Thursday, March 19, 2009

Half of Corporate “Risk Managers” Ignore Reputation Risks


I don’t know about you, but if my job function included “risk management” I’d more than likely make sure that risks to the company’s reputation were taken into consideration–wouldn’t you?

Well, according to The Conference Board Reputation Risk Research Working Group and a survey of 148 risk management executives of major corporations, only 49% said that the management of reputation risk was highly integrated with their enterprise risk management (ERM) function.

Maybe the lack of concern is because the role of “reputation risk management” isn’t really something you want your typical risk management guy worrying about–let him worry about the liability insurance and employee identity-cards.

Instead, let the chief PR guy or head of marketing take responsibility for managing and monitoring the company’s reputation management because right now, only 34% of risk managers give a hoot about monitoring social media and a mere 10% actively participate. Can you imagine if your VP of communications informed you that he wasn’t too worried about social media?

The report isn’t all bad news. While risk managers may not quite “get it” they are at least making an effort to better understand reputation management with 81% saying they’ve increased their focus on reputation management over the past 3 years.

Which leads me to a question. Who do you think should be responsible for a company’s reputation management? A risk manager, marketing, PR, or all of the above?

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