BRITAINS MOST ADMIRED COMPANIES – CORPORATE REPUTATION

After attending an event on the above subject hosted by Birmingham Business School, I felt it appropriate to provide feedback on some of the main discussion points.

Speakers - Sir Terry Leahy - Tesco Chief Executive

                   Prof D Michael Brown          

Sir Terry Leahy 

A couple of the key messages relayed by Sir Terry relating to corporate reputation: 

1.    Reputation is never owned, it is managed by society

2.    The most important message is to manage your company effectively and the reputation will follow

3.    Companies must have a clear purpose

4.    Companies must have key core values, in this case Tesco’s are based around service and respect 

Prof D Michael Brown 

Some of the key messages discussed during Prof Brown’s lecture: 

1.    The value of a company is often based on intangible assets, such as Company Reputation, Brand Reputation and Employee Know How

2.    This value can often be more than 80% as is the case in companies such as Diageo (86%)

3.    Companies enjoying a superior reputation in the BMAC survey, also have  a superior share price when compared to companies with a lesser performance in the BMAC survey, so there seems to be a direct link to the reputation of a company as judged by its peers and the share price

4.    Reputation is internally managed but externally assessed 

I am sure the above will create some interesting observations and comments from the CMI network but as professional managers and leaders I felt it was important to share some of the thoughts of Britain’s business leaders. 

Matthew Clayton AIBC

Ambassador - The Institute of Business Consulting and Chartered Management Institute

11th June 2010