House of Tatas among the world''s most reputed
Rex Mathew
23 November 2006
Tata Group has emerged as the 20th most reputed corporate entity globally in the Global RepTrak listing by The Reputation Institute, a global research body. Seven other Indian companies also find themselves in the global top-200, but way below in ranking with only Maruti in the top 100.
The Tata Group, the largest Indian group in terms of revenues and market capitalisation, over 90 operating companies, with a strong international presence in engineering, energy, communications and IT, materials, chemicals, services and consumer products with total revenues of $24 billion and market capitalisation of $47 billion.
Surprisingly, Infosys is ranked lower than auto companies Maruti and Hero Honda, FMCG majors ITC and HLL and banking heavyweight SBI. Globally, Infosys is ranked 155 despite its sterling reputation for corporate governance.
European companies dominate the list, with as many as seven of them in the top 10 and 14 in the top 20. Only two American companies made it to the top 20. Japan also has two representations with Toyota and Honda in the top 20 while Samsung of South Korea and Tata Group are the only other Asian companies in the top 20.
The list was prepared based on interviews with 30,000 people around the world who ranked 600 companies. But respondents were asked to rank only companies from their own country. The Reputation Institute started with a list of the 300 largest companies worldwide. It then looked at the largest companies in each country, so that citizens from each nation in the survey could rank at least ten firms. The initial results were adjusted to account for regional differences.
US company Halliburton, which was involved in many controversies linked to defence contracts in Afghanistan and Iraq, emerged with the worst reputation among large companies. Mitsubishi Motors of Japan, Swedish company Scandia, global oil major Exxon Mobil and cigarette manufacturer Altria also figure among the least reputed companies.
