Turnaround specialists like Greg Brenneman, the Houston-based chairman of private

equity firm TurnWorks Inc., rely on this kind of data to eliminate consistently unprofitable routes, as he did at Continental Airlines, and menu items, as he did at the Quiznos restaurant chain…

… read Brenneman’s Harvard Business Review case study on the turnaround of Continental Airlines.

The Fortune 500 list did not include retailers. If companies had been ranked by sales, the list would have then been led by America’s three great shopping giants: Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward and JCPenney. Their fate was one of steady decline. In 2000, Montgomery Ward filed for bankruptcy. In 2019 Sears did the same and in 2020 JCPenney followed suit. The disappointing fortunes of these businesses are not the result of being in declining industries. Global demand for automobiles, food, oil, steel, chemical products and particularly electrical goods has continued to grow. Consumers still shop. But none of these 1955 companies is today the dominant firm in its industry. Cars are Toyota and Volkswagen; food is Nestlé; steel is ArcelorMittal, which took over much of the excess capacity located in the former Soviet Empire. Germany’s BASF is the world’s leading chemical company. And electricals – well, it depends on what you mean by electricals but, whoever you regard as market leader, it isn’t GE. Within America, cars are still General Motors – unless you look at market capitalisation and hence to Tesla. But food is PepsiCo and Tyson, steel is Nucor and Pfizer leads in chemicals. Retail is Walmart – and Amazon. Only ExxonMobil and some of the DuPont and GE subsidiaries remain among the global leaders in their fields.

In 2020 the Fortune 500 looks very different. Fortune now includes service businesses, so the two top companies by sales are retailers – as would also have been true in 1955. But the current leaders are retailers that did not exist in 1955: Walmart and Amazon. No fewer than four companies are names that probably mean little to non-US readers – they are intermediaries in the fabulously costly US healthcare system. United Health is an insurer, McKesson and Cencora (previously known as AmerisourceBergen) are distributors of pharmaceutical products and CVS Health is both insurer and retailer.

And not unlike Commerce Bank, Zappos has an unstructured peer recognition program. A certain number of "Zollars" are allocated to each department, which the teams can then award to members who have made specific contributions to core values. These are redeemable at the company "Zollar" store.

And not unlike Commerce Bank, Zappos has an unstructured peer recognition program. A certain number of "Zollars" are allocated to each department, which the teams can then award to members who have made specific contributions to core values. These are redeemable at the company "Zollar" store.