THE WORLD’S MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES — THE LIST 2021INDUSTRY STANDOUTS
AS R ANKED BY THEIR PEERS
CLOSELY WATCHED AND HIGHLY ESTEEMED
SHEER SIZE CAN CREATE a virtuous
cycle that in turn gets reflected in the
scores of Fortune’s Most Admired
Companies survey. The scoring
system favors companies that excel at
multiple facets of management (see
the adjoining column for more on
our methodology). And the bigger a
company is, the more likely its peers
and competitors are to avidly seek
information about how and why it’s
succeeding , and to keep that infor-
mation at the top of their minds.
That phenomenon may help
explain the perennial top status
of Apple, which is not only one of
the world’s largest companies, with
$275 billion in revenue in fiscal
2020, but also one of the most closely
followed by the tech community
and business media. We ask survey
respondents to rate companies on
nine criteria: This year, Apple ranked
in the top 10 in eight of those, earning
the highest scores of any company in
the “quality of products” and “sound-
ness of financial position” categories.
Target earns similar respect from
its peers, also cracking eight out of
nine top rankings. After a year when
the big-box retailer hired tens of
thousands of employees and vastly
expanded its curbside pickup and
online shopping, respondents gave
it the survey’s highest scores for
“management quality” and “wise use
of corporate assets.” E-commerce
and cloud titan Amazon, meanwhile,
captured top 10 scores in six cat-
egories, with best-overall rankings
in “innovativeness” and “value as a
long-term investment.” (The latter
honor is almost an understatement:
A $100,000 investment in Amazon
10 years ago would be worth more
than $1.6 million today.)
In addition to the overall All-Stars
list, the Most Admired Companies
survey tracks 52 industry groups—
and among those, some winning
streaks rival or even eclipse Apple’s.
Berkshire Hathaway, for example,
has topped the property and casu-
alty insurance group for 23 years
in a row. Walt Disney has been the
No. 1 entertainment company for 18
straight years. And in a year when it
devoted vital resources to the search
for a COVID-19 vaccine, Johnson &
Johnson finished first in the pharma-
ceutical industry for the eighth con-
secutive time. (Berkshire and J&J join
Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Toyota in
another elite category: Those compa-
nies have appeared on our All-Stars
list every year since 1998.)
Still, while continuity is common,
it isn’t the rule. Fresh names reached
the top in several other industries,
including mining and crude oil
production (where miner Newmont
won); trucking, transportation, and
logistics (where top honors went to
Denmark’s Maersk); packaging and
containers (International Paper);
and financial data services (S&P
Global). In consumer foods prod-
ucts, PepsiCo ranked first this year,
ending a 15-year run by Nestlé—and
capping a year in which Pepsi drew
as much attention for its stances on
race and social justice issues as it did
for its global brand portfolio.
And in life and health insurance,
New York Life took the No. 1 spot
for the first time. In its biggest acqui-
sition ever, the 175-year-old company
cemented its status as America’s
largest mutual life insurer in 2020 by
acquiring several business units from
Cigna. The takeaway: Sometimes
your good repute can scale up along
with your business.
—Matt Heimer and Scott DeCarloHOW WE DETERMINE THE LISTAS WE HAVE in the past, Fortune
collaborated with our partner Korn
Ferry on this survey of corporate
reputation. We began with a uni-
verse of about 1,500 candidates:
the 1,000 largest U.S. companies
ranked by revenue, along with
non-U.S. companies in Fortune’s
Global 500 database that have
revenues of $10 billion or more.
We winnowed the assortment to
the highest-revenue companies
in each industry, a total of 670
in 30 countries. The top-rated
companies were picked from that
pool of 670; the executives who
voted work at the companies in
that group.
To determine the best-regarded
companies in 52 industries, Korn
Ferry asked executives, directors,
and analysts to rate enterprises in
their own industry on nine criteria,
from investment value and quality
of management and products to
social responsibility and ability to
attract talent. A company’s score
must rank in the top half of its
industry survey to be listed. (For
complete rankings, visit fortune
.com.)
Results were not published in
the following categories because
of insufficient response rates:
cable and satellite providers;
petroleum refining; pipelines; U.S.
energy.
To select our 50 All-Stars, Korn
Ferry asked 3,820 executives,
directors, and securities analysts
who had responded to the industry
surveys to select the 10 companies
they admired most. They chose
from a list made up of the compa-
nies that ranked in the top 25% in
last year’s surveys, plus those that
finished in the top 20% of their
industry. Anyone could vote for
any company in any industry.
The difference in the voting
rolls explains why some results
can seem at odds with each other.
For example, Lockheed Martin fell
off the All-Stars list this year but
ranked No. 1 within the aerospace
and defense category when votes
from only those in that industry
were counted. —S.D.