Forbes list of World’s Most Innovative Companies

Forbes has brought out a list of World’s Most Innovative Companies, ranking them by a matric called Innovation Premium: 

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http://www.forbes.com/special-features/innovative-companies-list.html

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Salesforce.com is ranked as world’s most innovative company. Amazon.com is at #2, confirming that technology companies will remain in the most innovative lot as a practice. Some favorites appear like this: #5 Apple, #7 Google. We have good representation from the ERP players also: SAP is at #63, Oracle at #77, Microsoft at #86, (Well, Salesforce is at #1, as I started with). 

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We have Intuitive Surgical as world’s #3. #24 is P&G, #31 General Mills, and #50: Pepsico. Syngenta is at #79.

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Some rankings would of surprise to many and a matter of pride for others. E.g., some Indian companies appear as top notch: 

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Hindustan Unilever (Indian arm of Unilever) is world’s 6th most innovative, Bharat Heavy Electricals (BHEL, from India) appears at #9, and the #15th place is occupied with pride by Infosys (Indian IT major).

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We could still guess it for HUL or Infy, but is it really that BHEL is world’s 9th most innovative company? A lot of people won’t easily believe that the PSU would hold that position. Here, the key is to understand how Forbes estimated the positions. The bottom text says, 

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The Innovation Premium is a measure of how much investors have bid up the stock price of a company above the value of its existing business based on expectations of future innovative results (new products, services and markets). Members of the list must have $10 billion in market capitalization, spend at least 1% of their asset base on R&D and have seven years of public data.

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This explains many of the inclusions and exclusions. Anyways, I found the list predicable, surprising, and interesting, at places. 

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- Rahul

Book Review: George Soros on Globalization

‘George Soros on Globalization’

By George Soros

Publisher: PublicAffairs New York

George Soros is an American financier, businessman and notable philanthropist focused on supporting liberal ideals. He also appears in Forbes Billionaires at #46 (#18 in United States). His profile at the Forbes website mentions, "He has given away more than $8 billion since 1979 to human rights, public health and education groups. Last year he pledged $100 million to Human Rights Watch, in part to counteract America's loss of the "moral high ground." He's also given away $150 million to Roma Rights. His philanthropic organization, called the Open Society Foundations, supports democracy and human rights in over 70 countries. (Soros is also famous as a strong critic of George W. Bush)

George Soros has written twin-books on his views on Globalization. One is this ‘On Globalization’ and the other is ‘The Bubble of American Supremacy’. In this exhaustive book titled ‘On Globalization’, he expresses his views on topics like international trade, international aid, structural reforms and financial stability. He presents a strong case for Global Open Society and also explains his SDR proposal. He stars with explaining Globalization and its impact, with giving a proper background. He explains how private enterprise is better at wealth creation than the state. But he also presents the negative sides of globalization, especially for the less-developed countries. He says, “Market fundamentalists recognize the benefits of global financial markets but ignore their shortcomings.” He says that economic analyses of the impact of globalization yield mixed results. Yes, in spite of its shortcomings, he says he is a strong supporter of globalization. He says it is mainly because of the ‘freedom’ it offers. He thinks globalization is not a zero-sum game.

In the pages of this book, he analyzes the roles of international institutions like WTP, ILO, IMF, WB, and on agreements like NAFTA, TRIMS, etc. These sections are very exhaustively covered. He asserts his proposal on SDRs (Special Drawing Rights), which is a unit of account for holding countries. At the end of the book he presents a strong case for Global Open Society.

This is a very good book recommended for those interested in international economics and global politics. The book is highly analytical and research based and readability is good.

- Rahul