News & Insights

A single view of reputation reality in a sea of data

We know that corporate reputation is critical; but for most companies it is intangible and subjective, and simply too difficult to discuss, let alone try to manage. But as with many gaps in business strategy, the problem is not a lack of data – if anything, it’s a question of far too much.

Quite simply, all the data in the world isn’t much good unless you can analyse it and put it to good use.

Reputation comprises the beliefs and opinions held by others about an organisation or individual. As such, being able to understand it through forms of scientific rigour has long been a challenge, with attempts to do so typically marked by subjectivity and taking feeds from multiple types of data in order to try to know what’s really going on. 

There is a grand irony that when a reputational crisis hits, companies often know what to do and gather actionable data on it, yet at most other times few companies have any way to effectively address reputation risk and its value.

And the available data keeps on growing. From digitised traditional media to internet news sites, social media, and digitised libraries of reports and white papers. From brand resonance surveys to attitudinal studies to customer questionnaires to employee engagement polls. The data streams that could be assessed in order to determine reputation risk and value keep on growing, as do the number of tools that can help with aspects of evaluation.
Invariably, what communications teams have to grapple with, and what the most senior executives get presented with, are multiple reputation indicators, and perhaps with some subjective conclusions about what they mean when combined. Gaining a single view of reputation upon which to take action with confidence has been beyond reach.

 

BOLDT’s new RISKR platform aims to change that. Developed in partnership with the investment data specialist Mettle Capital, it brings much greater rigour by cross-indexing reputation drivers for a business across trust, reputation and ESG (Environment, Society, Governance) dimensions to produce a standardised, singular view of reputation. That provides a meaningful and relevant basis for stakeholder mapping, horizon scanning and assessment of further data sources such as employee engagement and customer satisfaction to produce one view of the reputation factors that matter most.

When analysed over time RISKR providers actionable data for multiple stakeholders across the business, from the board to marketing to operating units, and gives a foundation for the broader communications activities of strategy development, planning, content creation and evaluation. 

Better understanding of what really drives reputation and who is most important in shaping it is also an important piece of the overall evolution of communications into a discipline that can drive business more deliberately. In business-to-business communications, activity to earn reputation has increasingly been aligned with performance marketing techniques that digitise aspects of communications planning, content development and media channel activation to enhance targeting. RISKR now adds the critical layer of enhanced reputation understanding, to drive more effective strategy, planning and evaluation of communications.

While we have been convinced of the need for a platform like this some time, the standardisation of the reputation drivers that can now be scrutinised and the analysis techniques developed by Mettle Capital mean we are launching this at a time when it has been needed like never before, given the acceleration of business transformation and heightened risks being created by COVID-19.

Reputation is one thing that we do now stand to have greater certainty around, providing we can make data analysis more effective to get the actionable information that really matters.