Six of the top 10 companies on Forbes magazine’s list of The World’s Most Innovative Companies 2014 have Irish operations, with Salesforce.com coming in at No 1.
The San Francisco, California-based enterprise cloud computing applications provider, that has offices in Sandyford, Dublin, has received the recognition for the fourth year in a row now.
Forbes ranks companies on its World’s Most Innovative Companies list by what it calls the companies’ ‘innovation premium’.
“(This premium is) the difference between their market capitalisation and a net present value of cash flows from existing businesses (based on a proprietary formula from Credit Suisse HOLT),” Forbes states.
“The difference between them is the bonus given by equity investors on the educated hunch that the company will continue to come up with profitable new growth.”
Pharmaceuticals feature
Hot on the heels on Salesforce.com at No 2 on the list is Cheshire, Connecticut-based Alexion Pharmaceuticals. The biopharmaceutical company is building facilities in Dublin and Athlone.
In fifth place is biopharmaceutical company Regeneron Pharmaceuticals. Based in Tarrytown, New York, the firm is to establish a production facility in Limerick.
E-commerce giant Amazon.com, which is sixth on the list, has a development centre in Dublin.
Behind Amazon.com on the list is BioMarin Pharmaceutical, which has operations in Co Cork. Headquartered in San Rafael, California, the company develops and commercialises pharmaceuticals for serious diseases and medical conditions.
VMware is ninth on the list. The virtualisation infrastructure solutions provider is headquartered in Palo Alto, California, and has offices in Dublin and Cork.
Two fully Irish companies also made it onto Forbes’ list of The World’s Most Innovative Companies 2014.
Dublin-based global healthcare supplier Perrigo is in at No 45, and global information services company Experian, also based in the Irish capital, is No 97 on the list.
Ireland innovation image via Shutterstock
