The FINANCIAL -- How does a company earn a reputation? And what does it actually mean? To discuss these questions, some 30 participants from leading European businesses convened in Munich on January 25 for the first Allianz Reputation Day co-hosted by the Reputation Institute and Bain & Company.

According to Allianz insurance, One thing was clear: No single person or department is solely responsible for reputation. Everyone is responsible for how people see and judge a company – every day. The role of management and communicators is to focus the entire organization on reputation as an asset.

According to Charles Fombrun, founder of the Reputation Institute that co-hosted the event, trust is the critical element that ties people to a company. Most people buy a product more on what they think of the company than of its products. Companies need a system that makes the reputational factors visible and manageable.

Roland Kuntze from Telefonica/O2 presented Reputation Institution's RepTrak system that his company uses. The first step, he said, was to develop a "common language" to focus management attention, stakeholder expectations and actions for improvement. "It is not important what we measure," he said. "It is important what we do."

Emilio Galli-Zugaro from Allianz focused on restoring lost trust in his presentation. Research shows a clear correlation between both a company's external and internal communications and its customer loyalty. Most important is truly living the company's image. "Do as you say sounds like a homily from Grandma," he said, "but there is a lot of truth in it."

So can a communications department actually manage reputation? Jan Müller from Deutsche Post DHL explained that a reputation-based communications strategy only worked with total management support. Every employee also needs a clear sense of how they pay into an "account of reputation".

One common way to measure consumer support is the Net Promoter Score (NPS) presented by Andreas Dullweber from NPS pioneer Bain & co. Allianz is not the only company that uses NPS. Energy provider E.ON has an entire NPS Center of Excellence. As E.ON's Adam Elliott said, when you have your results you have to change the whole business.

To quote Felix Gress from Continental, how do you "unleash the potential energy" of everyone in the business to grow reputation? There are no simple answers to questions on that scale. Questions like these from the participants set the tone as much as the statements the speakers made and will drive future thinking.
Many of the participants were keen to continue the discussion. There is a clear sense of urgency: In an age of instant electronic messaging, a reputation that can take decades to build can be destroyed in a matter of days.

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