Digital Landfill

It’s not too often that you can get an allusion to the Fortune 100, Joseph Schumpeter and Barry McGuire in the same title. 

Let me start in reverse order:

Barry McGuire:   
“But you tell me
Over and over and over again, my friend
Ah, you don't believe
We're on the eve
of destruction.”

Joseph Schumpeter:

“As a matter of fact, capitalist economy is not and cannot be stationary. Nor is it merely expanding in a steady manner. It is incessantly being revolutionized from within by new enterprise, i.e., by the intrusion of new commodities or new methods of production or new commercial opportunities into the industrial structure as it exists at any moment.”

The intersection of these two strange bedfellows with the Fortune 100 is that in a very short period of time, technology-driven innovation and the radical opening of markets has created an unprecedented level of upheaval -- in Schumpeter’s terms, “Creative Destruction.”

Usually, the Fortune 100 is thought to be somewhat immune to rapid change.  And that was once the case.  In thinking about the current ranks of the Fortune 100, and looking ahead 7 years to 2020, about the only conclusion one can draw is that a minority of those currently in the Fortune 100 will be around the celebrate a ranking in 2020.

Consider the list of the Fortune 100 in the year in which I graduated from college, 1977.  The list was as follows, beginning with #1:

1. Exxon Mobil 
2. General Motors 
3. Ford Motor 
4. Texaco 
5. Mobil 
6. ChevronTexaco 
7. Gulf Oil 
8. Intl. Business Machines 
9. General Electric 
10. Chrysler 
11. ITT Industries 
12. Amoco 
13. Shell Oil 
14. U.S. Steel 
15. Atlantic Richfield 
16. DuPont 
17. Conoco 
18. AT&T Technologies 
19. Procter & Gamble 
20. Tenneco Automotive 
21. Union Carbide 
22. CBS 
23. Goodyear Tire & Rubber 
24. ConocoPhillips 
25. Dow Chemical 
26. Occidental Petroleum 
27. Navistar International 
28. Eastman Kodak 
29. Sunoco 
30. Unocal 
31. RCA 
32. Esmark 
33. Bethlehem Steel 
34. Rockwell Automation 
35. United Technologies 
36. Caterpillar 
37. Kraft 
38. Beatrice 
39. LTV 
40. Xerox 
41. Nabisco Group Holdings 
42. Monsanto 
43. Ashland 
44. General Foods 
45. Citgo Petroleum 
46. Firestone Tire & Rubber 
47. Boeing 
48. Amerada Hess 
49. Greyhound 
50. Sealed Air 
51. McDonnell Douglas 
52. International Paper 
53. 3M 
54. Colgate-Palmolive 
55. Marathon Oil 
56. Continental Group 
57. Gulf & Western Industries 
58. Ralston Purina 
59. Borden Chemical 
60. Litton Industries 
61. Lockheed Martin 
62. Sperry 
63. ARMCO 
64. American Can 
65. Altria Group 
66. Deere 
67. Getty Oil 
68. Georgia-Pacific 
69. Coca-Cola 
70. Bendix 
71. TRW 
72. Alcoa 
73. BP America 
74. Champion International 
75. Weyerhaeuser 
76. National Intergroup 
77. PepsiCo 
78. Sara Lee 
79. Bestfoods 
80. Fortune Brands 
81. General Mills 
82. Honeywell Intl. 
83. Textron 
84. Owens-Illinois 
85. General Dynamics 
86. Republic Steel 
87. Johnson & Johnson 
88. Honeywell 
89. Wyeth 
90. Raytheon 
91. Signal Companies 
92. Ryerson Tull 
93. Warner-Lambert 
94. American Motors 
95. Uniroyal 
96. NCR 
97. FMC 
98. Burlington Industries Equity 
99. Chiquita Brands Intl. 
100. PPG Industries 

Fast forward seven year to 1984, and there is a remarkable degree of stability.  79 of the Fortune 100 are still there, alive and kicking.  7 of the top 10 in 1977 carried over into the 1984 top 10, albeit shuffling spots a bit.

The past seven years have been a far different story.  Driven by the inexorable march of Moore’s law and the entry of billions of new customers and competitors, the only constant is the revolutionary change of Creative Destruction.

Consider the Fortune 100 in 2005:

1. Wal-Mart Stores 
2. BP 
3. Exxon Mobil 
4. Royal Dutch/Shell Group 
5. General Motors 
6. DaimlerChrysler 
7. Toyota Motor 
8. Ford Motor 
9. General Electric 
10. Total 
11. ChevronTexaco 
12. ConocoPhillips 
13. AXA 
14. Allianz 
15. Volkswagen 
16. Citigroup 
17. ING Group 
18. Nippon Telegraph & Telephone 
19. American Intl. Group 
20. Intl. Business Machines 
21. Siemens 
22. Carrefour 
23. Hitachi 
24. Assicurazioni Generali 
25. Matsushita Electric Industrial 
26. McKesson 
27. Honda Motor 
28. Hewlett-Packard 
29. Nissan Motor 
30. Fortis 
31. Sinopec 
32. Berkshire Hathaway 
33. ENI 
34. Home Depot 
35. Aviva 
36. HSBC Holdings 
37. Deutsche Telekom 
38. Verizon Communications 
39. Samsung Electronics 
40. State Grid 
41. Peugeot 
42. Metro 
43. Nestle 
44. U.S. Postal Service 
45. BNP Paribas 
46. China National Petroleum 
47. Sony 
48. Cardinal Health 
49. Royal Ahold 
50. Altria Group 
51. Pemex 
52. Bank of America Corp. 
53. Vodafone 
54. Tesco 
55. Munich Re Group 
56. Nippon Life Insurance 
57. Fiat 
58. Royal Bank of Scotland 
59. Zurich Financial Services 
60. Credit Agricole 
61. Credit Suisse 
62. State Farm Insurance Cos 
63. France Telecom 
64. Electricite De France 
65. J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. 
66. UBS 
67. Kroger 
68. Deutsche Bank 
69. E.ON 
70. Deutsche Post 
71. BMW 
72. Toshiba 
73. Valero Energy 
74. AmerisourceBergen 
75. Pfizer 
76. Boeing 
77. Procter & Gamble 
78. RWE 
79. Suez 
80. Renault 
81. Unilever 
82. Target 
83. Robert Bosch 
84. Dell 
85. ThyssenKrupp 
86. Costco Wholesale 
87. HBOS 
88. Johnson & Johnson 
89. Prudential 
90. Tokyo Electric Power 
91. BASF 
92. Hyundai Motor 
93. Enel 
94. Marathon Oil 
95. Statoil 
96. NEC 
97. Repsol YPF 
98. Dai-ichi Mutual Life Insurance 
99. Fujitsu 
100. Time Warner 

If we look at the 2012 list, we find the tables have been turned.  In 2012, there were 75 new members of the elite Fortune 100 club compared to the 2005 list.  Only 25 companies from the 2005 list survived on the list a mere seven years later.

So fasten your seat belts.  The radical redefinition of business models has only just begun.  We are on the Eve of Creative Destruction.

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