The future movers and shakers of the business world
The Global Growth Companies (GCCs) is a relatively new branch of the World Economic Forum designed to focus on emerging multinational companies. The aim is to build up a community of fast-growing companies that the WEF believes will be important players in the world economy in 5 to 10 years. Over the past few years, Grant McKibbin, the Head of the Membership Development Centre of the GGC, has managed to compile a list of around 2,000 prospective GGC members based on financial criteria.
“Eligible GGC members are typically emerging companies with revenues of between US$ 200 million and 5 billion per annum, but also with a minimum year-to-year growth of 15%,” says McKibbin. “These are companies that are growing at a fast enough rate that we feel they will have an impact in the next five to ten years.”
Elaborating further on the characteristics that define a global growth company, McKibbin adds, “The mindset of the company’s management is very important as well. GGC members are those that not only sustain high domestic growth but that also want to expand outside their existing industries or regions.”
The following global growth companies fit McKibbin’s criteria in their commitment to growth, their innovation and their fearless efforts to expand into emerging industries and markets.
Amira Foods – Managing Director: Karan Chanana
Karan Chanana Managing Director, Amira Foods
The Chanana family founded Amira Foods in India in 1915. The company has since become the largest privately owned rice-exporting company in India, exporting more than 55,000 metric tons of basmati rice and 200,000 metric tons of long grain rice annually to the US, Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia.
Under the direction of Managing Director Karan Chanana, the company has made an important commitment to strategic growth. Amira has sustained a consistent 20% annual growth rate and has also expanded its product line beyond rice to include sugar, maize, edible oil, palm oil and soybeans.
The company’s international presence has also grown significantly since its founding; today, there are Amira subsidiaries in Kenya, Malaysia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates and the United States.
Today, Chanana continues to push for the company’s expansion by identifying key issues affecting the modern agricultural industry that need to be addressed, as well as refocusing investment on new parts of the world. “The biggest stumbling block to agro-business growth is the food security mechanism,” says Chanana, referring to the inability of much of the world’s population to access food due to skyrocketing prices. “In order to overcome this problem policymakers today need to devise a more transparent plan of action and a methodology of engagement with the private sector.” According to Chanana, public-private partnerships are the missing link that needs to be developed in order to combat third-world hunger and expand food production.
Chanana also believes that investing in new, resource-rich regions of the world could be key to sustained growth. He identifies Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia as important players in the international rice trade and locations of great opportunity for agricultural sector growth in general. Amira also plans to concentrate more investment in the African continent, which could possibly “be the next food bowl.” Although long grain rice can only be produced in India and Pakistan, Amira is presently investing in lentils, beans and edible oils in Africa.
Mail.com Media Corporation – CEO: Jay Penske
Jay Penske CEO, Mail.com Media Corporation
Mail.com Media Corporation (MMC) is the digital media corporation that operates the Mail.com e-mail service and web portal, which provides customers with access to a variety of online news and entertainment sources as well as to unique portfolios of lifestyle brands that provide some of the best in original content.
Under Penske’s direction, MMC has expanded its operations to include leading entertainment sites, such as Hollywoodlife.com and award shows.
When asked how his company managed to sustain growth in a struggling fiscal year that created dips in revenue for individuals and organizations worldwide, Penske tells Swiss Style that the key is to provide free content along with premium subscriptions in order to keep market growth going while also making profits at the same time.
According to Penske, “an all-premium model is not the most effective” for digital media corporations due to the psychological dissonance involved in bringing out a credit card to access content. “Purchasing content is not the same as pulling out that credit card to purchase products online,” he added, and therefore there is a vital need to return to MMC’s bottom line of original content, providing the consumer with access to quality content that can only be found in one place.
Penske is also confident in the potential of emerging countries, such as China and India, to become major markets for digital media. MMC already has an established presence in India and will undoubtedly benefit from the increasing use of ad rates, measured by cost per thousand page impressions (CPM), to charge for digital services. “It is going to take some time for the developing world to get ad rates and CPM levels to effectively monetize online content,” Penske explains. “However, I don’t think you can ignore markets such as India or China, because in the next 10 years these two markets will become the centre of the Internet universe.”
Brightstar – CEO: Marcello Claure
Marcello Claure CEO, Brightstar
Brightstar is one of the latest companies to join the renowned GGC club. Headed by CEO Marcello Claure, this mobile telecommunications company operates in more than 50 countries across five continents. In the space of just one decade, the firm has evolved from a wholesaler to a full-fledged manufacturer and distributor of mobile phones and is on the verge of crossing a US$5 billion threshold. Brightstar also manages the supply chain of other network operators and retailers, which is an indicator of the firm’s technological edge and efficiency.
Claure attributes the overnight success of his company to the immense utility of the mobile phone combined with the trend towards privatization in previously planned economies. Brightstar, for instance, already has a strong foothold in China, based in Hong Kong. Think, for instance of the manner mobile phones have revolutionized street vendors’ jobs.
Now equipped with mobile phones, they serpent across a big city at the tip of a call to deliver a particular order, an exercise they can repeat over and over without the hassle of getting back to their headquarters to receive the next order.
Claure enthusiastically reminisces to Swiss Style of a previous World Economic Forum Meeting that he attended as a representative of Young Global Leaders. Claure describes the event as a collection of “different breeds of companies that have the opportunity to interact with one another and get the Davos experience.” Claure takes advantage of these meetings to talk shop with other rising entrepreneurs like himself, since many participants “are interested in discussing their business plans and where they see their company ten years down the road.” He adds that he believes “this dialogue is crucial to help entrepreneurs align their business with a common winning strategy.”
Article by Karin Sun
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