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International Company Rankings Basics

How to read and understand rankings of the best international companies

By Lesley Graybeal
Whether you want to align your business practices with those of some of the top 50 international companies or make informed investing choices, international company rankings can provide easily digestible information on how companies compare. Don't be fooled by the simple format of numbered rankings, however, since ranking international companies is not a standard process.

An international company rank is determined differently by different resources. While most are based on revenues in some form, they do not all reflect the same factors. Knowing the international company rankings basics can help you get the best and most accurate information from a rankings list.

When browsing the top international companies, consider the following basic types of rankings:
  1. Consult performance rankings for composite scores of revenues and asset value.
  2. Use international company rankings of growth to find booming businesses.
  3. Consider industry-specific rankings for the top international companies in your area.

 

Find the best international companies by profits, sales and market value

Most traditional international company rankings evaluate a number of revenue-based factors, including sales, profits, assets and market value, to produce a composite score for each company. The formulas used vary by ranking system, but tend to consider the same factors as indicators of company performance.
Try: Financial Times posts its FT 500 rankings online and allows you to read about their method for developing rankings. Business Week uses a similar formula for evaluating performance to create its rankings of best international companies and worst international companies.

Find top international businesses by growth indicators

You may also be looking for the best international company by the margin of growth rather than simply the total revenues or market value. Growth rankings are good for finding the top international businesses that are small but booming. Growth rankings compare sales and revenues across a certain time span to find those which have the largest percentage growth.
Try: Entrepreneur.com publishes the Hot 500 fastest growing businesses, measuring sales across a four-year period. Fortune also lists its 100 fastest growing companies, and provides information on the growth over the past four quarters, growth over the past 3 years and a comparison to the company's previous ranking by Fortune.

Learn about the top 50 international companies in your industry

An industry-specific international company ranking can often be more meaningful than general business rankings that tend to favor energy and financial sectors and provide little information on other businesses. Use an industry-specific list to find the top international companies in industries such as airline travel and manufacturing.
Try: Flightglobal offers downloads of airline business rankings across the airline sector. Industry Week publishes the IW 1000 with company profiles for the top international companies in manufacturing.

 

  • Consider alternatives to the typical revenues-based ranking systems used to select top international businesses. For instance, some rankings are done based on employee benefits and work environment, such as the Fortune's 100 Best Companies to Work For. If you're trying to make your business competitive in the rankings, remember to consider factors like these.

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