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I'll get it started with my fab five.......

Berkshire Hathaway

google

Miscosoft

Apple

Ryanair


What chances anyone else picks the same 5?

Google for sure, they're an incredible company, the things they are into is fantastic.
Virgin
Apple
Microsoft

Not sure about a 5th, I'll have a think about it, possibly Amazon but at the same time, they annoy me. 

Virgin? Are you sure? Why? Can't think of a single redeeming feature.

Can you admire a business even if you don't like what they are doing?

I think Google as a start up was incredible and how they developed in to what they are now. I just don't like the ethics behind some of the operations. The one that comes to mind is the WiFi snooping debarcle?

Also don't like how they make money from us by owning data about us. OK so every large corporation is the same but I still don't like it.

I love Google and their Skunkworks approach to huge problems.

When you start with the premise that more data can solve more problems and that Google has more data than anyone, they do some quite amazing things.

Similarly, I'm also a big fan of Tesla and pretty much anything Elon Musk is into like SpaceX.

MarsOne (not sure it's a company as such) is also incredible.

Agree with Tesla, a company that does things very differently to most. They tore up the traditional business model & started afresh. Excellent choice.

KFC
McDonald's
Burger King
My local kebab house
Nando's

It's only the free shipping that annoys me with Amazon.  We send things out all the time but people think postage is expensive because Amazon offered it free for years (even now you only have to spend £20).  We have to pay for it and it's pretty costly and leaves us unable to compete on a lot of our products because we can't offer free shipping.  There are sometimes items you can buy and get free postage and the postage costs more than the item is worth - how can that be good business?  It's pretty much the only reason, it's just my little bugbear with them - free competition and all that I know.   They are a great example of simply selling items as a business, no need for their own products, they simply retail products that you can get anywhere but have done it well.  

Virgin, what's wrong with that?  You may not like the bloke but he's done bloody well for himself.  Maybe that counts as Richard rather than the Virgin company.  Fair enough

Every company is gathering data about us all the time, I think we have to just accept that these days, you can't escape it.  We advertise using Adwords and the level of detail you can narrow things down to is amazing.  You can really target your ads to the people you want to see them.  

The thing is it's not just that, they have Google Earth - mapping the world??  That's bloody amazing.  Then they have the self drive cars, the Google Glass, they even have photo editing software plug-ins, the variety of things that Google are into is staggering.  I bet we don't even know much of what Google are up to and will only find out in a few years.

Have Amazon actually made any money yet? Their business model will only start making money when they own everything and then start charging correctly for the services they provide.

Their plan is to run break even for the next while and theirs a really strange, but possibly genius, vision behind it. I'll see if I can dig out an absolutely fascinating article I read on it some time ago.

Edit: lies. They turned a huge (for them) profit q2 this year. http://www.wired.com/2015/07/hey-look-amazon-actually-turned-profit/

Hope so, the chap that owns/founded it is worth $50 BILLION!!

50 bloody billion!

Amazon article: fascinating.

http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2014/9/4/why-amazon-has-no-profits-and-why-it-works

Amazon is another I might have included. They are now the world's largest retailer. Not bad for a business that has only been around a decade or two.

Rolls Royce ( aero and marine engines) is another tremendous company. And they actually.......MAKE THINGS.

I've been working with Rolls-Royce now for over 2 years and the funny thing is it never even crossed my mind to list them down in this thread. Yes they have some amazing products but they do so much wrong business wise that they are not operating at their true potential. Wish I could say more ;)

Google
BBC
Consort Medical
Moy Park
Windboats Marine

If you haven't heard of Wait But Why it's a great website, he does blogs but they are more like small books

Elon Musk

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/05/elon-musk-the-worlds-raddest-man.html

Tesla

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/06/how-tesla-will-change-your-life.html

SpaceX

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/08/how-and-why-spacex-will-colonize-mars.html

and completely off topic but must read, mind blowing stuff. AI

http://waitbutwhy.com/2015/01/artificial-intelligence-revolution-1.html

http://www.theafricatrust.org/index.php?nav=whatwedo (http://www.theafricatrust.org/index.php?nav=whatwedo)

This was founded by somebody who went to the same church as me when I was younger.  He has done amazing things with his life and you can safely say he has made a difference.  Pretty sure he has very little in the way of wealth or possessions to show for it all. 

Google.
Lidl
McDdonalds
The BBC
Penny Hydraulics.

Think it should have been "Top 10", I keep seeing names of Businesses I so admire.

BBC is as triff shout, though not really a "business" in the accepted sense. Institution, certainly.

Alan sugar, just read his autobiography on holiday.  What a guy.  Bound to be biased in his book but a proper grafter and wheeler dealer who is razor sharp and takes no bullshit.  How can you not admire a guy who had no external finance ever to build his business up prior to flotation.

Having read his book I w as surprised he floated as early as he did given his incredible confidence in his model and products and how much of his firm he gave away at budget prices given what a punter he was after he had floated.

