Sept. 11, 2000

Printer ready

Results Are Deeper Than Money

iven the emphasis on innovation in business, technology, and human capital driving the InformationWeek 500 project, it's surprising that IT vendors don't claim the top prize each year. After all, an IT vendor is privy to some of the best thinking of its partners, suppliers, and customers. An IT vendor can attract some of the best talent by offering access to leading-edge tools. And InformationWeek 500 research shows that IT vendors invest more on IT initiatives than companies in other industries.

Still, in 12 years of the InformationWeek 500, 3Com Corp. is the first IT vendor to claim the top slot. AT&T attained a No. 1 ranking in 1995 as the owner of NCR Corp., but computer sales generated only a small part of its revenue.

3Com's wide deployment of innovative networking systems (see story, p. 65) played a significant role in its placement, as it did for Sprint and Cisco Systems. But the performance of these companies demonstrates that InformationWeek 500 rankings aren't determined by the quantity of a company's technology or services investments; more significant is the quality of the company's IT innovations.

The criteria used in the selection process is determined by InformationWeek editors. To make the list, a company must demonstrate a pattern of technological, procedural, and organizational innovation. Only parent companies with at least $1 billion in annual revenue may participate.

The research entails identifying and ranking the companies after an extensive mail, phone, and fax study. Next, we survey senior IT executives at these companies on their organizational priorities and spending plans for the year ahead.

For the third year, InformationWeek 500 companies were awarded gold, silver, and bronze citations for their early adoption and creative use of technologies and business practices. This year, categories were updated to include technology strategy, electronic business strategy, general business practices, and customer knowledge.

Although InformationWeek 500 companies reveal key elements of their IT and E-business spending plans and budgets during the research process, the data is aggregated by industry, and individual responses are never disclosed. Aggregated data is available in this magazine and in a comprehensive report at informationweek.com/reports.

We wish to congratulate and thank this year's InformationWeek 500. Without their cooperation, it wouldn't be possible to generate in-depth research about the role of IT innovation in the quest to excel in business.

We also wish to thank our partners. IRG in Sterling Heights, Mich., supplied the list of contacts, then fielded IT qualifying interviews. IRG also supplied the companies' financial information. CIC Research in San Diego supplied additional data analysis of the qualifying study and conducted a second telephone survey of 250 executives in July.

How can we make the Information-Week 500 more useful? Let us know at rweston@cmp.com.--Rusty Weston, editor; Helen D'Antoni, research manager; and Lisa Boomer, managing editor, research, InformationWeek Research

View Charts: Break Down By Industry

Back to This Week's Issue
Send Us Your Feedback
Top of the Page

---