I used to work for a weekly business newspaper and,of any regular feature that we ran the one that inevitably drew the most readerinterest and feedback was our weekly list. Whether it was the list of thelargest law firms or the largest IT consultancies, companies wanted to be onthe list and readers wanted to know who was on it.
I was always a little puzzled by thispre-occupation with lists, but I think I felt some of that interest as I readthe Conference Board of Canada’s spring forecasts for the telecommunications,computer manufacturing and computer systems design industries in Canada. Eachreport included a list of the top companies for each industry by revenue for2009, and it was interesting to see where the names I expected to see ranked,as well as the names that surprised me.
Probably the most interesting was the computermanufacturing list. It wasn’t surprising to see Research in Motion with a strangleholdon the top spot, with more than double the revenue of the number-two finisher,Celestica and four-times the revenue of IBM Canada, at number three. What wassurprising was to see Nortel Networks at number four, ahead of companies likeHewlett-Packard Co. and rival Cisco Systems. Clearly, if your costs are out of control all the revenue in the world won't help.
In the computer systems design rankings, IBM’sstrong consulting business did propel them to the top spot in Canada, followedby CGI Group, SXC Health Solutions and Softchoice. CDN readers will alsorecognize channel partners such as Hartco at 10th, Compugen at 11thand xwave at 12th.
And on the telecommunications side, BCE Inc. isstill well ahead of Rogers Communications, followed by Telus Corp., BellAlliant, Shaw and Videotron.
Read our full coverage of the Conference Board's Spring forecasts in CDN Now:
Competition will limit Canadian growth in telecom, IT services
Canada's computer manufacturing industry won't see recovery until 2011
Follow Jeff Jedras on Twitter: @JeffJedrasCDN.