With risk to reputation and brand now the top concerns of Australian business leaders, AON explains the changing nature of marketing in the c-suite
Risk to reputation and brand remains the top concern of business leaders in Australia, and it's the marketing chief who must remain front and centre to mitigate this risk, according to Aon.
Aon’s recent 2019 Global Risk Management Survey found economic slowdown and volatile market conditions have led to the lowest levels of global risk readiness in 12 years, impacting the c-suite’s ability to manage volatility and maximise performance.
And brand concerns have risen as a result. According to the report, in 2017, Australian respondents ranked regulatory and legislative change as the top risk facing local business. Two years later, however, this risk has receded as a concern to local business, and damage to brand and reputation tops the list.
Aon Australia managing director for large clients, Bruce Gordon, told CMO brand and reputation risk has always been at or near the pinnacle of risk issues since Aon created the Global Risk Management Survey more than a decade ago.
“What is beyond dispute is the existential threat damage to brand and reputation can present to organisations. The increase in risk complexity/interconnectivity evident across all walks of commerce and industry has been accompanied by ever-accelerating public access to social media - everybody’s a broadcaster and everyone has a platform from which to disseminate their opinion,” he said.
“In an environment where speed can often trump accuracy, the wheels of justice grind slowly. The importance of organisations identifying, analysing and evaluating their exposure to brand and reputation risk, and then mitigating/managing it in a pre-emptive manner, cannot be overstated.”
Read more: How to handle a brand reputation crisis
Brand reputation: Why marketers need to be making data security a priority
Of course, this all requires the CMO to be front and centre, Gordon said. “The planning process needs to embrace both how to avoid loss and how to contain it. Moreover, the opportunity is there for CMOs to step into this space, working with their organisations’ other critical risk assets," he said.
“So if anything, the role of the CMO is becoming more important in dealing effectively with brand and reputation risk.
“Whether it is the threat of cyber-attacks and cybersecurity, or a major project failure, the prevalence of social media and the 24/7 news cycle has the potential to create rapid contagion and this can have an immediate and lasting impact on an organisation’s shareholder value and reputation,” Gordon added.
Failure to attract or retain top talent also remains a top 10 concern for Australian business, at number seven, unchanged on 2017, but has receded in terms of deemed significance in the rest of the world.
“Australian businesses are finding themselves operating in a difficult environment, with recent changes to sponsored employment visas limiting organisations’ ability to source top talent from overseas. It therefore comes as no surprise that this risk issue should rank higher in the consciousness of Australian business leaders,” Gordon said.
Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO Australia conversation on LinkedIn: CMO Australia, join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia, or check us out on Google+: google.com/+CmoAu
In this latest episode of our conversations over a cuppa with CMO, we catch up with the delightful Pip Arthur, Microsoft Australia's chief marketing officer and communications director, to talk about thinking differently, delivering on B2B connection in the crisis, brand purpose and marketing transformation.
The lessons emerging from a year like 2020 are what make the highlights, not necessarily what we gained. One of these is renewed emphasis on sustainability, and by this, I mean complete circular sustainability.
The past 12 months have been a confronting time for marketers, with each week seemingly bringing a new challenge. Some of the more notable impacts have been customer-centric, driven by shifting priorities, new consumption habits and expectation transfer.
ABM has been the buzzword in digital marketing for a while now, but I feel many companies are yet to really harness its power. The most important elements of ABM are to: Identify the right accounts; listen to these tracked accounts; and hyper-personalise your content to these accounts to truly engage them. It’s this third step where most companies struggle.
Dear buyer/ buyer Mandate,We are direct end seller refinery company for the supply of Petroleum products.We have all available in tank, J...
Russian oil & gas trading llc
Starwood VP of marketing: Managing customer expectations requires emotional credit
Having an effective Point of Sale system implemented in your retail store can streamline the transactions and data management activities....
Sheetal Kamble
Jurlique’s move to mobile POS set to enhance customer experience
Thanks for another excellent post. Where else could anybody get that type of info in such an ideal way of writing? In my opinion, my seek...
Stephan jordan
6 Mobile Marketing Trends to Leverage in 2014
Hey there! Very interesting article, thank you for your input! I found particularly interesting the part where you mentioned that certain...
Martin Valovič
Companies don’t have policies to disrupt traditional business models: Forrester’s McQuivey
I too am regularly surprised at how little care a large swathe of consumers take over the sharing and use of their personal data. As a m...
Catherine Stenson
Have customers really changed? - Marketing edge - CMO Australia