In almost any business above a certain size and level of prominence, there will be a demand to measure its reputation, and report at Exec or Board level. That this responsibility typically falls on corporate affairs is hardly surprising – every other function in the business generates data on the business’s performance and to inform decision-making.
But good, impactful reputation reporting has proved strikingly hard for corporate affairs functions to implement. And as a result, corporate affairs directors can often feel underpowered when facing the business with flawed or absent data.
Evaluation is different from measurement
One of the most common issues is a confusion about what reporting is actually for. Because the number is being generated out of the corporate affairs team, and because corporate affairs is “responsible” for managing reputation, it is often interpreted as a measure of the corporate affairs team’s success. This is logical, but misses that reputation is an outcome of a whole variety of business action, including reputation.
That’s because there are actually two related, but distinct, objectives: evaluation and measurement.
If the goal is to evaluate the success of the corporate affairs function then the research should be designed accordingly. Measure what the function is doing and how it translates into impact. But if the goal is to measure reputation holistically, and take decisions about the direction of the business accordingly, then the design needs to be quite different.
For all that they are often lumped together as “evaluation and measurement”, the two concepts are quite different.
This post focuses on that latter goal.
Measuring among the right audiences
The second concern is a practical, methodological one: tracking research is quite often conducted among the wrong audiences.
This is not a criticism. Budgets are tight and the easiest and cheapest audience to do research with is the general public. But often the views of the general public are less important relative to other audiences: employees, investors, politicians, suppliers, industry stakeholders, or a politically relevant segment of voters. Some organisations do research with so-called “opinion formers”. This is a definite improvement, but there is a wide variety in the quality of these opinion former panels. Sometimes the respondents are merely slightly better-off members of the general public, far from a genuinely influential opinion former profile.
Designing a bespoke framework
Finally, and most important, is the nature of the questions being asked. Many research agencies have developed standardised reputation models that all their clients are measured against. They have huge advantages of scale, and in being able to make comparisons across peers and sectors.
But, because they are so standardised, they largely fail in providing insights that inform business decision-makers on questions that are actually relevant. Nor do such models help you understand what to do about any of the issues you are facing.
Imagine working for a large supermarket. Knowing that you are seen as “Ethical” tells you little about what contributed to that reputation, or how to further it. Is that because of your work to reduce food waste, your support for farmers in your supply chain, or a focus on seasonality in promoting British produce? In a standardised framework, the data doesn’t say.
Towards better measurement
So, how can corporate affairs functions generate better insights without exploding their budgets? Most obvious is the move away from standardised models. Think carefully and consult widely about the reputation your business needs to succeed, and the elements of that that are likely to matter to your stakeholders, designing a reputation framework around those issues.
Then, dig more deeply into the factors underlying those aspects of your reputation. Measure association with specific ideas, or the extent to which people believe in various criticisms of your company. Make use of statistical tools to understand which of the many issues you are tracking are actually impacting the company’s performance – whether positively or negatively. All of his will enable more meaningful strategic takeaways – which of these issues matter most to my stakeholders and which should I therefore focus the business’s efforts towards?
None of this is necessarily simple. Reputation is multi-audience, multi-faceted. There are practical and budgetary barriers to doing all the insight we would like. But there is real low hanging fruit in the design of the research that is done. Methods that can be changed to have a greater impact on communications and the business at large.
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