Fortune is an American multinational business magazine that regularly publishes ranked lists of companies. The Fortune 500 is the magazine’s yearly list of 500 of the largest companies in the USA, ranked by total revenues for their respective fiscal years. It has been publishing the list since 1955. The list covers a host of companies belonging to a wide range of industries such as banking, insurance, utilities, retailers, and others. It excludes private companies not filing financial statements with government agencies, foreign corporations, the U.S. companies consolidated by other companies, and companies that neglect to report full financial statements for at least three quarters of the current fiscal year.
Amazon has shown great progress to climb eight spots on the Global 500, continuing its remarkable growth run. Sales have jumped about $70 billion in two years. Amazon’s enormity stems from its role as the largest U.S. digital retailer, the fastest-growing part of the market. Two other major factors have driven the company’s growth, expansion abroad to markets like India and the rise of Amazon Web Services: the company’s market-leading online storage and service operation. Amazon spends heavily to boost those sales: Faster delivery, a vigorous entertainment plan, and robot-enabled warehouses are a part of its increasingly ambitious plans.
More recently, Amazon announced a partnership with Berkshire Hathaway and JPMorgan Chase, to provide their more than 500,000 employees with an alternative to the current healthcare system. Amazon has been looking to get into the healthcare sector and are starting with their employees. In the long run, the model developed by these companies may well grow beyond their employees. Gary Young, director of the Center for Health Policy and Healthcare Research and professor of Strategic Management and Healthcare Systems at the Northeastern University, suggests that this model could disrupt the healthcare sector. Hospitals will want to rethink their policies to provide consumers with maximum benefits to continue generating revenue.
Harman Singh