TEN BEST COMPANIES

Ten Best Companies to Work For: What Makes Them so Good?

Ten Best Companies to Work For: What Makes Them so Good?

Google

Google is the leading search engine in the world. The company offers search results in 160 domains and in more than 117 languages. At the end of year 2007, Google captured 58.6% of the US search market. Yahoo! maintained its second place with 22.9% of US search market followed by Microsoft (9.8%), Time Warner Network (4.6%) and Ask Network (4.3%). Google is also the leading search engine in Argentina, Australia, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, India, Italy, Mexico, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK (based on total number of unique visitors).

Google's key strength is its search engine technology and its technological infrastructure. The company's search engine is based on its proprietary PageRank technology, which ranks web pages and displays the ones that are most relevant to the search query. Google has patented its PageRank technology which would expire by 2017. Further, the company uses Googlebots, web-crawling robots, to scour the web and build a searchable index for the Google search engine. Google is believed to have the largest searchable index among all search engines.

The company's technology base has been achieved through strong R&D investments which recorded a compounded annual growth rate of 120% for the period 2003-07. During the period 2003-07, its R&D spending grew from less than $19 million in 2003 to $2,120 million in 2007. Its R&D spending in 2007 grew at 72.6% to $2,120 million from $1,229 million in 2006. During 2003-2007, the company on an average invested about 10.5% of its revenue in R&D; the spending has grown from 6.2% of the total revenues in 2003 to 12.8% in 2007. Its R&D staff also grew to 5,788 by the end of FY2007 from 3,695 in 2006. Google's search engine technology and its sturdy technological infrastructure provide it with a competitive advantage.

The company's strong programs have resulted in strong revenues and profits enabling it to invest in future growth avenues like acquisitions, expansions and new products in mobile communication markets, among others (Annual Report 2008, Google.com).

IKEA

Ikea, which sells low-price products, including furniture and accessories for bathrooms and kitchens through its retail stores, enjoys strong brand equity. The group was ranked 35th among the best global brands around the world in 2008 with a brand value of $10,913 million. Strong brands enhance customer loyalty and lead to repeat purchases. Also, the group can leverage its brand strength to expand into new markets and new product lines.

Ikea is a vertically integrated furniture group. The Swedwood group is Ikea's industrial group, which produces wood-based furniture and wooden components. Swedwood has manufacturing units in 11 countries in Europe. Operations cover every step of production, from forestry, sawmilling and board manufacture to furniture production. The efficient production standards with which the group produces enable it to maximize productivity and minimize waste-generation.

Ikea has 27 distribution centers in 11 ...