Infographic: Does Big Business Control the World?

The infographic here reminds me of the 1970’s movie Rollerball, in which the world was controlled by seven corporations: food, energy, entertainment, transportation, etc. It seemed at the time, when I saw it, like a reasonable guess at the future.

But then there’s the change led by technology, which seems to splinter the world and allow for millions upon millions of individual business and smaller companies. So who knows?

I like the collection of related facts in this infographic.

Comments

  • Steve King says:

    Tim: It reminds me of Rollerball too.

    We done a lot of work looking at industry structures and we’ve found most industries have a barbell shaped industrial structure. By that I mean a few global giants one side, a large and growing number of small and micro businesses and a shrinking number of mid-sized businesses (size of each category varies by industry).

    Another way to describe this a power curve, with 3-8 companies – most cases – controlling 50% or more of industry sales and profitability. A good example is the beer industry. In the U.S., 2 firms control about 80% of the industries revenue. Yet at the same time craft brewers continue to grow in numbers and impact (although they still control only about 7% of industry revenue).

    We think this pattern will continue with small firms becoming even more numerous even as the global giants continue to gain share – often by acquiring small and mid-sized firms.

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