I always kne buying spuds cost him large but he would have been ten times larger wealth wise if he had never bought spuds having read his book and missing out on such key areas as mobiles and the dot com boom during his spuds legal battles

Wow didn't realise he was into potatoes so heavily.

Rob Yong's gonna cry when he reads this thread.

What is it that you find admirable about these five Tikay? Is it the same thing for each? It's not excellent customer service for at least two of them, nor is it their altruistic natures.

Think my list would have to include

The Big Issue

Body Shop

Cafe Direct

John Lewis Partnership

Glastonbury Festival

All have goals that go beyond shareholder returns, P/E ratios and EBITDA measurements yet all manage to deliver products/services that meet consumer demands.

Apple
Starbucks
John Lewis
JP Morgan
Tesla

I want to nominate Go Fixings as a business I admire.




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Why? I hear you ask. Well I'll tell you.

Go Fixings sell every type of nut bolt washer and screw imaginable, usually in large quantities to tradesmen.

When I go in there I know beyond a shadow of doubt that I'm more trouble than I'm worth, but they still do everything the can to help me.

Take today for instance. This was my shopping list.

Two rawl bolts about as thick as my little finger, well I don't really want rawl bolts, I want those bolts that look like rawl bolts but instead of a bolt they have a piece of threaded rod that you can put a nut on.

The man behind the counter measures my little finger then walks down one of several isles that are stacked to the roof with shelving. He climbs a ladder, retrieves a box, brings it to the counter, extracts my two bolts, jots the size and price on to a piece of paper and then replaces the box.

Next I ask for 4 two and a half inch 6mm bolts with wing nuts and fixing washers. If he notices that I am using imperial and metric measurements to describe one bolt he doesn't mention it, instead he visits three more isles and climbs his ladder twice.

Do you have any one and a half inch, 6mm bolts with nylock nuts and flat washers? I inquire. "Yes sir" he says enthusiastically, How many would you like?"

"Er, two please".

He tracks these down.

"Thank you sir, will there be anything else?"

No, That's it, how much do I owe you?"

He tots up my purchases with a pencil.

"That will be £2.15 Sir, call it two quid for cash".


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I enjoy shops like this remaining open against the big boys of screw fix etc.

Screw Fix et all are great if you know exactly what you want, but when you need a bit of advice or you know what you want but don't know what it's called, you can't beat the old school guys.

My mum will be pleased that John Lewis made at least one list ;D

I know Tikay loves Michael O' Leary, but couldn't work out why he felt that Branson's company didn't have any redeeming features.

For me, Virgin is a much better company, but that's just from my personal experience, and I don't dislike Ryanair, at all.

I was sorting a few things out for my lad, paying for tickets etc

He is travelling Leicester-London on a National Express coach, leaving early evening midweek

the single adult fare is £4

this wasn't an isolated example. very rare to see an adult fare for that journey over a tenner

how do they make money? they run masses of coaches at all hours to everywhere and have fuel costs, driver costs, vehicle maintenance etc

i can't see how it can be so cheap?

They carry ~ 85 passengers and the trip will cost around £40 in diesel and about the same for the driver's wages.

A coach will do four runs a day.

All educated guesses btw.

Think you're out on the diesel cost Tom. Fuel consumption around 12mpg cruising and less than that if you factor in the city stretches at each end.

I admire this one as they went from a fairly well known high street brand name to a company that purely does work 'behind the scenes' overnight, and are succesfull at it

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Menzies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Menzies)

National Express, First and Stagecoach is a huge UK success story.  Between them they run so many services in the US from school buses to airport transfers.  Such a weird area where the UK has actually carved out a monopoly in the US.

That takes me back to childhood, what a blast from the past.

Amazon are starting to get in to fresh food deliveries now and taking on the big supermarkets.

https://fresh.amazon.com/Gateway?browseZIP=90015&referer=

I have a feeling they will win.

Amazon is now the world's largest retailer (it overtook Walmart recently).

Meanwhile, Argos is doing "Fast Track" same day deliveries, & recruiting over 2,000 delivery drivers.


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-34460149


The internet came along 20 or 30 years ago, & now digital-based businesses are really learning to exploit it.

The world of retailing is changing fast.

Just think how bookmaking has changed. All those High St Bookies shops that arrived in the 60's & 70's, & now, were it not for FOBT's, they would all be closed down, as the Online Bookies have such a cost advantage & can offer so much more, quicker & better.

Not sure I'd want to be a Supermarket chain these days with all that cash tied up in property, now these digital companies are suddenly muscling in. 

Amazon are my personal favourite company in this regard.

I love reading anyway, so whenever someone asks me what I want for Crimbo I just say amazon vouchers. I also am a Prime member which is really good, I can take or leave their instant video, but its free so whatever.

Generally speaking I've found their customer service good.

