BUSINESS
HOME
CONTENT
04
06
08
12
16
18
Introduction
Business matters
The battlegrounds
Great expectations
TS
20
21
22
24
28
Conclusions:
businesses and the new reality
Tim Allan /
INTRODUCT
Welcome to Portlands guide exploring how businesses
can tackle the increasingly vocal and strategic threats to
their reputation and their ability to operate
TION
right: if you cannot convince your own
employees, the outside world will be
too much of a stretch.
Beth Rigby from the Financial Times
has seen media attitudes to business
reporting change both to reflect public
attitudes but also to shape them. She
gives us her take on how that process
has unfolded and what it means for
business today.
info@portland-communications.com
www.portland-communications.com
@PortlandComms
+44 (0)20 7842 0123
5/
Marc Sidwell /
BUSINESS M
H
/6
MATTERS
And for all the technological changes
and their new challenges, the heart of
business remains a very human
interaction: a mutually-beneficial
exchange. When firms forget the deal
they must always strike, even the
sleepiest of customers will eventually
be roused against them.
7
7 //
THE
BATTLEGROUNDS
/8
POLITICS
With politicians so keen to find the solutions for the
fallout from the economic crisis, businesses have
often taken the blame. A need to please voters has
made demands for higher taxes and more regulation
more vocal.
Parliamentary Select Committees have recently taken a
tough line against perceived bad business practice. The
reform of Select Committees, and the election of their
Chairs grant them more influence and higher media
profile than ever before. Many Committees are now very
eager to call business representatives to give evidence
under intense public scrutiny, most notably the Public
Accounts Committees grillings of corporations and
tax advisers.
MEDIA
Newspapers and broadcasters are of course businesses
themselves, and indeed have sustained their own
massive reputational damage in the past few years. Yet
their coverage of business has been gleeful in reporting
parliamentary criticism, and they are happy to publish
and re-publish estimates of tax avoided or whatever the
latest scandal is.
In 2007 there were 1,349 articles mentioning
corporation tax in the national press; by 2012 this had
more doubled to 2,715. In 2013 the number stood at
nearly 3,800.
LOCAL
One of the side effects of the decline in UK regional
manufacturing has been the loss of the type of town
where the presence of a local employer was felt not just
by the employees but by the members of the social club,
the supporters of the sports team and the local housing
tenants. This relationship created an intrinsic link
between the towns biggest employer and its residents.
Some businesses are still very closely associated with
local areas with a long history think heavy industry in
Barrow, Dagenham and Derby while others represent
more recent developments, such as the high-tech and
telecoms cluster in the Thames Valley. But as high
streets are perceived as becoming less locally distinctive,
and the grand patrician experiments of Bournville and
Port Sunlight are consigned to history, fewer businesses
are immediately identifiable with a particular locality.
9/
IN THE TILLS
Numerous ethical consumerism campaigns have
sprung up in the past few years, urging boycotts or
direct action against businesses. UK Uncut, 38 degrees
and others provide a focal point for annoyed citizens,
rallying activists to generate more attention for
their causes.
These short term campaigns can create moments of
crisis for businesses. More seriously, perceptions of
/ 10
Planning
Narrative
Context
Explain
Blogging
ATEGY
STR
Data
Infographics
The 4 gears of
GAGEMENT
Respond
Two way
DELIVERY
Rebut
EN
ANSPARENCY
TR
Tools
Social
Search
Capability
Empowerment
11 /
Alastair Campbell
GREAT
EXPECTA
Portlands Chief Strategy Adviser on the shift
in public perception of business
/ 12
ATIONS
13 /
/ 14
Corporate
reputations which
have taken decades to
build can be destroyed
in hours
Provided these expectations were met, no one
worried too much about the level of their profits.
It is an exaggeration to say the division was as
clear cut as public sector good, private sector bad.
But there was certainly a large element of public
sector selfless and private sector selfish.
In the last 25 years, this divide has disappeared.
We now view public services as customers rather
than as grateful recipients. Our expectations
are higher and our complaints louder. The public
services that could once take public support for
granted are now under the same pressure to
deliver as the private sector.
At the same time, we have become more
demanding of business. Milton Friedmans belief
that the only social responsibility of a company
was to increase profits now seems to belong to
Values always
mattered in the public
sector - now they
matter in the private
sector too
15 /
James O Shaughnessy
WHAT IS
BUSINESS FOR?
