriott
  12. Merck
  13. Motorola
  14. Nordstrom
  15. Philip Morris (now Altria)
  16. Procter & Gamble
  17. Sony
  18. Wal-Mart

These companies have taken leadership roles in their industries, offering innovative products and services and consistently outsmarting rivals. What made the research particularly useful and interesting is that Collins and Porras compared and contrasted these visionary companies with a control set of rivals. For instance, Boeing was compared and contrasted with Douglas Aircraft, Marriott was compared and contrasted with Howard Johnson's, and Merck was compared and contrasted with Pfizer. The findings are based on what the visionary companies do that is different than close competitors who have achieved a high level of success, but not to the extent of the visionary companies. From 1926 through 1990 the comparison companies outperformed the general stock market by 2 times whereas the visionary companies outperformed the market by 15 times.

Read more about this topic:  Built To Last: Successful Habits Of Visionary Companies

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