Measure your reputation

By Jirimiko Oranen, CEO, T-Media Relations

A significant body of recent research indicates that reputation has become a major business driver. As such, it requires attention and investment in areas such as governance, innovation, corporate social responsibility (CSR), human resources (HR), and integrated marketing.

Now, all investments in business-critical operations should be measured. Why, then, are investments in reputation often not tied to clear metrics?

I have no idea. Not a clue.

In fact, I urge you to measure your corporate reputation using KPIs, just as you would any other aspect of your business.

Doing this will give you a sense of direction, an indication of which constituents are boosting your reputation and which are undermining it.

Furthermore, reputation metrics will guide your actions in communications, marketing, stakeholder relations, and other areas. These metrics will give you an indication of how effectively the entire value chain that contributes to your reputation capital is performing.

There is one caveat, though.

The problem with many reputation metrics is that a) they do not explain or predict stakeholder behavior, and b) they completely fail to capture the link to financial returns. What good are KPIs that do not tell you whether customers, partners, or policymakers are going to support your business?

A good set of metrics breaks down your organization’s reputation, shows how it affects stakeholder support, and identifies the areas of your reputation that you need to focus on to grow your business.

Another benefit of reputation KPIs is that they provide insight into return on investment. In fact, assessing the financial returns of reputation programs is much like assessing the strategic value of a business. Yes, in both cases, the complexity of the variables means we’re dealing with approximations. But that doesn’t make the exercise any less worthwhile. A good quantitative approximation is always better than a guess.

When you start measuring reputation, it feels as if you’ve been driving a car on a dark, winding road without headlights. Then you turn on the lights. Suddenly, you can see the road ahead.

How to get started? Our advice: hire reputation advisors with a proven track record in business. And tell them, “Show me the results.”

At this point, they are not supposed to flinch.

Want to know more? Please feel free to contact me at jiri@reptrust-staging.fi-p.seravo.com, or call +358 40 756 6655.