LUCENT MAKES SEVERAL LISTS -- The second annual Forbes ASAP
"Dynamic 100" includes 52 repeaters. So where did the new
guys come from? The answer: dot com. The revolution will
be Webcast. Dynamic companies are supposed to cope with change.
That's one of the six factors we used to make our selections.
First, we asked about overall responsiveness to change.
Marketing expertise was essential on the Internet and elsewhere,
as firms invented new ways of getting customers to buy. Human
capital is essential in high tech. Alliances and partnerships
are often the quickest way to hold a commanding market share or
a new or shift market. Finally, good intentions and better
prospects aren't enough to make the list. Ultimately, we want
to see killer growth. Lucent's entrepreneurial management
amazes industry watchers, and its growth has surpassed most
people's expectations. A stellar embedded customer base, end-
to-end networking solutions, and boatloads of experience should
help Lucent keep winning the big contracts. The acquisition of
Ascend bolsters Lucent's strong position. [Forbes ASAP, 4/5]
Internet companies may dominate the news these days, but they
have a ways to go to be a factor in the Fortune 500. Fortune
magazine's annual ranking of publicly traded U.S. companies
according to revenue was topped for the 11th straight year by
General Motors, which took in $161.3 billion in 1998. Lucent
was ranked No. 33 on the list, up from No. 37 last year.
[Associated Press, 4/4] Today, CEOs are popularly regarded as
a new celebrity class. Not so much as captains of industry, but
as wealth creators. Innovators. Visionaries. The rising
popularity of investing, of course, has made CEOs as prominent as
public figures. Worth magazine lists the top 50 CEOs who shine
for what they have accomplished to date and who, Worth believes,
stand the best chance of excelling well into the future. Lucent's
Chairman and CEO Rich McGinn, No. 11 on the list, has drastically
accelerated the pace of technological development at Lucent. To
expand Lucent's scope and commercial activity, McGinn has been on
an acquisition binge, snapping up 11 companies last year. His
boldest move came in January, when he bought Ascend. The deal
sets up a battle with archrival Cisco in the building of
voice/data/video networks. [Worth, 5/99] |
