Managing Corporate Reputation

The Co-op Bank has over a century built its reputation as being an ethical-based icon. Built in 1844, the bank has strived to retain its corporate reputation as its primary effective market performance strategy. Nevertheless, despite its impeccable reputation, the bank announced it was for sale in February 2017. This is a discussion of the Co-op Banks corporate reputation problems that offers solutions on how to improve the companys overall identity, image, brand, and reputation. The discuss will also propose the methods that the company can employ to gain positive publicity as it prepares to be sold. Ultimately, the essay will discuss the corporate reputation management strategies that the bank can employ to promote a strong corporate reputation for the corporation overall after it has been sold and beyond 2017.

Is your time best spent reading someone else’s essay? Get a 100% original essay FROM A CERTIFIED WRITER!

Save 25%

Co-op Banks Corporate Reputational Problems

The Co-op Bank corporate reputation crisis started in 2009 after its merger with the Britannia Building Society corporation. The merger started well, but it later led to the development of massive losses that compromised the companys reputation. The biggest loss occurred in 2013, and it amounted to a total of 700 million (Kollewe & Treanor, 2015). This loss was substantial, and it was considered to be the largest loss that ever occurred in the British banking history. In 2013, Co-op Bank corporate reputation was also affected by the collapse of its plans to acquire approximately 600 branches belonging to the Lloyds banks. This phenomenon resulted into the wastage of four years of negotiation between the two banks that had started in 2009.

In the year 2014, the Co-op Banks corporate reputation was further harmed by the criminal conviction of Paul Flowers, a top official at the bank (Pidd, 2014). Flowers was charged with dealing in drugs, and he was forced to resign from his corporate position. This became a large embarrassment for the bank and even affected its public ethical image. Additionally, the Co-op Bank further announced a loss of 477 million for the financial period that ended in 2016 (Kollewe & Treanor, 2015). This collective streak of failures by the bank immensely compromised its corporate reputation among its more than 4 million customers, situated in different parts of the world.

Strategies That the Co-op Bank Can Use to Manage a Strong Corporate Reputation

Reputation is considered to be a highly prized corporate asset that all organizational leaders should maintain. After the Co-op Bank has been sold and beyond, there are several methodologies that the company can employ to measure its reputation. Such strategies will aid in ensuring that the Bank continues to build on its reputation, for its overall long-term market performance. The corporate reputation management strategies can be categorized into two divisions; quantitative and qualitative approaches.

Qualitative Approaches

Reputation Quotient: Harris-Fombrum developed this method, and it evaluates a companys reputation through analyzing the perceptions of all groups of stakeholders in a corporation. Such groups could be consumers, competitors, employees as well as investors. Additionally, the quotient is considered to be a result of properly combining six forms of conceptual dimensions. The dimensions include an emotional appeal, financial performance, workplace environment, products and services, vision and leadership as well as social and environmental responsibility. Such dimensions should be evaluated by a group of the companys managers in two subsequent phases. The phases include the nominations and rating phases.

Reputation Index: The Co-op Bank can also use the reputation index methodology to evaluate its corporate performance. The method was developed in 2003, and it evaluated the non-quantitative factors created by unique groups of stakeholders in a corporation. Such factors include leadership, strategy employed innovation and organizational culture of the corporation. The stakeholders groups are offered a score ranging between 1 and 9 and the weights computed by the company managers on the basis of experience. Ultimately, the derived score is rated as per the predefined subjective thresholds.

RepTrak System: The Reputation Institute developed the method, and it is designed to evaluate the performance of a corporation on a yearly basis. It measures a companys reputation through a review of 60,000 interviews from a companys consumers. All the interviews are performed online, and the participants must originate from at least 27 different countries (Trompenaars & Coebergh, 2014). The RepTrak reputation evaluation system is based on seven primary models of evaluation that are useful for developing strategic responses of facilitating communication between a corporation and its stakeholders. The strength of this method lays on the large dimensions availed to the sample population. Such dimensions are employed for standardizing the reputation results gained on a companys products on the basis of consumers confidence and long term experience in using the products.

Fortune's Most Admired Companies Method: The Co-op Bank can also use this methodology to evaluate its level of corporate reputation among its customers from different parts of the world. This methodology ranks 100 of the top American companies based on reputation. Additionally, the method employs extensive surveys consisting 57 questions that are issued to a team of 100,000 participants (Kossovsky, 2012). The participants include financial analysts, business executives as well as chief executive officers.

