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"Good Company Ranking 2024": Majority of DAX40 companies need to work on their "Future Fitness"
A “good company” is not defined solely by economic success or compliance with regulatory requirements. Rather, it always acts with the aim of strengthening its future viability in order to achieve sustainable success in an increasingly complex world. Regarding their “future fitness”, the DAX40 companies are in very different positions - more than two-thirds of the companies fall short of their potential. This is shown by the current “Good Company Ranking” by Kirchhoff I Team Farner and Tetranomics. For the first time, this analysis was carried out on the basis of a hybrid process combining artificial intelligence (AI) and human expertise. The result is a matrix in which the company's performance is presented in the context of the challenges to be overcome.
The key criteria for a good performance as a 'Leader' in the Good Company Matrix are the anchoring of sustainability in the corporate strategy, the individual ability to innovate and the degree of transformation of business models.
“With the new evaluation approach of this year's Good Company Ranking, we were able to gain valuable new insights into the 'future fitness' of our top German companies,” says Klaus Rainer Kirchhoff, founder and Chairman of Kirchhoff I Team Farner. “At the same time, it offers valuable impetus for their sustainable further development. Companies should see sustainability not only as a regulatory obligation, but also as a strategic opportunity for transformation,” Kirchhoff continues.
“Future fitness” Leaders set an example for overcoming the crisis
“Germany is currently being left behind,” says Albrecht von Müller, founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Parmenides Foundation and Director of the Parmenides Center for the Study of Thinking. “In order to reinvent ourselves, we need a 'True North'. This could and should be the goal of a comprehensively conceived Future Fitness.”
The 'Leaders' listed in the matrix are characterized by the fact that they actively use new framework conditions for innovation in the face of increasing complexity and ever faster change. In addition to commercial considerations, they also systematically incorporate the expectations and needs of stakeholders into their strategic decision-making processes. In this area, they go beyond mere regulatory requirements and embed a comprehensive responsibility for sustainability in their core value creation activities, which they also communicate transparently. They ensure their long-term relevance and resilience by continuously optimizing their internal knowledge management and their ability to act strategically. In this way, these companies can show others the way to catch up with the world Leaders again. Companies rated as Challenger and Follower are shown a “Room for Improvement”, which makes these companies attractive to investors.
Good Company Ranking: Continuous development
Since its first publication almost 20 years ago, the Good Company Ranking has evaluated companies beyond traditional financial indicators in terms of their sustainable corporate success and responsible growth. In this year's ranking, the evaluation approach has been fundamentally realigned. The central evaluation criterion is the future fitness of companies. It represents a measure of the convergence between economic performance, ecological responsibility and social commitment as well as the strategic adaptability, resilience and innovative strength of companies.
“Our aim was to also take individual challenges and strategic innovative strength into account when assessing companies. This not only provides a more realistic picture, but also an important added value compared to traditional ESG rankings,” explains Klaus Rainer Kirchhoff, initiator of the Good Company Ranking. “In principle, we welcome the introduction of a formalized reporting system to record non-commercial key figures. However, in many companies we observe a primarily regulatory approach to fulfilling these reporting obligations. As a result, both the complexity of strategic challenges and the opportunities of a consistent realignment of the business model are often only insufficiently recorded and utilized.”
The ranking is to be continuously developed in the future in order to meet the changing requirements of the global market. Through the use of AI-supported analysis methods and the increased integration of expert knowledge, future iterations should provide even more precise insights into the strategic performance and resilience of companies.
Methodology of the study
As in previous years, the ranking is based on an analysis of published company reports. For the first time, this took the form of a hybrid procedure combining artificial intelligence (AI) and human expertise. For this purpose, a catalog of variables curated by experts was evaluated using a large language model (LLM) based on the companies' annual, sustainability and remuneration reports.
The variables defined in advance are assigned to three dimensions: Eco-Societal Responsibility, Commercial Prospect & Communication and Strategic Responsiveness & Knowledge Metabolism. These dimensions reflect the conviction that different capabilities and their interaction contribute significantly to the long-term sustainability of a company and are deliberately based on the assumptions of the convergence hypothesis. Based on this detailed evaluation, the nine-member jury of selected experts then carried out a final assessment of the “Future Fitness” of the 40 DAX companies.
The result is a matrix that shows the company's performance in the context of the challenges to be overcome. The company's “performance” in terms of future fitness expresses the jury's assessment of the company's ability to operate successfully in the future, both economically, ecologically and socially, as well as in terms of its strategic innovative strength. The “degree of difficulty” of achieving future fitness for the respective company describes the inherent challenges and industry-specific conditions as a company's field of action and places its positioning in terms of “performance” in an appropriate context.
The full „Good Company Ranking 2024“ study and a printable image of the “Future Fitness Matrix”are available here.
ABOUT KIRCHHOFF
With around 70 employees, Kirchhoff Consult GmbH is a leading communications and strategy consultancy for financial communications and ESG in German-speaking countries. For over 30 years, Kirchhoff has been advising clients on all aspects of financial and corporate communications, annual and sustainability reports, IPOs, investor relations, ESG and sustainability communications. 'Designing Sustainable Value': Kirchhoff combines content expertise with excellent design to create sustainable value.
Kirchhoff Consult is a member of TEAM FARNER, a European alliance of partner-led agencies. The common goal is to build the European market Leader for integrated communications consulting.
ABOUT TETRANOMICS
Tetranomics SE is a spin-off of the Parmenides Foundation. It develops methods and software that help companies to operate successfully and sustainably in an increasingly complex world. The focus is on the conviction that entrepreneurial practices that focus on ecological and social aspects are not in conflict with commercial success, but can even promote it. For more than 15 years, we have been helping leading companies and organizations to align their business models sustainably. With the help of state-of-the-art, AI-supported technologies and in-depth research, Tetranomics develops tools with which companies can address the strategic question of how to combine economic success with sustainable impact.
ABOUT THE JURY
The composition of the nine-member jury is based on the respective expertise of the experts with regard to the dimensions relevant to the ranking. The members of the expert jury are Patrick Bungard (Executive Director and Co-Founder Tetranomics), Jasmin Dentz (Managing Partner GFD - Financial Communication I Team Farner), Dr. Ekkehard Franzke (Strategic and Corporate Finance Advisory, Investor), Vincent Giesue Furnari (Managing Partner Kirchhoff, CSO and Practice Head ESG Team Farner), Prof. Dr. Alexander Güttler (CEO komm. passion, COO Team Farner), Klaus Rainer Kirchhoff (Founder and Chairman Kirchhoff | Team Farner), Prof. Dr. Rene Schmidpeter (Professor, Course Director Bern University of Applied Sciences BFH | Sustainable Business Transformation), Prof. Dr. Albrecht von Müller (Founder and Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Parmenides Foundation, Director of the Parmenides Center for the Study of Thinking) and Kerstin Walther-Fellinghauer (Creative Director Kirchhoff | Team Farner).
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Janina Schumann
Head of Corporate Communications
janina.schumann@kirchhoff.de
+49 40 609 186 40