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Firearms and the Fortune 500
By LOWELL BRANHAM
April 12, 2003
Fortune magazine's 2002 compilation of the country's top 500 companies came out a couple of weeks ago, and it's no surprise who was at the head of the pack.
Wal-Mart led all U.S. businesses for the second year in a row with cash registers that rang to the tune of $247 billion dollars - $60 billion ahead of second-place General Motors.
Not bad for a company that got its start serving markets that big retailers ignored. Market researchers deemed small towns didn't have enough consumers or cash to support big stores.
Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was a wily old country boy who knew the researchers were full of baloney. Each time he put a new Wal-Mart store in some small town, the people who lived there no longer had to drive to big cities to shop At first the diversion of revenue was so small that the big stores didn't notice. If their top executives paid Sam Walton any heed, it was only too laugh at the upstart from Arkansas and scoff at the notion that a hick who preferred a pickup truck to a Mercedes and bird hunting to golf could ever threaten their lofty status.
By the time the giants of retailing finally opened their eyes to what was going on at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., they were eating Sam Walton's dust and had already fallen so far behind there was no hope of catching up.
Sam Walton is gone, but his company lives on as the current king of the hill, not just in the retail field, but in all of commerce. The question now is how long can Wal-Mart hang onto its status as No. 1? Getting to the top of the heap is tough, but staying there is even tougher.
That fact became apparent when I scanned the Fortune 500 looking for the names of companies that would have ranked high on the list when I was a kid.
The only concerns that were a big deal then and remain a big deal today are automakers and oil companies. General Motors and Ford are still in the top 10, as are Exxon and Chevron, although under different names than they bore 40 years ago.
Railroading, steel-making and coal mining were all big industries in the late '40s and early '50s, but they haven't fared so well. The first railroad on the list today comes in at No. 205, the first steel-maker at No. 264 and the first coal company at No. 395.
Environmental awareness and the switch to cleaner fuels did a number on the coal industry. Cut-throat foreign competition knocked the props from under U.S. steel-makers. Railroads were done in by their own greed and ineptitude.
Something about the Fortune list particularly interesting to me was the fact that it includes no gun makers. Not that I expected any. It could be the Fortune 1000 or maybe even 2000, and there wouldn't be any gun makers on it.
But if there had been a Fortune 500 in the 1880s and '90s, names like Winchester, Remington, Marlin, Smith & Wesson and Colt would've been near the top of it. Most Americans were so poor in those days that the $15 to $20 price tag on a quality rifle or handgun represented a huge expenditure.
In fact, hardly anything the average family bought in those days required as large a lump-sum outlay as a firearm. Yet rare was the home that didn't hold at least one gun, and most were repositories for multiple weapons. As a result, gun makers were among the most profitable of enterprises and were practically unequaled in name recognition and consumer respect.
The name recognition lasted a lot longer than the profit level. Back in the '40s and '50s nearly every kid that wore britches rather than skirts knew the gun makers' names and quite a bit about their products.
Nowadays you wouldn't find one youngster in 20 that gives a hoot about guns.
Instead of Winchester, Remington, Marlin, Smith & Wesson and Colt, the names that matter to them are Compaq, Gateway, Dell, Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
It makes you wonder if there won't come a day when those names will also be obscure
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/outdoors/article/0,1406,KNS_326_1885468,00.html
By LOWELL BRANHAM
April 12, 2003
Fortune magazine's 2002 compilation of the country's top 500 companies came out a couple of weeks ago, and it's no surprise who was at the head of the pack.
Wal-Mart led all U.S. businesses for the second year in a row with cash registers that rang to the tune of $247 billion dollars - $60 billion ahead of second-place General Motors.
Not bad for a company that got its start serving markets that big retailers ignored. Market researchers deemed small towns didn't have enough consumers or cash to support big stores.
Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton was a wily old country boy who knew the researchers were full of baloney. Each time he put a new Wal-Mart store in some small town, the people who lived there no longer had to drive to big cities to shop At first the diversion of revenue was so small that the big stores didn't notice. If their top executives paid Sam Walton any heed, it was only too laugh at the upstart from Arkansas and scoff at the notion that a hick who preferred a pickup truck to a Mercedes and bird hunting to golf could ever threaten their lofty status.
By the time the giants of retailing finally opened their eyes to what was going on at Wal-Mart headquarters in Bentonville, Ark., they were eating Sam Walton's dust and had already fallen so far behind there was no hope of catching up.
Sam Walton is gone, but his company lives on as the current king of the hill, not just in the retail field, but in all of commerce. The question now is how long can Wal-Mart hang onto its status as No. 1? Getting to the top of the heap is tough, but staying there is even tougher.
That fact became apparent when I scanned the Fortune 500 looking for the names of companies that would have ranked high on the list when I was a kid.
The only concerns that were a big deal then and remain a big deal today are automakers and oil companies. General Motors and Ford are still in the top 10, as are Exxon and Chevron, although under different names than they bore 40 years ago.
Railroading, steel-making and coal mining were all big industries in the late '40s and early '50s, but they haven't fared so well. The first railroad on the list today comes in at No. 205, the first steel-maker at No. 264 and the first coal company at No. 395.
Environmental awareness and the switch to cleaner fuels did a number on the coal industry. Cut-throat foreign competition knocked the props from under U.S. steel-makers. Railroads were done in by their own greed and ineptitude.
Something about the Fortune list particularly interesting to me was the fact that it includes no gun makers. Not that I expected any. It could be the Fortune 1000 or maybe even 2000, and there wouldn't be any gun makers on it.
But if there had been a Fortune 500 in the 1880s and '90s, names like Winchester, Remington, Marlin, Smith & Wesson and Colt would've been near the top of it. Most Americans were so poor in those days that the $15 to $20 price tag on a quality rifle or handgun represented a huge expenditure.
In fact, hardly anything the average family bought in those days required as large a lump-sum outlay as a firearm. Yet rare was the home that didn't hold at least one gun, and most were repositories for multiple weapons. As a result, gun makers were among the most profitable of enterprises and were practically unequaled in name recognition and consumer respect.
The name recognition lasted a lot longer than the profit level. Back in the '40s and '50s nearly every kid that wore britches rather than skirts knew the gun makers' names and quite a bit about their products.
Nowadays you wouldn't find one youngster in 20 that gives a hoot about guns.
Instead of Winchester, Remington, Marlin, Smith & Wesson and Colt, the names that matter to them are Compaq, Gateway, Dell, Apple and Hewlett-Packard.
It makes you wonder if there won't come a day when those names will also be obscure
http://www.knoxnews.com/kns/outdoors/article/0,1406,KNS_326_1885468,00.html
