McKinsey is coming out soon with their new research on defining and developing reputation. I was one of the 3,601 executives who responded when they sent questionnaires out in September and I was eagerly awaiting its release. They kindly sent the final report to those who had completed the survey before distributing it more widely. However, in their note to panelists, they mentioned that the report can’t be republished without permission. For that reason, I am not linking to the report results although I bet that public release will come soon in the new year. I do think that I can mention a few of the results that I found most interesting and will add the link when they are made available. Stay tuned.
McKinsey obviously leads the opening paragraph with what they consider the most important findings and that is that many executives do not think their companies’ reputation management strategies are effective. Only one-fifth of executives think their companies manage reputation very effectively. Then they look at reputation management through the lenses of these “effective managers” and report that these companies are more likely to say that reputation management is among the top 3 objectives for their CEOs and that their companies formally track reputation among key stakeholders. It is always interesting how when CEOs focus on something, it becomes company mantra for all. Overall, that is the job of the CEO to focus the organization on what will advance their company’s success.
As I would suspect, two-thirds (64%) expect the scrutiny on their external reputations to be more intense in the years to come. No doubt the belief that there will be increased scutiny on corporate reputation is directly tied to the fairly high percentage (47%) of companies who say they have experienced a reputation threat in the past two to three years. The industries that are above average in having experienced reputation threats are telecom (67%), pharma (60%) and financial (56%). Interestingly, executives in the healthcare sector reported that they were just about average (46%) in having experienced a reputation threat in the past few years but are way above average in what they expectto see in their sector over the next two to three years — 81%.
There are some other findings I will report on when the final report is released. This is just for now. Back again soon. Have a merry Xmas.