A great deal of work goes into the administration and reporting of Ingram’s Corporate Report 100. This issue represents the "17th Running" of the competition, which was launched in the magazine’s 10th Anniversary year.

We are pleased and proud to conduct Kansas City’s Corporate Report 100. It provides an accurate gauge and analysis of how metro Kansas City-based businesses stack up against one another. We believe that the comparison of revenues over a four-year period, with certain base revenues in the first and final year, offers a good method of assessing all businesses regardless of whether they record $1 million in sales or $40 billion.

If there is one component of the competition that is at least somewhat predictable, it is that of the Top 10. Since the point of entry is relatively minimal—$50,000 base-year revenues—the Top 10 tends to be composed of newly formed companies that have survived their first business cycle—a feat in and of itself for a new business.

This year’s Top 10, unlike the tech-heavy lists of the recent past, offers a gumbo variety of business and industry—a fresh reminder of how little the KC region relies on one industry or company. Consider, for instance, how well the area has endured even Sprint’s downsizing in the last 18 months.

The irony of this year’s competition is that "would-be" winner Communitech.net’s leader, 28-year-old Gabe Murphy, is instead seen in our photo spread presenting (or tugging to claim) the winner’s trophy with Inergy president and CEO John Sherman. Murphy’s company would have captured the crown in 2002, but he enjoys 10 million reasons why his company relinquished the honors. In the spring of this year, Communitech sold to Atlanta-based Interland thus disqualifying the firm from its first year of eligibility due to it no longer being a KC-area-based business.

Trends among fast-growth businesses are worth tracking, particularly among the honorees of the Corporate Report 100. The most noticeable and worrisome trend is volatility, particularly among the Top 10. Two years ago, for instance, Net Sales captured the title and PVI followed closely with a number three finish. Both firms are but a memory today, yet second place Euronet continues to thrive with 897 percent growth and a sixth place finish in last year’s competition and 440 percent growth and a number 11 showing in 2002.

One firm to watch closely as it dabbles with disaster is our number four finisher and perennial underdog, Birch Telecom. Despite the firm’s tightrope walk with reorganization and its struggle to resist the telecom industry’s fallout, Birch continues to record sizeable revenues and impressive shares within the markets it serves. Another firm that claimed the number four ranking in 1987 and again in 1990 is Cerner Corporation. With a solid #99 finish in 2001, and this year’s #87 ranking, Cerner has claimed the all-time leader of Ingram’s Corporate Report 100 competition with now a dozen finishes in the competition’s 17 years.

Cerner’s top execs Neal Patterson and Cliff Illig began their careers with Arthur Andersen, which has for several years held a position in the Corporate Report 100 ranks and at times sponsored the competition. Today, the Andersen household name is Mudd in what many consider the business scandal of recent times. To diminish the Enron/Andersen issue, now enters Worldcom and an era of accountant jokes to surpass any that even attorneys have suffered.

It seems to me that organizations with a solid business model, ethical business practice and ambitious leadership tend to reside comfortably and consistently within Ingram’s Corporate Report 100.

Hats off to the perennial icons like Cerner Corp., Lockton Cos., American Italian Pasta, Gould Evans, SKC Communication and All About Travel, which not only continue to thrive, but which give our marketplace a good name in the process. I commend Inergy, Human Resource, Advantage Tech and all of this year’s honorees for their incredible performance and tenacious commitment to building their business. There are many lessons to be learned from studying what this competition can teach us about business, and we at Ingram’s are delighted to be the steward of such a noble and cherished Kansas City tradition.

Congratulations to our winners, 1 through 100.

Sincerely,