Michael D. Moberly, Principal, Founder, kpstrat

Mitigating business reputation risk and that which materializes – matriculates to leaders, is fiduciarily obliged to not be conceived or executed to ‘remove or bury adverse content or evidence ex post facto…

• should such descriptions represent a perspective held in a business you are associated, it may be professionally, perhaps ethically prudent to consider, if you have not already done so, an exit plan.

It is nearing inevitable today, and for the foreseeable future (substantially more probable) that such or similar perspectives, are viably – sustainably suspect.

There is a proliferation of business service providers which have variously re-constituted and re-marketed previous offerings to characterize business reputation in attractively narrow, low impact, and always fixable contexts, e.g.,

• on-line-able, dash-boardable, scorecard-able, hide-able, erase-able, and trust-able to an external third party provider, to
• manage and presumably monitor from afar, therefore requiring little, if any, internal always on oversight or resources.

Such characterizations simplistically convey business reputation risks as narrow – adverse on-line – social media content, which is subject to being wholly removed, buried, or manipulated by,

• substituting – replacing same with SEO defined – aligned content which analytically (magically) generates ‘high ranking’ positive content, thereby
• delivering aspirational outcomes at minimal cost, downtime, and reaction.

I respectfully encourage readers to reflect on such ‘quick fix’ notions, i.e., is it really that simple and straightforward?  I am hard pressed to recognize a business reputation risk circumstance in which ‘recovery’ is consistently easy, simple, quick, or assured.

Many – most business reputation risks materialize today, also, irrespective of sector or stage, its likely they do so…

• at the will and/or behavior of others,
• at keystroke speeds, and
• may resonate globally – instantaneously via legitimate business online as well as agenda driven news sites, and
• most all present probabilities to cascade (adversely) through an enterprise and their respective consumer, supply, investor, employee, and value chains.

To characterize either, as easily redeemable and/or reversible at low cost – low impact, is at best, imprudent.

For every business which I am familiar, reputation is comprised of…

• various levels, layers, and inter-twined collaborations and embeds of intellectual, structural, relationship, and cultural-operational capital, ala intangible assets,

• which variously contribute to a business’s value, competitive advantage, attractivity, investibility, sustainability, growth – wealth creation potential, and revenue generation capability – capacity.

I respectfully encourage readers to share an obligation to consider the efficacy and reality of marketing which characterize same are quick-fixes – quick-repairs which will not distract, suspect.   

Also, I respectfully invite readers to consider the variously unconventional ‘business reputation risk’ perspectives conveyed in this series of posts at Business Intangible Asset Blog.