Portlands Chief Policy Adviser examines
a surprisingly difficult question
/ 16
Businesses are
just another form
of social institution,
created by people
in order to further
human flourishing
f you are a
conservative,
what are
businesses for?
The answer to that
rather innocuous, even
nave, question isnt
quite as simple as one
might think. And finding an
answer that chimed with the
views of voters, particularly swing
voters, was an essential challenge for
the new Conservative leader in 2005 as he
sought to modernise the Party and lead it out of
the electoral wilderness.
showing social
responsibility and
contributing to the
creation of a
Big Society.
17 /
Elizabeth Rigby /
BUSINESS IN
THE MEDIA:
REFLECTIONS
AND PERCEPTIONS
19 /
Claire McCartney /
BUSINESSES AND
THEIR EMPLOYEES:
Businesses which can follow these steps and not only define but live a shared purpose
and employer brand will stand a much greater chance of communicating their social
value to both employees and the wider world.
/ 20
Stephen Howard /
LEADERS AND
BUSINESS:
Integrating
responsible
business
practice into a
company can
create a happy
and engaged
workforce...
BE PREPARED FOR
THE FUTURE
Dorothe DHerde /
GOING BEYOND
DOING WELL
BY DOING GOOD
/ 22
23 /
BUSINESSS COMMUN
TROUBLE: HOW BAD
ComRes has conducted extensive research across
Britain citizens and MPs to gauge feeling about how
people see the value of business today.
Three findings stand out:
Regardless of their own
views, people feel like
the mood around them
is worsening
ComRes interviewed 2,015 GB adults online between 29th and 30th May 2013. Data were weighted be gender, age and region to
be representative of all GB adults aged 18+. A bespoke online qualitative group was hen conducted with 30-40 GB adults, between
4th and 10th June 2013. ComRes also conducted a snap poll of 50 MPs online (22 Labour, 21 Conservative, 4 Liberal Democrat
and 3 from other parties) between 29th May 2013 and 5th June 2013. Due to the small sample size, the survey is not weighted to
be representative of the House. ComRes is a member of the British Polling Council and abides by its rules. Full data tables can be
found at www.comres.co.uk
/ 24
Portland
NICATION
IS IT?
25 /
Car manufacturing
Banks
Think business
is too focused
on big profits
46% 49%
PRIVATE
sector
employees
PUBLIC
sector
employees
33% 42%
In the
SOUTH
EAST
In the
NORTH
EAST
72%
67%
MPs
PUBLIC
49%
44%
14%
When businesses pay their taxes
they also support the economy
/ 26
Portland
Socially
responsible
Good for
Britain
64%
36%
fewer than 50
employees
Nationality
Size
28%
51%
say businesses
which operate in
the UK and other
EU countries, are
trustworthy
say businesses
which operate
worldwide from a
base in the UK are
trustworthy
96%
94%
79%
of MPs say
their experience
as customer
inform their
views as a
business
51%
43%
of the public say
reliability is in
the top three
factors
78%
70%
70%
67%
78%
of MPs say
how much tax a
business pays in
the UK
80%
of people aged
65 or over
60%
of 18-24
years old
Believe tax is
important to their
view of a business
59%
86%
of MPs say the
same of
businesses
in their
constituency
18%
27 /
Oliver Pauley /
Partner, Portland
CONCLUSIONS:
BUSINESSES
AND THE NEW
REALITY
/ 28
Every business,
even with the most
rudimentary internal
communications
strategy, must ensure its
employees are willing and
eager to work for it
Tell the right story
One of the big findings from the ComRes research was
that people are generally better disposed towards their
own employer than they were business in general and
intriguingly they felt even more favourably towards
businesses that employed their friends or family. It
may of course be that this is entirely down to the wage
packet. But this seems unlikely.
Every business, even with the most rudimentary
internal communications strategy, must ensure its
employees are willing and eager to work for it. Unless
the sole means of achieving this motivation is payment
(and undoubtedly in some cases it will be), then
workers must have some understanding of their place
in a broader mission.
The sort of narrative that works for this internal
audience will often be based around investment in
people, development of careers, opportunities for
growth and the web of relationships that exist with
the world beyond. At its best it goes beyond a simple
description of what the business does (or what it sells)
and says something more about what the business
stands for.
Many businesses have invested heavily in their external
brand, but as Claire McCartney of the CIPD points
/ 30
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