Are you familiar with this popular saying, “It doesn’t matter what other people think of you, what matters is what you think of yourself”? This advice is the easiest to give but the hardest to take. As an individual, you might believe that as long as you do good, it does not matter what society thinks about you. What matters the most is, what you think about yourself.

However, that advice is not necessarily true for some reasons. For example, if you never listen to what others say about you, you might never improve as an individual. The worst impact is that you will have a bad reputation. This does not only apply to individuals but businesses as well. When a company reputation is bad, a business will not run well because consumers only come to buy a product that comes with high quality and high reputation.

See also: Employer Brand Check: Is Your Online Reputation Discouraging Jobseekers?

But why reputation?

Cambridge dictionary describes reputation as an opinion that people, in general, have about someone or something. Reputation shows how much people respect or admire your business or its people, based on past behaviour or character. That said, the reputation of your company is what determines your company’s success in society and consumers.

A case study by Reputation Institute showed that reputation is the measure of emotional connection between an individual and a company. There is a close tie between a company’s reputation and brands, as having an excellent company’s reputation will result in a strong brand and vice versa. This, in turn, helps boost clients or consumers’ satisfaction. The study also noted that corporate reputation gives a great impact on crisis management, talent management, entry to a new market, risk of increased regulations, sales, and cost of capital. As a result, businesses can thrive in global competitiveness by having a good reputation amongst stakeholders and consumers.

“The way to gain a good reputation to be what you desire to appear.” – Socrates

Recent insight from Reputation Institute revealed that reputation becomes a key driver to business success. It is more widely used in measuring the effectiveness of corporate communication and reputation management initiatives. In 2014, 63 percent of respondents cited that reputation had grown over the past 3 years. Most companies were still in their earlier stages of reputation journey and were not fully prepared in managing a company’s reputation. In 2018, more companies stated that they are ready to take a reputation as their core strategy for business. However, they are not yet equipped with good steps and plan.

In 2019, it is predicted that corporate reputation will be more important than ever. Almost half (45 percent) respondents stated that corporate reputation will be a higher priority over the next 2-3 years, while 88 percent believed that corporate brand reputation is an average-to-high priority for senior executives and board members.

Additionally, within the next 18 months, everyone involved in business especially for CCO should priorities these key action plan to build reputation awareness:

1. Connecting the dots from marketing and corporate communication to stakeholder perceptions and business results.
2. Measuring reputation across key stakeholders to understand risk and opportunities.
3. Integrating stakeholders’ knowledge and expectations into integrated communication across different touch points.
4. Developing/enhancing corporate responsibility (CR) program and efforts.
5. Building a business case for reputation management.
6. Understanding the macro-trends and gauging what most important from it, including trade tariffs, female empowerments, political polarisation, nationalism vs. globalism, fake news, CEO activism, employer of choice, market influencers, cyber-attacks / data privacy, higher purpose, and so forth.

Read also: 10 Macro Trends in 2019 Every Executive Should Know