1. Salesforce.com
Innovation premium: 73%
US
(Software)
Sales growth1: 37.7%
Return2: 29.7%
In salesforce.com’s 13-year history, founder and CEO Marc Benioff has taken pride in innovating from within. That’s how he pressed for the release of Chatter, Salesforce’s Facebook-like tool for businesses. But this year, he’s spent $1 billion, the most ever, acquiring two firms: Radian6 and Buddy Media. “We couldn’t afford to wait,” says Benioff. These deals form the backbone of a new division within Salesforce, The Marketing Cloud, which will help brands know what is being said about them on social networks and then tailor messages to those audiences. Buddy Media places 10 percent of all ads on Facebook. Benioff has acquired 24 firms in all, and admits not all have succeeded. He is okay with failure, because that’s part of risk-taking. Everyone learns something along the way: “Innovation is a continuum. You have to think about how the world is evolving and transforming. Are you part of the continuum?”
2. Alexion Pharmaceuticals
Innovation premium: 72.3%
US
(Biotech)
Sales growth: 46.5%
Return: 47.6%
Its anaemia drug Soliris will gross $1.1 billion in revenue this year. Shares have outperformed Apple since 2007.
3. Amazon.com
11. Tencent Holdings
31. Ecolab
(This story appears in the 26 October, 2012 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)
How exactly do Infosys n LnT rank above Google and Apple? D ranking just lists the companies with the most diversified operations, by no stretch the most innovative ones
on Oct 26, 2012