The “revenue” and “profit” numbers accompanying each of the Fortune 500 listees tell a story bean counters love because in their view, numbers alone make or break companies, business models and entire industries. Of course, each company being presented in this prestigious list has its own story, way beyond the numbers that are often overly glorified as being the ultimate “scorecard” for companies.

For instance, some companies made less profit but invested more in their employees’ pension funds while others, with larger profits, have closed down factories in their home country, putting (decently paid) hard working individuals out of work, to finance the opening a sweatshop-factory in a some foreign country where salaries are a joke and the military run the show.

So even though we’re going to take a look at the numbers from pharmaceutical companies, keep in mind that each one of them has a story that you may want to look up, in order to better understand “the big picture”.

The title states that the pharmaceuticals are rich and that’s a known fact — let’s look at the numbers:

As you can see, the profits generated by these pharmaceutical companies is nothing short of astronomical and with the help of the FDA, making it easier than ever to patent and market drugs of all sorts, the money making “drug machine” seems set for many more “good years”.

Are you under the impression that these pharmaceutical companies are making too much profit, selling drugs that have, for the most part, been developed with public funding in university labs?

Everyone has an opinion about the rich pharmaceuticals but the one thing that everybody agrees on is that they generate more profit than you and me ever will… unless we decide to launch a successful pharmaceutical company of our own.

Tags: pharmaceuticals, us pharma, big pharma, american pharma, fortune 500, pharma industry, pills, drugs, chemicals, health, disease, illnesses, insured health, health cost, health debt, health profit, health revenue, hospitals, sick citizens, sick population, usa, money

Not too surprisingly, the best of the Top 20 “most admired companies” in America work, at least in part, on strategies and products aimed at helping preserve our blue planet.

While eco-friendliness hasn’t always been the valued corporate trait it has become, the climatic and environmental changes our world is going through are dramatically reshaping how people think of which company deserves their admiration.

Here’s are the companies being admired the most, nowadays, according to Fortune:

1. General Electric
2. Starbucks
3. Toyota Motor
4. Berkshire Hathaway
5. Southwest Airlines
6. FedEx
7. Apple
8. Google
9. Johnson & Johnson
10. Procter & Gamble
11. Goldman Sachs
12. Microsoft
13. Target
14. 3M
15. Nordstrom
16. United Parcel Service
17. American Express
18. Costco Wholesale
19. PepsiCo *
20. Wal-Mart Stores *

* Both companies got the same score… so it’s a tie!

While some companies getting high scores like PepsiCo (selling sugary beverages to kids) may leave you literally scratching your head, most of these top performers are doing more than a few things right.

Studying these companies’ PR smarts may yield interesting pointers as to how they got on this coveted list. Even if your company is smaller, some of these findings might easily apply to your business model.

Which company do -you- admire most, and why?

Tags: most admired companies, pr smarts, eco-friendliness, america, usa