Did you know that your reputation is your company's most valuable asset?

It's impossible to open a newspaper these days without reading about a company or government whose reputation is being scrutinised. It may be something the organisation has done.or something it has not done - witness the accusations against food and drinks companies for failing to communicate the nutritional implications of their products, and pharmaceutical companies who are criticised for exploiting the Third World because they refuse to donate their products.

Risk management is a well-known discipline, but it is usually focused on the more tangible risks: Financial and credit; operational and market risk; legal and regulatory risk. Increasingly, the global leaders - both businesses and governments - are realising that reputation has been the missing link in their risk management programmes, and this is showing up in a range of research amongst leading business executives. ReputationInc, a specialist consultancy in reputation management, calls reputation 'the missing quartile'. ReputationInc recently undertook the first survey on Reputation Management amongst business leaders across the GCC. The results reflected similar findings of a 2005 Economist Intelligence Unit survey on Reputation and its Risks:

• Reputation risk is considered the most important threat to businesses;
• Reputation risks have increased significantly;
• It is hard to manage (and most companies lack the tools and formal responsibilities for managing reputation);
• It is considered difficult to quantify, with none measuring or managing their reputation;
• Reputational problems are the most costly in financial terms.

What is important is that reputation is the result of a complex set of relationships and interactions; it is the result of communication and behaviour - not one without the other. Importantly, ReputationInc's survey findings showed that the CEO or COO is viewed as being ultimately responsible for the corporate reputation (48%). This seemed to acknowledge the growing recognition among business leaders of the need to actively plan and manage their reputations to improve their chances for success and avoid issues or crises later.

The survey also demonstrated that higher trustworthiness makes it easier for organisations to attract and retain stakeholders, such as customers and employees, with more than 50% of respondents seeing a favourable reputation as an indicator of trustworthiness.

And what creates this trustworthiness? Socrates knew the answer all those many centuries ago: "The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavour to be what you desire to appear".