State of Missouri Awards IT Services Contract to STG

Growth isn’t the bottom line in business, but it’s one of the routes to get to that bottom line. Companies chase growth for a variety of reasons — to gain economies of scale, acquire competitors are among them.

Crain’s Fast 50 is our version of a fastest-growing companies list, but it’s a little more complex than a simple ranking of revenue growth. We take all the companies in our database that saw sales grow over the past three years. Then we rank them on two measures: the percentage their revenue grew over that timeframe, and the total dollar increase in annual revenue over the same span. Then we add the rankings together. A smaller number ranks higher.

We rank companies this way because, simply put, size matters, but we still want to make room on the list for smaller companies. A company that saw its sales multiply by several times can still make the list, even if it’s tiny. To rank near the top of the list, a company needs to do well on both measures.

These rankings capture a snapshot in time, a period of a strong economy and a rebounding Detroit. Next year’s list, in the wake of a virus that has had far-reaching effects on most businesses, is likely to change significantly, but for now, here is Crain’s Fast 50 for 2020.

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