Published Sources of Strategy-Evaluation Information

Sydney Finkelstein, professor of management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, annually releases his list of the worst CEos each year.¹¹ For the year 2014, Finkelstein reported that among the worst CEos were Dick Costolo, CEo of twitter; Eddie Lampert, CEo of Sears Holdings; Phillip Clarke, CEo of Tesco, a British supermarket chain; Dov Charney, CEo of American Apparel; and Ricardo Espirito Santo Silva Salgado, CEo of Banco Espirito, the sec­ond largest bank in Portugal.

A number of publications are helpful in evaluating a firm’s strategies. For example, Fortune annually identifies and evaluates the Fortune 1000 (the largest manufacturers) and the Fortune 50 (the largest retailers, transportation companies, utilities, banks, insurance companies, and diver­sified financial corporations in the United States). Fortune ranks the best and worst performers on various factors, such as return on investment, sales volume, and profitability. Annually, the publication publishes its strategy-evaluation research in an article titled “World’s Most Admired Companies.” Nine key attributes serve as evaluative criteria: people management, innovativeness, products quality, financial soundness, social responsibility, use of assets, long-term investment, global competitiveness, and quality of management. Fortune’s 2014 evaluation in Table 9-6 reveals the most admired companies.

Businessweek, Industry Week, and Dun’s Business Month periodically publish detailed evaluations of u.S. businesses and industries. Although published sources of strategy-evaluation information focus primarily on large, publicly held businesses, the comparative ratios and related information are widely used to evaluate small businesses and privately owned firms as well.

Source: David Fred, David Forest (2016), Strategic Management: A Competitive Advantage Approach, Concepts and Cases, Pearson (16th Edition).