Well-known businesses with impressive staying power
Making a business work over the long term is a major challenge. Research shows the majority of start-ups fail within five years and the companies that do survive can struggle to make a profit. But these long-lasting enterprises have had no such problems.
Scroll down to discover the most famous business founded the year you were born.
© Microsoft/Wikimedia Commons
1945: Minute Maid
Minute Maid was created in 1945 to shift a stockpile of powdered orange juice that had been produced for the war effort. Buoyed on by a promotional campaign fronted by Bing Crosby, the line of drinks fast became a household name, and Minute Maid, which was acquired by Coca-Cola in 1960, is now the world's largest marketer of fruit juice and drinks.
© Courtesy Minute Maid/Coca-Cola
1946: Sony
Rising from the ruins of postwar Japan, the Sony Corp. was founded in 1946 when Masaru Ibuka opened an electronics concession in a Tokyo department store. The company, which has become renowned for its electronics, gaming, entertainment and financial services, started out selling rice cookers and wasn't known as Sony until 1958.
© Courtesy Sony Corporation
1947: H&M
Company patriarch Erling Persson opened the first "Hennes" store in 1947 in the Swedish city of Västerås, and added the "Mauritz" moniker in 1968, when he bought hunting apparel retailer Mauritz Widforss. One of the world's leading fast-fashion retailers, the H&M family of brands currently boasts 4,500 stores in 62 countries around the world.
© Courtesy Visit Västerås
1948: ManpowerGroup
The human resources giant was founded in 1948 in Milwaukee by a pair of lawyers, Elmer Winter and Aaron Scheinfeld, who had trouble recruiting temporary secretaries and thought they could make a little extra cash providing temp services to businesses in the city. The enterprise soon took off and today ManpowerGroup has 3,900 offices worldwide.
© Courtesy ManpowerGroup