Admired companies - admired by who?

I’ve been looking through the latest results of management Today’s ‘Most Admired Company’ survey and it makes interesting reading.

Senior leaders in major companies are asked to vote on their peers and say who they regard highly.

Perhaps unsurprisingly Unilever tops the list – their work on CSR is particularly impressive, and client Serco comes in second.  Bronze medal goes to Shell and last year’s winners BSkyB come in fourth.

What I found most interesting though was the companies that have fallen from grace in the last year.

It’s probably not a shock that BP has dropped from 7^th to 113^th place but I was also interested to see defence businesses Cobham, BAE and QinetiQ tumble 49, 64 and 99 places respectively.

It doesn't seem to be that sectors move together – Ryanair climbs 99 places, easyJet drops 124 places.  It seems the Irish airline is rated highly for the quality of its management but strangely doesn't show in the special rankings for Quality of service, Ability to attract talent or Community responsibility.

However, what this list seems to show most of all is how the leaders of our companies think.

I wonder if the general public or employees would agree that Yell or Boots should be in the lower end of the scale while Ryanair  bounds upward in the esteem of the voters of this poll.

Liam