However, as an author, they are really amazing. They are incredinly helpful and their entire business is set up to help you sell more books and reach more people. It's generally quite hard to get a none automated response when you are buying stuff from them, but when you have a query as an author they are great.

By all accounts, they treat their staff really crappy though.

Amazon will take over the world at some point. Their business plan is far more impressive than people realise IMO. I have refrained from posting my list as I really don't have a clue but if I did have a list Amazon would definitely top it.

QFT

Touche

Spotify

Based on what they offer and how accessible it is. Easy to use. Excellent.

I much prefer Deezer.

How is Amazon in the convo ?

My experience of them is they list products at 2x or more the standard retail price for absolutely no reason, very bizarre.

There delivery charges are a joke, I paid extra to get something delivered the next day, it took two days, I was then offered the opportunity again to pay extra for next day deliver, otherwise would have to wait 2-5 working days, opted out and paid less after the previous debacle, and received my item the next day.

I find the whole site clunky, awkward and basically just a pile of shit for how big they are.

So very intrigued at how people could put them at #1 ?

Because they

Refund/replace items without any hassle
I find them generally cheapest

Would agree with an earlier point their staff seem to be treated very poorly to me. Spoke to one the other day regarding an order and I could hear he had 3 or 4 colleagues shouting at him for advice.

Very helpful guy and polite

What makes them admirable though?
Being cheap?
They are cheap because they drive down on their staff and suppliers and avoid tax so aggressively that it runs close to evasion.

We admire this?

Well I had to have a refund on an item with them and to do so I had to get labels they sent me printed off which was a hassle when I have no printer and I had to sort out and pay for the courier to send it back to them which I've never had to do before. So all in all it was the opposite of no hassle and actually the most effort I've had to make to get a refund on an item.

Amazon are impressive but they won't rule the world like some people say.

5 years ago it was Tesco and Walmart that were gonna be the ones that ran every business on the planet and they are both suffering right now.

Tesco and Walmart never had and still don't have the vision of Amazon.

I think Apple's example just sums up life. We are all as consumers pay multiple times more than it costs to make. x4 seems like value really.

Someone mention Tesco too? I didn't realise until today that they actually own OneStop stores, you know, the local convenience store.

If you've ever left a fake product review, Amazon could be about to sue you http://ind.pn/1jv0JYv

I don't agree Mr Vanwinkle.

Prices are dictated by what people will pay. You can buy your child a perfectly serviceable phone / tablet for ~ £100.

Or they could do what we did when we were kids....  Without.

Apple become less admirable day by day

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/oct/14/apple-jury-iphone-ipad-chip-violates-processor-patent

NB posted from mu iPad

Nobody needs an iphone or ipad (or any other smartphone or tablet), once you want one you're already being materialistic - I dislike Apple in terms of when they generally (or as David pointed above specifically) try to pass off other people's ideas as their own, but I admire their business acumen. They can charge people a lot more for a product than other people charge for a similar, and often better, product - if people are already sucked into the materialistic world of making themselves or others happy by what they own then I don't really think their should be much of an issue when a company charges as much they can get away with for consumers to buy it.

A very fine company indeed (strictly speaking, TWO companies, but that's another story).

The 2 joint founders are the Albrecht Brothers, both of whom died in the last 5 years. They were the 1st & 2nd richest individuals in Germany, & the 22nd & 30th richest chaps in the world.

So not one, but two billionaires behind Aldi. It's a Private Company, incidentally, not floated on any Stock Exchange.

Businesses making lots of money has nothing to do with greed. It's exactly what they are designed & supposed to do - sell their wares at the best possible price. "Best possible price" usually (but not always) equates to highest price.

Mr Pewterschmidt has to make a living somehow, you know.



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Their factories can only churn out so many products a month - I doubt they're running them under capacity so every $ they sell it cheaper for is money out of their pocket.

Apple don't even do sales or bulk discounts to third-party sellers so protecting their margin is key.

Also, a large part of Apple's success is through the design - making objects of desire (there's not a huge amount of technological advancement in their products). The high price is part of that, because something is expensive, people perceive it as being better.

As well as the points raised above - you know Aldi don't sell cheap goods to be nice don't you?

Their business model is based on selling a lot cheaply - but the ultimate aim is still the same, to make as much money as possible.

I'm not sure I could "admire" any business. Not one at the scale you are talking about at any rate.

I think the world is a more enjoyable and pleasant place as a result of many companies, but I'm fairly confident I would exchange free shipping on cheap books for a more equitable distribution of wealth.

Yes. Absolutely this.

One of my weekly tasks is to fetch Mother in Law's groceries. I have been instructed to buy Morrison's special packs of milk which cost 23p more than standard but pay the surplus to the producers.

As I said a few pages back, there are many socially aware companies where there is an ethos that isn't just about profit. Some of these are admirable.
The megaliths like Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, Imperial Tobacco do not fall into this category.