Every year, among the various lists published by Fortune magazine is the Fortune 500 and a supplementary list of the next 500. Collectively they are called the Fortune 1000 and have become such a brand that many companies have focused their attention on this group of firms and declared that this is their target market. In essence, they are focused on the top end of the market with their products and services and not looking at the small firms.
This might have been a solid strategy in years past, but the global stage is a lot different these days than at any time we have seen.
The Fortune lists are comprised of the largest (by revenue) US headquartered companies that are publicly listed on stock exchanges. Private companies are not included. Where these 1,000 companies once dwarfed those in the rest of the world, that now longer is true.
If we take the largest 1,000 companies in the world, only 278 US companies would make that list. By limiting the target market to US public companies, these marketers would be limiting a company’s opportunity.
After the US, Japan is the next country with 138 companies in the top 1,000. After US and Japan comes China, UK, Germany, France and Canada. In this global economy, businesses cannot afford to sit still and focus on only one market or in only one country. Individual country economies are so intertwined these days that businesses have to be looking at all global markets. This is THE key reason we created The Global 5000 database.