Top 100 CEO Interviews
Issue No. 18 - August/September 2004
SA Top 100 Companies
Impressions on Research Project
by Max Franchitto
Our successful businesses have been Australia’s best-kept secret. But no more! The SA Top 100 is a motivational force that all our businesses and individual entrepreneurs can aspire to.
I am proud to have delivered the most accurate picture available of the companies that generate most of the State’s State domestic product. It’s hard to believe, after several months of doorknocking, phone-calling, cajoling, flattering and reviewing that we have the most comprehensive view yet of the private wealth generators in our State.
Bravo! to ‘in-business’s’ Publisher Graham Wakeling, and Editor Larry Ellenwood, who have had the vision to back our State’s success with their enthusiasm and determination.
However, we do not claim that this first SA Top 100 is the ultimate list. Private companies have a right to remain silent, and some chose to do so.
We have made a strenuous attempt to provide a clear picture. Without a doubt, this list will indicate who we are and where we are headed – soon enough for the signs to be useful in the near future.
We have created a forum for future reference that can kick-start debate and discussion about the State’s economic future, which is poised for record-breaking growth.
The value of project is that we now have an index that quantifies with a high degree of accuracy just how much economic activity and success is being generated amongst medium-sized business as well as the large corporations in this state.
Yes, some of the results are surprising. The motor industry and winemaking, for example, may have been over-emphasised in the scheme of the State’s business success and opportunity. This traditional activity didn’t figure as frequently as even I would have imagined.
Our research brought home to me to the special achievements in product innovation and distribution that formed the basis of many of the SA Top 100 success stories, many of them without the pedigree of well k...
