Corporate Reputation Management

Corporate reputation is a valuable asset. As the 2007 Aon Global Risk Management Survey noted, reputation is also one of the most difficult of assets to protect; it takes years to build but can be destroyed overnight.

Increased focus on corporate governance and risk management, including reputation management, have placed increased pressure upon directors to discharge their duty to ensure that management has identified potential risks to reputation and taken reasonable steps to minimise or mitigate them. Moreover, globalisation and an explosion in communication channels make this duty more challenging.

Corporate crises often arise through stakeholder dissatisfaction which results in a complaint being taken outside the company’s dispute resolution process, eg to the media, regulatory authorities, NGOs, unions or through the courts. Even the best run companies have had to contend with litigation, prosecutions or investigations by ASIC, the ACCC, WorkCover, the EPA, Today Tonight and A Current Affair. Even if the company is later exonerated, some mud may stick.

A company’s dilemma in such circumstances is how to reconcile potentially conflicting advice from different quarters and come up with an integrated solution to the problem, rather than piecemeal measures developed in separate silos.