marketing 2020 – reputation

Recent research by Weber Standwick has shown a very interesting but not surprising thing.

Reputation is becoming one of the most important factors influencing the financial results of companies.

Is  it really surprising if we know how easy it is today for a customer to find information about us?

“It’s widely known that a company’s success largely depends on its reputation,” says Gail Heimann, president and CEO of Weber Shandwick around the world. – Thanks to our research, we can estimate the value of reputation, which is now valued higher and higher. At the same time, the study showed that there are more and more factors shaping the company’s reputation and that they are all equally important.

what other areas cover report

Over 2,000 representatives of middle and senior management from 22 countries around the world took part of this study. In addition to reputation, the report also covers areas such as corporate culture, activation of managers and employees, as well as risk and crisis management.

marketing 2020 – reputation

According to the surveyed representatives of senior management, reputation is responsible on average for 63% of the market value of their enterprises.

91% of respondents say that reputation is important for top management – this is particularly true for listed companies and international companies.

Half of the respondents, asked about the assessment of 23 factors that may affect the company’s reputation, agreed that all of them are significant, assigning them on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 means “has a significant impact”), scores from 8 to 10 points .

This lack of distinction shows that companies can no longer focus solely on a few selected aspects. Currently, enterprises should consider a number of different factors, treating them all as equally important, ranging from the quality of employees and products, through financial results and corporate culture, to ethics and values.

Crisis – 76% said it could be prevented.

Taking this into account, reputation management, and in particular actions to protect it, require extreme vigilance and visual acuity. Of the global managers who admitted that over the past two or three years their companies have experienced a crisis that negatively affected their reputation, as many as 76% said it could be prevented.

Measurement and communication of reputation

According to 91% of respondents, reputation is important for company managements, and more than half believe that it is even very important to them. At the same time, 71% confirmed that the company’s management measures or monitors the company’s reputation.

The most commonly used tools are employee satisfaction and commitment surveys (47 percent), sales and financial results (45 percent), stakeholder surveys (40 percent), awards and participation in industry rankings (37 percent), as well as assessments, reviews and new customer growth (36%).

It is not surprising, that the topic of reputation management is increasingly appearing in management communications. 69% of respondents confirmed that in the last 12 months reputation was discussed by senior management in communication with employees, and in listed companies in communication with shareholders (57%).

The importance of communicating company value is growing. 79% of the surveyed managers are of the opinion that a significant impact on the perception of a company is whether the CEO communicates the company’s values.

Summary of the report “The State of Corporate Reputation in 2020: Everything Matters Now”  the full report is available for download HERE [PDF].