Fortune Staff

This year’s Fortune 500 marks the 68th running of the list.

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Aggregate sales hit $37.8 trillion last year—an increase of 19%, the highest annual growth rate in the list’s history.

Global 500

The 25th Fortune World’s Most Admired Companies list suggests that tech giants’ peers respect them as much as ever.

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Arrow is a distributor of electronic components and computer products.

legacy

Arrow Electronics

arrow electronics

Mike, one thing about technology, there's always a new innovation, and this puts a lot of pressure on you as the CEO. What do you think is the most important thing you need to do as a leader to be successful? The most important thing I have to do is communication. I have to communicate with our customers to see where they're going, I have to communicate with our suppliers to see what they need from us to be successful. And probably the biggest part that I have to communicate with their own employees and I don't mean just my director parts, I actually have to go down into the business and ask questions to a lot of people and sometimes that's uncomfortable because they're a not used to the CEO walking around and saying what do you think about XYZ, it puts them on the spot. But the truth is, that's how I get information. So, what is your leadership style then? Well, my leadership style is all about helping our employees get engaged and then turning them loose and letting them sort of rise to the top. Arrow wouldn't be successful today if it wasn't for all 18, 000 pulling their weight. And that's what we need. My grandfather was a person that probably gave me the best advice as I was growing up and we were in the field, throwing hay on a wagon and he said " You know son, every pair of hands is an equal pair of hands. And that is so true today. It was true then, and I think it will be true into the future. What you really are putting so much emphasis on innovation and having everybody in the company be much more nimble about that. How do you develop a team of readers on every level of the company? I spend an awful lot of time Doing town halls with the employees. Talking about the trends that I see. Talking about the new things that I see coming. And it would be amazing. After these town halls I'll get two or three hundred emails of people agreeing or disagreeing with me. Or saying could you look at it a little different. And that's really what I'm looking for is feedback and direct feedback sometimes. With this philosophy that you have. Did it influence who you hire and who you let go? Of course. All I want to hire are people who are better than me. People say that but I firmly believe that. How do you find those people? What is your Key question that you ask in an interview when you're looking for these leaders? What do you want to be doing five years from now? It's a very simple question. That will tell me whether or not they have the vision to see where technology is headed. So you've been in business a really long time. Your career has taken you to so many different levels of leadership along the way. As you look back, what is the best advise that you've ever gotten when it comes to leadership? The best advise I got on leadership was to always make sure that whatever I'm asking somebody to do, I would do myself. It's guiding somebody To make sure that I get the best out of them, and the only way that I can do that is if I respect their position, and I respect what they're doing. And when there's 18, 000 people in there, whether it's the janitor or VP of Sales, I want clarity in what their work is every single day. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Arrow Electronics CEO: This Is the Key to Success

Leadership

Even though it might make employees uncomfortable.

Even though it might make employees uncomfortable

Mike, your company, Arrow Electronics has operations not only in the United States but all around the world. What's your take on the global economy right now? I believe that North America has been relatively flat. We were fortunate to see North America grow this last trend. I think there's still a steady pace of growth in Europe And Asia has while stalled, still growing. I expect it to continue to grow. Maybe not at the twenty percent, maybe at the five or six percent range but either way I think we are coming on some growth areas. While China is slow the United States is slow I mean we are growing at a Half of a percent. How can you grow and make money? If the economy's not growing there's always a segment that may be hurt. Right now it happens to be the industrial segment. And the industrial segment is a bread- and- butter segment for the US. It creates the manufacturing jobs that matter. And if they're hurting, we're hurting. So the truth is, we need programs to get them back on track. When you talk to your customers and their CEOs, what are they telling you about their ability to spend more? They're opening up their checkbooks. But they're opening up their checkbooks in different countries. You know people that have cash strapped in China, instead of letting that cash sit there, they're now putting it to use in China. If they have cash strapped in Europe, they're now putting it to use in Europe. But that money is not coming back to the U. S. It is being spent in other countries. And I think you're going to continue to see that because innovation will go forward no matter what the policies are of the U. S. And people will spend money and people will be successful. It's just what region will they be successful in? What about at Arrow Electronics? Are things strong enough and good enough that you're spending more and that you're spending more? We plan on spending more money this year. We plan on expanding. You will see acquisitions in the digital space by us. You will see acquisitions in the media space by us. We will be doing acquisitions in Asia- Pac. We will be doing acquisitions in Europe. We are a company that services manufacturers so we have to build capability in the world no matter where they land And then support them, and we'll continue to do that. Mike, it looks like interest rates are gonna be staying low for a while now, do low interest rates work for or against Arrow? Low interest rates are great when we're acquiring things. They're great when you're looking to invest money, but they usually indicate a sluggish economy. Overall, I think we'll compete in any interest rate market, but we really prefer the markets to be expanding, and we prefer things to be growing. When you look at the dynamics of the global business environment, what worries you most? What worries me the most is the productivity enhancements that we need to keep the American worker successful. And what I mean by that is that we have workers all over the world, but in America specifically they need to be retrained. They need help. They need productivity tools. Technology is the only way they're going to get those tools. Technology is the only way we're going to get more productive. So, if we don't get the spending and the buying in the US, the American worker isn't going to get the help they need. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

CEO Michael Long explains what the company is looking for.

Arrow Electronics Could See a lot of Acquisitions This Year

Tech