The global list, which includes 10 other Indian companies, has been topped by Japanese auto maker Toyota, followed by US-based internet search giant Google, Sweden's Ikea, Italy's Ferrero and another American firm Johnson & Johnson. The Ratan Tata-led group is joined by India's second largest software exporter Infosys Technologies in the Top-50 league at 14th position.
However, at least nine other Indian firms, which were among 600 companies considered in a survey to prepare the list, could not make it to the final 200. These firms include Mukesh Ambani-led RIL, the country's biggest by revenue among private sector firms and overall largest in terms of market value.
Other Indian companies that were considered for the list, but failed to make the cut include the biggest private sector lender ICICI Bank, top private and public sector telecom firms Bharti Airtel and BSNL, IT giant Wipro, Birla group's Grasim Industries, tobacco-to-consumer goods conglomerate ITC as well as two state-run firms-oil refining and marketing major BPCL and national carrier Air India.
While releasing its latest Global Pulse report, Reputation Institute said that Tata group and Air India have the strongest and weakest corporate reputations respectively among the companies from India. Besides Tata and Infosys, other firms that made to the top 200 list include, Maruti Udyog (Suzuki), State Bank of India, Hindustan Lever, Hero Honda Motors, Life Insurance Corp of India, Bajaj Auto, ONGC, Mahindra and Mahindra and Indian Oil Corp.
Both Tata and Infosys have gained over 100 spots each to join the top tier of global companies. "India's Tata Group and Infosys Technologies saw their reputations increase by over 8 points in 2008, and catapulted over 100 spots in the ranking to join the top tier of global companies in 2008, in recognition of their growing role among the world's business elite," the report said. However, the highest jump in ranking has been seen by China's Faw Group (ranked 41st with an improvement of 178 spots), followed by Norway's Coop, Canada's Sobey's and Japan's AEON, all of which have gained over 100 spots.
Maruti, the country's biggest car maker, has been ranked at 77th, SBI at 107th, HLL (now renamed as HUL) at 131st, Hero Honda at 147th, LIC at 161st, Bajaj Auto at 169th, ONGC at 186th , M&M at 191s and IOC at 199th position.
Globally, food and beverage giant PepsiCo, headed by Indra Nooyi, has been ranked 100th. Tatas are ranked higher than companies like Walt Disney, Marks and Spencers, Xerox, Colgate-Palmolive, Sony, Honda, General Electric (GE), all of which are in the top-50.
The survey was conducted on 600 largest companies from 27 countries, out of which 200 were selected for the list. Toyota earned the highest ranking with a score of 86.53, followed by Google with 85.23 points.
Reputation Institute said that all the 200 companies earned scores higher than the global mean of 64.2 points, but despite earnings better than global average, the companies ranked 51-200 have "significantly weaker reputations than the top tier companies."
The top-20 include six from the US, two each from India and Japan and one each from Brazil, Canada, China, Denmark, Italy, Mexico, Norway, Spain, Sweden and Switzerland. The overall rankings are based on the companies' performance on seven dimensions - workplace, citizenship, governance, products/services, innovation, leadership and performance.
The global leader Toyota has topped on four dimensions. Among Indian companies, Infosys is ranked fifth in citizenship and leadership categories and fourth in governance and products/services. Tata group has been ranked fifth in governance and third in leadership.
Reputation Institute is a private advisory firm specialising in corporate reputation management and Global Purse is its flagship research study conducted annual with about 60,000 consumers in 27 countries, from which it derives the rankings of world's most reputed companies. The institute said that general public tends to rate makers of consumer products, computers and electronics well above the global mean.
"By contrast, communications companies and utilities largely anchor the bottom of the distributions. Companies operating in these sectors face an uphill battle in communicating with the general public," it noted. Financial companies also face similar uphill battle, the report said, adding that pharma, conglomerate, raw materials, airline, food/tobacco and chemical industries hover around the middle of the ranks globally.
