Next week, we publish our 61st Fortune 500 list, which provides an interesting lens on business success in the age of disruption. Fifty-seven percent of the companies on this year’s list weren’t on it twenty years ago.
Yet in some ways, the most interesting stories are about the other 43% – the companies that manage to survive and thrive in spite of the rapid change going on around them. In many cases, these are companies that have been willing to disrupt themselves – although usually in response to a competitive threat.
Fortune’s Phil Wabha wrote yesterday about Target CEO Brian Cornell’s comment that his company “almost needs to say thank you to Amazon” for teaching consumers to shop online. He now argues Target’s most valuable guests are those who will “shop with us both online and in the store,” and he is scrambling to reshape the company. (Wabha profiled Cornell is the March magazine, which you can read here.) Similarly, Fortune’s Verne Kopytoff spoke earlier this week with Ford CEO Mark Fields, not in Detroit, but at his new Silicon Valley lab, where he was talking about competitive threats, not from GM, but from Google, Uber and possibly even Apple. (Apple’s SVP of Operations this week intriguingly called cars “the ultimate mobile device.”)
What’s clear is that running a Fortune 500 company has never been more difficult. Change happens fast, competition comes from left field, and survival requires foresight, nimbleness and creativity.
Enjoy the day, and the weekend.
| Alan Murray | |
| @alansmurray | |
| alan.murray@fortune.com |
Top News
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• Lehman Brothers CEO resurfaces
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• U.S. economy likely shrank in first quarter
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Around the Water Cooler
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• Class of 2015 looks lucky
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• L'Oreal wants to 3-D print human skin
L'Oreal, known for making cosmetics and hair color, could also soon reveal a new look: on 3-D printed human skin. The French cosmetics company has partnered with a San Diego bioprinting company to produce skin more quickly in a technique that would allow for more accurate testing. That could help make L'Oreal's portfolio of sunscreen and age-defying serums even more efficient. Wired
5 things to know today
GDP and FIFA election — 5 things to know today. Today's story can be found here.
