For the first time in over ten years, I was disappointed with a FORTUNE GLOBAL 500 issue. This year’s issue had far less coverage of the gyrations of the corporate world’s movers and shakers as compared to the ones in the past.
To begin with, this year’s issue had no editorial. In the past, I’ve always found the editorial providing an excellent introduction to the special issue, besides cleverly exposing the gargantuan task involved in its creation through the human angle.
There was no leader article to explain the key revenue and profit trends across countries and sectors. For example, what led to massive revenue plunges of so many companies – 39.5% at Royal Dutch Shell, 47.9% for Arcelor-Mittal, and 36.9% in the case of Caterpillar, to name a few – and how long are they expecting to take before regaining their lost sales. While no one expects an explanation of the bloodbath undergone by Wall Street last year, it was shocking to see such precipitous fall in the revenues of so many Main Street companies. Without the customary leader, you were left to try and make some sense out of these crazy numbers by visiting the footnotes – which surely called for extensive use of a magnifying lens. There was no industry-wise ranking of the corporations. Gone also were the fancy charts one takes for granted from this issue.
In fact, there was so much missing that I double-checked to make sure that my copy wasn’t missing a few pages (it wasn’t).
The ad strips that usually run below each page of the list were also conspicuous by their absence. Perhaps lack of advertising support was the culprit for this year’s skimpy coverage?
I’m sure some of these items might be covered on the fortune.com website but I prefer reading them in the print form, which is why I pay money to subscribe to the magazine in the first place despite having access to the online version at no cost.
For the past ten years or so, I’ve archived each FORTUNE GLOBAL 500 issue until the next one came out the following year. Guess I won’t bother this year.