Recent survey by Fortune Magazine partly reveals the meaning of ranking enterprise activities to consumers, business partners, investors and enterprises ranked themselves. On October 1 2007, the United Nation Development Programme (UNDP) announced the Policy Report. The Vietnam 200 Largest Enterprises List (including State, Private and Foreign-Owned Enterprises) was introduced, based on the research of about 113 thousand enterprises in Vietnam.

Besides, the UNDP’s report also introduced The Vietnam 200 Largest domestic enterprises ranked by the criteria of labor, asset, revenue and tax (asset data was for the end of 2003).

At the beginning of October 2007, after ranking 192/202 enterprises listed on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange (excluding banks and funds) by their credits, Credit Information Center (CIC) under the State Bank officially introduced “Credit Ratings of Vietnam’s Listed Firms”.

It has been more than 1 month since the very first enterprise rankings in Vietnam were announced. Coming next is the Vietnam’s 500 Largest Enterprises List under the Fortune 500 model, planned to be introduced by the Vietnam Report Joint Stock Company jointly with VietNamNet online Newspaper.

The question is the significance of ranking activities to consumers, partners, investors and enterprises. In this article, basing on the idea of David D’Alessandro, President and General Director of John Hancock (among the Top 100 Enterprises in the 20^th century voted by the New York Times), we will examine market advantages that a ranking list can bring to leading enterprises.

Enterprises ranked in lists as the Fortune500 or the Forbes500 have some large advantages in the market, especially in HR activities as follows:
1.    Best people want to work for them.
2.    Staff concentrates and easily makes decisions.
3.    Staff is motivated to work more, or at least, has belief that they are more important and work more effectively.

Enterprises listed in rankings are successful not only because the rank has strong effects on consumers but it also largely attracts the concern of staff and enterprise’s partners.

If a job applicant is asked what the most important thing is to him/her, he or she may answer it is salary, the value of the job (both benefits and reputation), and working environment. But the truth is that most talented people are ready to sacrifice one or all of the three above to have a chance working for the top enterprise in their field. Moreover, enterprises ranked in trusted lists don’t have to use high salary as an attraction to the best people.

Fortune magazine compared the average number of applicants for a vacancy in two groups of companies: the first consists of companies in the list of “100 Best Companies to Work for” and the second includes companies in the list of “Top 100 companies” (including Microsoft, Dell and Intel). The first group focuses on the friendliness in working environment while the second emphasizes performance and marketing activities. The result is that the companies listed as top companies attract more applicants than those which have friendly working environment in a ratio of 2:1.

Applicants are always attracted by top companies because of their rank. They are proud to say that they work for one of the top companies, implying that the companies are a good place for the talented people, the best springboard. Top companies are always active with new projects, and always recruit the best people. With curriculum vitae with working experience in companies like Citigroup, Coca-Cola or Microsoft, you become a star. Maybe you are not very excellent but your experience in a top company makes you appreciated. It is apparent that between an excellent reporter of a local newspaper and a normal reporter of the New York Times, the latter has advantages over the former as he/she works for the top newspaper.

Not only best people but also partners are attracted by companies listed as the top. Distributors having a wide network of potential customers are eager to be the agencies of top companies and easy to ignore minor troubles in their cooperation. Retailers and suppliers will try their best to work with top companies because their brands will upgrade their prestige, which helps attract more customers.

The rank of the companies makes difficult decisions become easier ones. Companies ranked as the top know that they can do things that others can’t, not only thanks to qualified human resources that they can attract but also because high grades make decisions much easier. It is said that “The powerful are always right”.

The rank as top company helps convince staff that they can do things that competitors can’t, i.e. they can introduce a product to the market faster, take better care of customers and make more profits. This can be explained in the same way as to why army leaders usually say: “Because we are American, we can control the battlefield.” Asking staff to complete a challenging task beyond their ability is difficult but they will be always eager to do and succeed if they feel that they need to devote for the sake of company’s grade.

While company’s brand is mainly important for sales and customers, rankings are important for talent attraction. In this effortful task, in order to encourage and lead the staff toward company’s goal, it takes what is often known as “Brand is temporary, rank is permanent”.

Source: www.vietnamnet.vn