The Management Today Most Admired Companies awards have been around for 21 years. British business takes them with the utmost seriousness because of the unique way in which they are conducted.

The research is an academic exercise conducted by professor Mike Brown of Birmingham City Business School  – the result is not decided by interested parties in smoke-filled rooms (not that anyone is permitted to fill rooms with smoke any longer). Instead, businesses are ranked by those harshest of industry critics: their peers and rivals.

For this year's BMAC, no fewer than 25 sector combatants have marked each other out of ten across nine different criteria.  Scores are influenced not only by hard performance and commercial data but also by a variety of intangibles, ranging from gut feel about individual firms to their general level of optimism or foreboding about the market.

Alongside the core of companies listed on the London Stock Exchange, more privately held firms are included in this year’s Britain’s Most Admired Companies index. More UK subsidiaries of foreign-owned multinationals too. This has resulted in some new sectors, such as Gaming and Transportation Services. But the guiding principle for inclusion remains: only firms that publish sufficient data for their peers to be able to make quantitative as well as qualitative performance judgements are chosen.

Most Admired is a true peer poll of those that matter. In winning, you have gained the respect of your severest critics – your competition. Your competitors may be harsh judges but they are also the people most aware of your strengths and weaknesses. If one firm can dominate the thoughts of its peers, it must be doing something right.

2011's Top Ten:

1.	2.	3.	4.	5.
6.	7.	8.	9.	10.