PHOENIX: May 20, 2016. For the first time Unilever has topped the annual Gartner Supply Chain Top 25 index followed by McDonald’s, Amazon, Intel and H&M.

Gartner said Schneider Electric, BASF and BMW made the list for the first time, and HP and GlaxoSmithKline rejoined after several years’ absence. Rounding out the Top 10 were Inditex, Cisco Systems, Samsung Electronics, The Coca-Cola Company and Nestlé.

The bottom five companies were Johnson & Johnson (No.21), BMW, GlaxoSmithKline, Kimberly-Clark and the Lenovo Group (No.25).

"2016 marks the 12th year of our annual Supply Chain Top 25 ranking," said Stan Aronow, research vice president at Gartner. "In this year's edition, there are several longtime leaders with new lessons to share and a number of more recent entrants from the high-tech, industrial, chemical, auto and life sciences sectors."

To produce the index, the consulting company’s analysts derived a master list by combining the Fortune Global 500 and the Forbes Global 2000 and applying a revenue baseline of US$12 billion.

Gartner said Apple and P&G continued to qualify for its Masters category - introduced last year to recognize sustained supply chain leadership over the last 10 years.

In recognition that running an ethical and sustainable supply chain is a key aspect of leadership, Gartner has added a quantitative measure of corporate social responsibility (CSR) to its latest methodology. CSR is one of three standout trends highlighted for supply chain leaders in 2016, said the company.

Running socially responsible supply chains aligns with what investors, customers, employees and the general public expect from companies today added Aronow: "Mainstream institutional investors are paying greater attention to a company's nonfinancial performance indicators, including its handling of environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors."