Cisco on Fortune’s “World’s #MostAdmired Companies” List

Once again, Cisco is honored to be on Fortune Magazine’s “World’s Most Admired Companies” List.  Fortune tells us that the Most Admired list is the “definitive report card on corporate reputations.” We are also included in the Top 10 “Most Admired Tech Companies” list.

Cisco Chairman and CEO John Chambers stated, “We are honored to be recognized by our peers as one of the most admired companies in the world. We know we would not be on this prestigious list without our customers, our innovative employees, our partners and our investors. So, on behalf on all of them, we thank Fortune for this honor and will strive to live up this honor each and every day.”

Congratulations to all Cisco employees who develop the best technology in the world and help solve our customers’ most pressing business needs.  Congratulations also to our fellow Silicon Valley companies on this list: Apple, Google, Intel, E-Bay and Facebook.  The full list is here.

And, as our CEO reminds us, those companies that are on top today can be gone or on the bottom if they miss a market transition. To further prove this point, Fortune also includes a list of companies that were on their FIRST list of companies ranked by reputation from 1983. Seven companies that were on that list, including Kodak, Wang and Rockwell are no longer around.  So, if you are a Cisco employee reading this, my advice for you is this: pat yourself on the back, then GET BACK TO WORK*!! : )

The methodology and survey for this list, developed at Hay Group, is as follows:

–       Started with approximately 1,400 companies: the Fortune 1,000 — the 1,000 largest U.S. companies ranked by revenue and non-U.S. companies in Fortune’s global 500 database with revenue of $10 billion or more.

–       Hay then selected the 15 largest for each international industry and the 10 largest for each U.S. industry, surveying a total of 687companies from 30 countries.

–       To create the 57 industry lists, Hay asked executives, directors, and analysts to rate companies in their industry on nine criteria, from investment value to social responsibility. A company’s score must rank in the top half of its industry survey to be listed. Because of the distribution of responses, only the aggregate industry scores and ranks are published in health care, pharmacy, and other services; mining and crude oil production; specialty retailers — apparel; tobacco; trading companies; and wholesalers  — diversified.

–       To arrive at the top 50 Most Admired Companies overall, the Hay Group asked the 3,800 respondents to select the 10 companies they admired most, from a list made up of the companies that ranked in the top 25% in last year’s survey, plus those that finished in the top 20% of their industry.

–       Anyone could vote for any company in any industry, which is why some results may seem anomalous. For example, BMW is in the top 15 Most Admired Companies and second in the motor vehicles industry, behind Toyota Motor (ranked 29th in the top 50).

*Although, as a Cisco employee, you can use Cisco’s great, collaborative technology to do it from wherever you like.

(Hay Group, which has conducted the research for the World’s Most Admired Companies list since 1997 and for America’s Most Admired Companies since 2001, is a global management consulting firm. For information about Hay Group’s services, go to haygroup.com.)