Shapers and Influencers

There is no lack of research, opinions and media coverage of the habits and attitudes of Millennials – otherwise known as Generation Y (typically defined as being born between 1980 and 1994).

Businesses have barely figured out how to market to and manage them. Now, they are confronted with a new generation of young people, Generation Z (typically defined as being born between 1995 and 2009), that are entering the consumer world and, imminently, the workplace.

Digital is in their DNA: These young people have already been labelled as screen addicts with the attention span of a grasshopper that are keen to save the world and fix the environmental mistakes of earlier generations.

But is this who they are and what they want?

We decided to ask them…

Of the world’s 100 largest economic entities in 2012, 40 (40%) are corporations, the same percentage as in 2011 but down 2% since 2010 (42%).  If you look at the top 150 economic entities in 2012, the proportion of corporations is 58%, slightly down from 2011 (58.7%) but at the same level as in 2010 (58%).

Executive Summary

Of the world's 100 largest economic entities in 2012, 40 (40%) are corporations, the same percentage as in 2011 but down 2% since 2010 (42%).  If you look at the top 150 economic entities in 2012, the proportion of corporations is 58%, slightly down from 2011 (58.7%) but at the same level as in 2010 (58%).

Since we started our analysis in 2009, Wal-Mart has consistently been the largest corporate economic entity in the world. However, in 2012, Wal-Mart was overtaken by both Royal Dutch Shell (largest) and Exxon (second largest) leaving it in third place. Royal Dutch Shell recorded 2012 revenues that exceeded the GDPs of 171 countries making it the 26th largest economic entity in the world. It ranks ahead of Argentina and Taiwan, despite employing only 90,000 people. The biggest industry group in terms of size remains the energy majors, buoyed by energy price increases over 2012, with revenues of the five largest players increasing between 25% and 46% over the year.  Combined, the revenues of these five companies (Royal Dutch Shell, ExxonMobil, BP, Sinopec and China National Petroleum) were the equivalent of 2.9% of global GDP in 2012.