According to Fortune magazine, Apple is the world’s most admired company. Of the 363 companies mentioned in Fortune’s list 273 are from United States, 19 from Japan and 17 from Germany.

You may be keen to know how many Indian companies made it to the listing. Well. Not even one - from our big Indian names like Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Birla, ONGC, SBI, ICICI Bank and Kingfisher.

Well. I was wondering what will enable a company the most admired company status.

The Fortune rankings are based on innovation, people management, and use of corporate assets, social responsibility, and quality of management, financial soundness, and long term investment, quality of products or services and global competitiveness.

Fortune says the worlds top ten most admired companies are

Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Toyota, Google, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, FedEx Corporation, Southwest Airlines, General Electric and Microsoft.

Well. Coming back to my thoughts. What enables a company the most admired company status?

Purpose, process and people framework as adopted by C.A.Bartlett and S.Ghosal to explain the growth of successful business enterprise?

Or Strategy, Structure and System framework developed by Alfred Chandler Jr to explain the management processes of successful companies?

In these days of dramatic corporate collapses, it is rather difficult to prescribe one common medicine for all to succeed. Since the factor admiration may be short lived. It is better to focus on the longevity of companies.

Our Indian companies should ponder over and pose themselves with the following questions

How long they have been around till today? How long will they survive into the future? Will they endure long enough and continue to make an impact in the corporate world?

What kind of organisations survive and flourish into the distant future and what kind of companies gently spiral into oblivion?

Is it possible to generalize based on the few survivors and great many failures, to draw some lessons for the future?

Truly great companies, which really survive several decades in a meaningful way, do not have making money as their overarching goal; their mission would be to make an impact in the chosen field of endeavor in a dramatic manner

Not that they would be averse to profits, or are run as a charity, or select a costlier alternative when a cheaper one will do.

Long-termers would decide things on the basis of how it would sustain them in their ability to contribute in a specific industry

When the famous ICI of UK had its mission to make use of chemical engineering to improve the quality of life, it had some thing solid to aim for; constant pursuit of a lofty mission made it a world beating company in the chemical industry. When it started pursuing a sordidly commercial goal as `maximize shareholders' wealth' ‘quarter after quarter’, it went down within a decade to become a rump of a once proud institution

The second feature of long-termers is that they judge themselves and their performance by well-defined internal standards, rather than some externally imposed or assumed standards. “No Fortune prescription or standards”. Their internal standards would be more demanding and less forgiving than external standards, but more closely aligned to their long-term goals.

Aspiring Indian long-termers would also need to focus on people angle as people who really matter and who are capable of building institutions are driven away by others in organizations by their sheer intolerance and fear arising out of insecurity.

Long-term companies would encourage and reward scintillating display of skills in their profession. Future leaders would be chosen from among those who exhibit industry-leading skills, consistently and with conspicuous distinction and who respect processes.

By definition these processes of building skills and evaluating by well accepted standards take time and a good deal of trust among its constituents

Long-termers will not be one-man shows, but a solid cadre of skills and attitudes. Long-term vision, strict internal standards, leadership with skills

These look like difficult conditions to impose in these days of quarterly results, mass voluntary or induced turnover of skills and spin oriented leadership. Is it not?

Well. If we are really interested in building lasting institutions, we are to start here and now on these lines how so ever difficult it may be. To make a humble beginning is the best sure way to corner glory!