Exxon, Chemicals and the Oil Companies
This past week, Exxon received a great deal of press about their petrochemical business and the contribution it is making to their bottom line. With the plastics and chemical products derived from petroleum products, these industry segments are tightly linked and many oil companies have petrochemical divisions. In large part, plastics is part of the […]
Global 5000 – Where Does the Revenue Come From?
There has been a fair amount of business press lately about the nationalization vs globalization moves of large companies. Are these large companies really global giants? To look at where some of these firms get their revenue, we examined 10 of the largest US companies and looked at the % of revenue coming from international […]
The Ups and Downs of the Technology Markets
This past week we read the news of impending layoffs at Cisco, a strong financial report from Dell and a cautious outlook from HP. A mixed bag for sure. Looking back at the past few years of revenue reporting from the technology companies in The Global 5000, we find a pattern of ups and downs […]
Fortune 500 and The Bigger World of The Global 5000
Fortune just released the F500 listing based on 2010 revenue and it gives us a chance to see where these companies rank compared to the continuing, expanding global picture. The Fortune list includes US public companies whereas The Global 5000 includes all countries and private as well as public companies. Wal-Mart and Exxon Mobil are […]
CenturyLink acquring Savvis – differing industry profiles
In an announcement today, CenturyLink (#1340 on The Global 5000 list) is going to acquire Savvis (#3084 on The Global 5000 list). CenturyLink is also in the process of getting all the regulatory clearances to complete the acquisition of Qwest. CenturyLink is on a fast growth path moving from $4.9 billion to $7 billion in […]
Maturing Technology Markets
An article posted on Yahoo business today was interesting in that it brought to light the concept that some technology markets have matured and technology based companies are starting to think about the business differently. This was about Samsung Electronics selling off some of the storage businesses to Seagate — both Global 5000 companies. With […]
Vegas, baby – a look at the recovery from the recession
As everyone went thru the recession in 2008 / 2009 we read and experienced a number of industries and places that suffered. One of those was Las Vegas where tourism was down, housing and foreclosures sky rocketed and corporate travel to events and conferences were pulled way back. Fast forward to early 2011 and Las […]
Going Global — how else are you going to grow?
As companies are finding business bouncing back from the recession, the next focus point is on growth. Having managed thru difficult times, pared back on hiring and found various ways to drive new productivity, businesses survived and most did well. With that, there is only so much squeezing to be done and now they must […]
China Acquisition in Aerospace
One of the industry news items today was the announcement that China’s AVIC (Aviation Industry of China) is in talks to buy a small US airplane market. This is interesting on many levels and truly shows how the world is changing — lest anyone thought we are really not that global. AVIC is state owned […]
Unemployment, Productivity Improvement and Global 5000 Companies
The economy appears to be getting better .. albeit in fits & starts … and corporations are reporting strong results on a year over year basis. Yet, there is still a high unemployment rate in many countries. Some argue that real job growth will be the result of small business hiring and that may be […]