New Study Ranks the 250 Most Well-Managed Companies

A Wall Street Journal article from earlier this month summarizes the findings of a new ranking system called Management Top 250, a system based on the teachings of the late Peter Drucker that compares the performance of major U.S. companies.

“Hailed as the father of modern management,” the article says, “Mr. Drucker influenced generations of business leaders with his writings,” adding that the ranking system (created by the Drucker Institute) is the first time his beliefs on what makes a well-managed organization have been translated into a quantitative model.

The system measures five core areas; customer satisfaction, employee engagement and development, innovation, social responsibility and financial strength. It uses 37 specific metrics to rank 608 U.S. companies. The top scorers are:

  • Amazon
  • Alphabet
  • IBM
  • Microsoft
  • Cisco
  • Nvidia

“For the most part,” the article says, “the tech companies at the top get high grades across all five categories, landing in all but a few instances in the upper 15% to 20%” of those studied. The article provides data from the high scorers as well as from some companies that could “typically fly under the radar” and explains that “the ranking and its approach can highlight strengths and weaknesses that might be otherwise hard to spot.”