Tata Group, Infosys Technologies rank among most reputed cos. in the world: Report

The Tata Group and Infosys Technologies spearhead India's charge, ranking 6th and 14th in the list, that also includes other Indian companies like Maruti Suzuki (77th), State Bank of India (107th), Hindustan Lever (131st), Hero Honda Motors (147th), Life Insurance Corporation of India (161st), Bajaj Auto (169th), ONGC (186th), Mahindra & Mahindra (191st) and Indian Oil Corporation (199th).

"India's Tata Group and Infosys Technologies saw their reputations increase by over 8 points in 2008, and catapulted over 100 spots in the ranking to join the top tier of global companies in 2008 in recognition of their growing role among the world's business elite," the Global Pulse 2008 report released by Reputation Institute said.

"The strong scores of these top companies demonstrates the strong relative respect in which they are held by the general public" in India, the report said. The two companies secured "excellent" Global Pulse scores of 82.84 and 81.18 respectively.

Interestingly, some of the Indian companies which did not make the cut are petrochemical refiner Reliance Industries (RIL) (India's biggest firm in terms of market capitalization); ICICI Bank (India's largest private sector bank); Bharti Airtel (India's largest mobile operator), state-owned telecom operator BSNL, IT services provider Wipro, Aditya Birla Group's Grasim Industrues, FMCG major ITC and state-run 76-year old airline Air India.

In fact, Air India, with a "weak" Global Pulse score of 53.91, has the worst reputation among Indian companies, the report suggested.

The five most reputed companies in the world are Japanese automaker Toyota Motor Corp., world's largest search engine Google Inc., Swedish furniture retailer IKEA, Italian food and tobacco firm Ferrero, and US pharmaceutical, medical devices and consumer packaged goods manufacturer Johnson & Johnson.

Interestingly, India's Tata Group (6th) has been ranked ahead of the likes of Walt Disney (12th), Philips Electronics (31st), Sony Corp. (35th), Colgate-Palmolive (36th), Honda Motor Co. (39th), Cadbury Schweppes (45th), General Electric (49th), Nestle (57th), Apple (63rd), Hewlett-Packard (66th), Boeing (78th), Dell (82nd), The Coca-Cola Co. (83rd), PepsiCo (100th), IBM (108th), Unilever (128th), Microsoft (137th), Samsung Electronics (163rd), Nokia (177th), British Airways (179th), LG Electronics (196th) and Airbus (197th).

IT bellwether Infosys Technologies ranked 5th in the 'Citizenship' category, 4th in the 'Governance' category, 4th in the 'Products/Services' category and 5th in 'Leadership' category.

The Tata Group ranked 5th in 'Governance' and 3rd in 'Leadership' categories.

Another noteworthy point is that Maruti Suzuki India (77th) has been ranked higher than the Indian automaker's Japanese parent body Suzuki Motor Corporation (139th).

In Argentina (Banco de la Provincia de Buenos Aires), China (Ping An Insurance Group), France (Societe Generale), South Korea (Korea Life Insurance Co), Switzerland (UBS) and UK (Northern Rock), the least reputed companies turned out to be in the financial sector.

Interestingly, telecom operator Telstra in Australia, automaker Mitsubishi Motors Corp. in Japan, pharmaceutical major Fortis in Netherlands and telecom operator TeliaSonera in Sweden turned out to be least reputed companies in their respective countries.

Sectorwise, according to the survey, companies dealing in consumer products, computer, electrical & electronics, beverage, retail (food) and automotive were most reputed while those dealing in telecommunications, utilities, construction/engineering, transport & logistics and financial services (bank/insurance/diversified) were voted as least reputed.

"Hovering around the middle of the global distribution are pharmaceutical, conglomerates, raw materials, airline, food/tobacco, and the chemical industries." the report said.

The ranking on the Global Pulse 2008 report is based on the "good feeling, trust, and respect that consumers feel towards a company."

"The Global Pulse 2008 measures the reputations of the world's largest companies in each country based on their 'total revenues.' Rated companies had to have significant consumer presence and be minimally familiar to the general public. All companies are measured in their home country only, and the results standardized to remove unique country-level variation and enable cross-country comparisons," the report said.

According to Reputation Institute, a reputation is built on "7 pillars" from which a company can create a strategic platform for communicating with its stakeholders on the most relevant key performance indicators. These 7 pillars are: Product/Services; Innovation; Workplace; Governance; Citizenship; Leadership; and Performance.

The report was compiled based on a survey that spanned over 60,000 online interviews with consumers in 27 countries on six continents. Initially, 1000 companies were selected for the survey but only 200 found their way to the list.

The Global Pulse report is a "powerful strategic tool because it provides a common language for companies with which to manage their reputations" Reputation Institute said in its report.

"It makes research actionable and empowers executives to initiate change, is comparable across countries, industries and stakeholders and can be customized to measure the reputations of any company and with any stakeholder group," it said.

Based on the Global Pulse reports, the companies can build upon or improve their reputations and report credibly about their reputations to internal and external audiences.

The 10 most reputed companies in the world (Global Pulse index score of 100):

1. Toyota Motor Corp. (Japan) – 86.53

2. Google (US) – 85.23

3. IKEA (Sweden) – 84.14

4. Ferrero (Italy) – 83.52

5. Johnson & Johnson (US) – 83.48

6. Tata Group (India) – 82.84

7. Kraft Foods Inc. (US) – 82.79

8. Novo Nordisk (Denmark) – 82.28

9. Grupo Bimbo, S.A. (Mexico) – 81.75

10. Migros (Switzerland) – 81.54

ABOUT REPUTATION INSTITUTE

Reputation Institute is a private advisory firm specializing in corporate reputation management. Through a network of offices and associates in more than 20 countries, Reputation Institute provides knowledge-based consulting services to some of the most respected companies worldwide.

The Global Pulse is Reputation Institute's flagship research study conducted annually with some 60,000 consumers in 27 countries from which emerge a set of detailed reputation ratings and rankings of 1000 of the world's largest companies. Each year, the results of this groundbreaking study get featured in leading business publications around the world, including Forbes.

ABOUT THE TATA GROUP

The Tata Group is India's most respected business conglomerate having business interests in steel, automotive, technology, consumer products, energy, hospitality and beverages.

The Tata Group reported revenues in 2006-07 of $28.8 billion, about 3.2 percent of the country's GDP, and a market capitalization of $66 billion. The group has 27 publicly listed enterprises and operates in more than 80 countries across six continents, employing over 300,000 people. The group has made a number of overseas takeovers in recent years, and made headlines with 2007's $11.3 billion buy of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus and 2008's $2.3 billion buy of British marques Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor Co.

ABOUT INFOSYS TECHNOLOGIES

Infosys Technologies Limited is a multinational information technology services company headquartered in Bangalore, India. It is one of India's largest IT companies with 91,187 professionals (as of March 31, 2007), nine development centers in India and over 30 offices worldwide. Its annual revenues for the fiscal year 2007-2008 exceeded $4 billion with a market capitalization of over $30 billion.