Canon Inc., Tokyo, Japan, was named the Best Company in Japan in 2005, for two years in a row, as a result of the “PRISM” research, a multifaceted corporate evaluation system jointly developed and conducted by Nikkei Newspaper and Nikkei Research.

Canon gained the maximum score of 1,000 to be listed on the top. The company has acquired high scores in such factors as “flexibility,” “profitability/growth potential” and “R&D power,” because of its excellent business results to renew records of net profit for six years in a row. Its score in terms of “juvenility” ended up at 223rd place with 59 out of 100 points, reports JPEA International PEN News Weekly.

Positions of other imaging-related makers were as follows: Kyocera (15th), Sharp (20th), Ricoh (23rd), Toshiba (25th), Sony (49th), Casio (75th), Fujifilm (80th), Konica Minolta (133rd), Nikon (142nd), Olympus (181st), Epson (268th), Pentax (415th), Noritsu (475th), and Nidec (490th), says PEN News Weekly.

The “PRISM” research is a system designed to evaluate companies’ strength by counting scores on the four factors of “flexibility & CSR implementation capability,” “profitability & growth potential,” “research & development power” and “juvenility.” The research was conducted on 2,185 Japanese companies listed at Tokyo Stock Exchange or unlisted but regarded as leading companies in various fields.