Editor’s note: This article was first published in March 2018, and the ranking and all figures it cites, including subscriber, user, store and visitor counts, are as of early 2018. Amazon passed USD 1 trillion in market value later in 2018, and Patagonia’s ownership structure changed in 2022.
More than 350 companies competed in 36 different categories for a spot in the ranking of the world’s most innovative companies for 2018. The list once again comes from Fast Company, and once again the most innovative company on it is the one founded by the legendary Steve Jobs, Apple, which seems to have been left in good hands, with innovation still the hallmark of this great company.
This year’s surprise is that companies such as Google and Facebook do not appear in the ranking; they seem to have fallen somewhat behind in terms of innovation.
Before we get to the ranking: what does it mean to be an innovative company?
Since an innovative company needs innovative ideas, it goes without saying that innovation has to start with recruitment. In this respect, these companies’ hiring processes do not follow the usual rules of more traditional human resources departments.
Increasingly, what gets rewarded is not so much the qualifications you hold as what you know how to do and how good you are at doing it.
An innovative company knows it needs extremely creative staff to keep its competitive edge in the market. It knows that, if it wants innovation, its workplace must have a mindset that goes beyond “paying money for a person’s working time”.
In these companies, mistakes are not punished the way they are in more traditional companies, because they know that the only people who get things wrong are the ones who are constantly creating.
These are the most innovative companies of 2018
1. Apple
Apple’s CEO, Tim Cook, proudly says that they are making the best products in the world, and he has followed Steve Jobs’s philosophy, never hesitating to say, in effect, let others make junk. That is why the company has become one of Warren Buffett’s favourite investments in recent times, as he has kept buying more Apple shares.
2. Netflix
Founded in California in 1997, what began as a DVD-by-mail service has ended up as a subscription model that already has more than 117 million subscribers in almost 200 countries around the world. But Netflix hasn’t stopped at selling and renting third-party content: it has pioneered the creation of its own original, exclusive content that can only be watched on its platform. Netflix has kept improving and innovating in recent years, and that is why it deserves second place in the ranking of the world’s most innovative companies.
3. Square
Founded in 2009, Square is a payments company created by Jack Dorsey, one of the founders of Twitter, and it focuses on small businesses and growing companies. Its success lies in having applied simplicity to an industry dominated by expensive, complicated solutions. Simplicity is sometimes more innovative than complexity.
4. Tencent
Tencent’s messaging app, WeChat, has more than 980 million active users. The app is more than a social network: users can hail a taxi, look up restaurant reviews, make reservations, pay at a restaurant and so on, all without leaving WeChat. Tencent is currently involved in a huge number of projects.
Tencent, which owns the world’s largest video game company, has succeeded in driving traffic to its games and is now starting to create TV and film franchises based on its titles, as well as on other intellectual property.
5. Amazon
What can we say about Amazon that we haven’t already said? Along with Google and Apple, Amazon will be one of the companies that will dominate the world, and it is among the favourites to pass a stock market valuation of USD 1 trillion.
What started as an online bookshop has ended up as the giant of e-commerce. What’s more, Amazon is going after everything, even trying to compete with Netflix by producing its own series for its Prime Video service.
6. Patagonia
Patagonia has become one of the most popular and respected clothing brands in the world. Although it is currently a private, independent company, it tries to raise awareness of environmental problems and climate change.
7. CVS Health
At a time when its competitors are closing stores, this company keeps hiring and opening new locations. It is a pharmacy and healthcare company with almost 10,000 stores in its retail network. Its business is centred on health and includes pharmacy services, retail and health clinics inside its stores. On top of that, its hunger for innovation has led it to create its own smart devices and apps to improve healthcare.
8. The Washington Post
In 2017 this newspaper, which is more than a century old, passed 100 million unique visitors. It’s no surprise that a digital media outlet appears in this ranking of innovative companies, considering it was bought by Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon. So Bezos can boast of having two companies on this innovation list.
At a time when digital media are struggling to stay profitable, both Business Insider and The Washington Post are at the forefront as very profitable news outlets. Of course, unlike other newspapers, they are investing in technology to take their news and reporting to another level, trying out all kinds of strategies until they find the one that works best.
9. Spotify
This company is known for helping to legitimise the freemium business model: a tiered pricing strategy in which basic services are offered for free (with advertising). It is without doubt a company that has given musicians a second chance and has broken down the barriers to entry for new musicians who want to make themselves known.
10. NBA
The basketball league is also pushing the limits of innovation by creating apps and services. The NBA wants to become a global brand, something it is achieving so far. More than 1 billion people around the world watch a league game every year, on top of the in-person attendance records. The NBA’s new goal is to bring basketball to fans wherever they are and whatever device they have.
The rest of the innovative companies in the ranking
- Marvel Studios
- Stitch Fix
- SpaceX
- Walmart
- Bytedance
- Reliance Jio
- Nintendo
- Social Capital
- AliveCor
- Novartis
- OneOme
- Thumbtack
- Ford Foundation
- Peloton
- Kakao Bank
- Darktrace
- Waze
- VIPKid
- Gucci
- Paytm
- Slack
- Hopper
- Compass Group
- DJI
- Sephora
- Cava
- Activision Blizzard
- Patreon
- Everlane
- Stripe
- Sugarfina
- Duolingo
- Diamond Foundry
- Alfred
- CommonBond
- Rover
- The Muse
- Graduate Hotels
See also: The 40 most innovative business ideas of recent years
Featured image: SpaceX, CC0 1.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
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