Cornelissens Corporate Communication Theory: Professor Joep P. Cornelissen has through the theory of corporate communication sufficiently illustrated how a corporation could retain its corporate image despite its internal or external challenges (Cornelissen, 2014). According to Cornelissen, managers should adopt strategic and tactical communication skills, when communicating to all the other stakeholders of the corporations. Additionally, Cornelissen argues that good communication creates an environment conducive to strategic decision making due to the collaborative efforts of all persons involved. This means that a manager can attain essential positive insights of correcting a prevailing corporate issue from other corporate stakeholders.

Essentially, this aids in maintaining a good corporate image. This method can be classified to a qualitative technique as it is focused on shaping the interaction behavior of personnel within an organization. The Co-op Bank can also utilize this technique in ensuring that all the stakeholders have a positive description of the companys performance both in the internal and external environment of the business. This will help in promoting and retaining the companys image despite its financial problems it may be currently facing.

The Quantitative Approaches

Intellectual Capital approach: This technique is developed based on the appropriate estimation of five primary dimensions namely copyrights, exclusive rights, trademarks, authorizations as well as service marks. The relative values of the five dimensions can be traced in the balance sheets. The managers in the company can use the amortization analysis of the balance sheets to check the values of the stated dimensions. Consequently, the value of such dimensions can be used to reflect on the status of the corporations reputation in the market. Nevertheless, the companys management team should consider that this approach does not project the sudden occurrences that may take place and affect the corporations reputation immensely.

Accounting Approach: This methodology is developed for the evaluation as well as analysis of a companys intangible assets. For this reason, it is imperative for a manager to introduce a form of fair value assessment. In this form of assessment, a companys gross reputation can be developed by computing the differences between its reputation of assets with the reputation for its liabilities.

Marketing Approach: This method is based on measuring a companys brand to formulate the entitys reputation in the target market. This approach considers all the loyalties that a company can gather for itself, as a result of conferring its products. The more a company can gather such loyalties, the greater its reputation in the market.

Ensuring the Company Gains Positive Publicity, As It Prepares to Be Sold

There are various strategies that the Co-op Bank can employ to ensure that they retain a positive publicity, even as it prepares to be sold. First, the corporation should aggressively use the media to explain the advantages it will gain after being acquired by a bigger corporation. Such an aggressive publicity will offer the stakeholders affected by the sale an assurance of the continued future performance of the Corporation. Additionally, the management team should use the media to explain to its stakeholders about the entitys recovery manifestos for the oncoming financial periods.

Through being forward about the future recovery plans of the corporation, the entity will ensure that a significant number of customers do not move their business to competitor banks. It will also seal any room for massive criticism pertaining the performance of the business among its stakeholders. If not mitigated, such negative criticism can immensely deface the corporate reputation of the Co-op Bank. In addition, the Co-op Bank should hold regular stakeholders meetings in addition to the annual general meetings (AGM), where the managers can explain the situation and the progress of the sale process.

Developing and Managing a Strong Corporate Reputation for The Company Overall

Preparing Great Press Release

The Co-op Bank managers can also develop well-prepared press release reports periodically detailing the continued performance of the corporation. Such press release can be employed to communicate about any success that the corporation has attained at a certain time during a financial period. Additionally, such press release should be professionally prepared and easy to be comprehended by the targeted audience. A good track history of corporations success published in a series of the press release can immensely aid in developing and controlling the Co-op Banks reputation.

Establish New and Unique Brands

The Co-op Bank should also identify unique products that are not available in the market. It could them adopt such unique products and use them to promote its reputation in the market. The identified products should offer substantial benefits to the target customers. That is to up to the extent that numerous customers can recognize the efficiency of brand offered by the Co-op Bank. The efficiency of the services provided to customers can immensely help the Co-op Bank to develop and manage its corporate reputation in the oncoming years.

Source and Employ Testimonials

Testimonials are considered to be among the strongest methods of enhancing the credibility of a business products during promotion and advertising. As such, the Co-op Bank should attain substantial testimonials of their excellent services from loyal customers who have been functioning with the bank for a long time. Such testimonials could then be published via media sources such as social media platforms, the companys websites as well as through radio and television advertising. If thousands of potential and current customers to the bank access such testimonials, it could aid in developing a solid corporate reputation for the Co-op Bank.

Unique Corporate Social R...