Siddhartha Mukherjee
The life of the CEO and CFO ‘collective’ has always been challenging. Amongst many KRAs, managing their organisation’s corporate brand reputation and leveraging that to insulate the balance sheet has been one of them. On average, corporate brand reputation accounts for closer to a third of an organisation’s market value.
Till a few years ago, due to various reasons, corporate brand reputation remained the unaddressed elephant in the room. Today, for the ‘collective’, this domain of reputation is clearer and more addressable. Why? The ‘collective’ has better access to much more external and internal data and ERP (efforts, resources, processes) management techniques at their disposal.
Reputation is the balance and the net outcome of four key blocks: (a) Business decisions for each stakeholder; (b) Promise factor to each stakeholder; (c) Communication management with each stakeholder; (d) Last-mile experience of each stakeholder.
The first block falls within the purview of the custodians — the board of directors and c-suites. The second and third blocks of promise effectiveness and communication management are steered by the corporate and marketing communication teams. This presents a lot of scope for improving effectiveness. Finally, the fourth block of the last-mile transaction experience is managed by the operations team across stakeholders. Scientific ERP management of each of these four blocks goes a long way in building demand for the business.
The utility of the above construct increases when one realises that a logo becomes a brand when you add promise. A brand earns its reputation only when it delivers on its promise through on-ground experience. The logo, promise, and brand are owned by the organisation. However, the brand’s reputation is owned by the stakeholder.
Today, the CEO-CFO ‘collective’ can and should invest in data and ERP management of each of the four blocks above. The consequence of imbalance in corporate brand reputation management and its impact on the balance sheet is getting etched on the wall. Board members are increasingly dedicating additional time to discuss subjects like risk, stakeholder management, and reputation.
The management of corporate brand reputation is a serious and dedicated 24x7x365 days affair. Its success depends on the convergence of many functions, data sets, and ERPs. CEO, CMO, etc. may not have the bandwidth to take this up with dedication. A good alternative could be to assign this to a newly created one like a chief reputation or brand officer. This desk will do a better job of addressing it.
Many large organisations are adding machinery towards addressing the issue which they ignored for years. Luckily for our startup community, they have enough case studies, learnings, and ERP management techniques to secure not only their market value but also the balance sheet.
The author is founder, Brand Balance