Apple climbs to number two in annual 'Top Managed Company' list
Apple continues to rank highly on Drucker's best-managed company list, rising from third- to second-best in the last year, second to only Microsoft.
The Cupertino tech giant has consistently performed well in the ratings in the past several years; they took the top spot in 2018, second in 2017, and third in 2019. This year, Apple had also ranked highly in MBLM's "brand intimacy," study.
Drucker's researchers examined nearly 900 companies this year, using 33 indicators of management effectiveness.
The main components that each company was rated on were as follows: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility, and financial strength.
Microsoft took first place, an impressive climb considering they were ranked seventh in 2017. Drucker researchers point out that Microsoft's ability to invest and develop in cloud computing helped the company stand out this year.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the coronavirus played a major role in who did well and who didn't.
Companies like Microsoft and Apple were considerably more prepared to handle the crisis -- primarily by successfully allowing staff to work from home -- than companies like Amazon and Facebook were.
The Cupertino tech giant has consistently performed well in the ratings in the past several years; they took the top spot in 2018, second in 2017, and third in 2019. This year, Apple had also ranked highly in MBLM's "brand intimacy," study.
Drucker's researchers examined nearly 900 companies this year, using 33 indicators of management effectiveness.
The main components that each company was rated on were as follows: customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility, and financial strength.
Microsoft took first place, an impressive climb considering they were ranked seventh in 2017. Drucker researchers point out that Microsoft's ability to invest and develop in cloud computing helped the company stand out this year.
The Wall Street Journal notes that the coronavirus played a major role in who did well and who didn't.
Companies like Microsoft and Apple were considerably more prepared to handle the crisis -- primarily by successfully allowing staff to work from home -- than companies like Amazon and Facebook were.
Comments
It seems to me that Microsoft is now more focused on making products that people want to use whereas under Gates/Ballmer MS was more focused on making people use MS products whether they wanted to or not.
Say what you want about Gates and Balmer, but what they did was exactly what they needed to do at the time - they built out a massive network of third party developers to help flesh out their platform to gigantic proportions. When Gates & Balmer were at the helm and focused on recruiting developers to their platform it was a wonderful time to be a developer working on Windows applications and services. It was like a never ending party buffet of technology, toys, and rewards for being in with the in-crowd. The emergence of mobile devices and platforms like iOS and Android, coupled with Microsoft's whiff in this area, put a dent in Microsoft's never ending party for Windows developers. But the party did happen, and Gates & Balmer were the right guys at the right time. Once the party died down somewhat, it became very apparent that the primary host of that party, Steve Balmer, wasn't the right guy anymore. Enter Satya Nadella, who appears to be the right guy at the right time.
In my opinion, corporate leadership needs to be seen as a dynamic problem to solve. It should never be viewed as a static problem. You need the right person at the helm at the right time. This can be accomplished in a number of different ways. The current leader can grow and adapt to the current needs of the company, you can bring in someone else to lead who's better suited for the current needs of the company, or you can get taken over by a larger company who will install their own leader, just to name a few possibilities. Or you can doing nothing and slowly die.
Unless you want manage your way to oblivion.
(PS: A dividend yield of 5.2% in a market that averages ~1.7% -- a number that involves both a numerator and a denominator -- is probably not a good sign either).