Corporate reputations are falling

Well, just to confirm our recent posting. The weekend edition of Asian Wall Street Journal (February 20-22, 2004) reports that the accounting scandals that have hit America over the last 2 years, take their toll.

In writes that Harris Interactive and the Reputation Institute found that three quarters of survey respondents (>6,000) graded big business's image either "not good" or "terrible".

The anger of the respondents runs deep - they also feel less positively inclined about customer service, the treatment of employees and the environmental policies at many companies measured in this survey.

Wow - that is bad. But what could be expected? After more than 2 years of ongoing retrenchments? Reports that millions of jobs will be outsourced oversees? I am not saying that retrenchments or outsourcing of jobs are bad in itself - reinvention is sometimes needed and demanded of companies and countries.

But ongoing communication and rational explanations are needed that clearly outline business cases for moves of the corporations.

Training programs should be offered for affected employees - they worked for the good of the company some many years.

If employees are scared, and worried to be the next on the bench, than something is wrong. And after all the retrenchments, when remaining employees do two jobs at once, who wonders that customer satisfaction is suffering?

And what about the environmental perspective? I am not that clear, but one respondent complained about Ford Motors. He says that its advertisements "show trucks and SUVs driving through beautiful landscape, but it fails to mention that by driving these vehicles, you are actually killing that beautiful landscape."

(By Asia Business Consulting)