TATA STEEL LEADS NIELSEN’S CORPORATE IMAGE MONITOR

By: Surekha Poddar, ED, Consumer Research, Nielsen

Wipro, Aditya Birla Nuvo, Tata Motors and Bharti Airtel and RIL emerge as the most innovative companies in India

nfosys drops seven notches on the Company Reputation Index compared to 2008 survey, Aditya Birla Nuvo enters the top 10, while L&T and HDFC drop out of the top ten in 2010

Tata Steel tops the latest round of the Nielsen India Corporate Image Monitor survey, the long running study which measures the reputation of leading corporates on a variety of parameters. Tata Motors, Aditya Birla Nuvo, Wipro and Bharti Airtel complete the top five companies in the list. Compared to the previous round L&T, HDFC and Bajaj Auto have exited the top ten and Aditya Birla Nuvo is a new entrant. The other notable change was Infosys dropping seven places.

Table 1: Top 10 Corporates- Nielsen Corporate Reputation Index

Source: Nielsen Corporate Image Monitor

The Corporate Image Monitor measures people’s perceptions of image and reputation of India’s leading companies, across sectors and serves as an important indicator of the strength of the corporate brand. It is a summation of the Organization’s past actions, experiences of the stakeholder as well as communication, in the eyes of the Internal and external stakeholder.

The stakeholders interviewed in the study included policy makers, influence groups, the financial community, investors, corporate executives, the corporate elite and the general public.

The strongest elements driving corporate reputation are what it offers to the customers- i.e. its service levels and its product quality. Across all stakeholder segments, these parameters are seen to have a strong influence in the assessment of an organization’s reputation. Other factors which are important are financial performance and its talent pool.

Innovation, pace of growth & the extent of media visibility also play a subliminal role in shaping reputations. While these are not directly cited by stakeholders to influence reputation, deeper analysis reveals that firms which perform well on these aspects in general, tend to have stronger reputations. Certain factors such as vision and leadership are considered as ‘hygiene’ – i.e. a given trait that leading corporates are expected to be strong on.

According to the study, corporates that have more resilient brands manage to do so because they are able to build perception around factors that various stakeholders such as the general public, investors, policy makers and managerial talent consider important. Corporate reputation is a very critical factor that drives stakeholder’s perception about a company and thereby it’s sustained growth. It is evident from the Nielsen survey that most leading companies in India have a strategy in place aligned to their business needs to nurture and enhance their corporate image to boost stakeholder confidence.

Innovation: an important element of corporate reputation

The study showed that ‘Being Innovative’ is an increasingly important element in shaping a company’s reputation amongst key stakeholders in the study namely policy makers, influencers, corporate executives and the corporate elite. The focus on innovation that we see by a lot of corporates is being driven by the fact that innovative organizations are seen as having greater future potential and are responsive to consumer needs. As an indicator, it also clearly separates those organizations that have been successful at showcasing their innovation versus those that need to work much harder on this area.

Wipro, Bharti Airtel and TCS, lead the ‘Innovators’ in the service sector, while Aditya Birla Nuvo, Tata Motors and RIL, constituted the top three most innovate companies in the product category.

Table 2: Top 3 Most Innovative Corporates

Source: Nielsen Corporate Image Monitor

Priorities – Public Health and Environmen

While a corporate’s social responsibility agenda is yet to play a pivotal role in shaping the reputation, it does play a role in certain stakeholder segments. A greater need for Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) in India has brought companies who initiate and participate in CSR activities into the limelight and increased public expectations of them.

In the 2010 study, respondents felt that CSR activities of corporates should be concentrated around issues pertaining to public health and the environment.

About Corporate Image Monitor

The Nielsen Corporate Image Monitor is an annual syndicated study conducted by The Nielsen Company. It is designed to track the reputation of the leading Indian companies and provides actionable insights that help companies build their corporate brand. In its tenth year, the Corporate Image Monitor covers the top listed companies of India across industries. The selection of companies for the survey is based on - Market Capitalization, Sales & Assets. Taking a simple average, a single score is calculated for each company and the final list of companies is drawn up. A few additional companies were added on the basis Nielsen’s internal assessment. Nielsen Corporate Image Monitor 2010 represents the views of 1705 people from different walks of life across the top seven metros. The Nielsen Corporate Reputation Index is a singular measure which encapsulates the performance of different corporates on 24 attributes. It takes into account the importance of each attribute in contributing to reputation.

About Nielsen

Nielsen Holdings N.V. (NYSE: NLSN) is a global information and measurement company with leading market positions in marketing and consumer information, television and other media measurement, online intelligence, mobile measurement, trade shows and related properties. Nielsen has a presence in approximately 100 countries, with headquarters in New York, USA and Diemen, the Netherlands. For more information,please visit www.nielsen.com

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