Engaging with detractors, the best means to minimise brand damage

According to 2degrees, the world’s largest online sustainability network, companies that learn to collaborate with partners and NGOs stand to gain a distinct competitive advantage in the future. Recent years have seen communications professionals developing much more sophisticated strategies. Public relations programs are no longer just about generating column inches. They are increasingly about building relationships with organisations that can inform and improve the way they operate to bring real business benefits.
 
But how do you ensure that you are engaging with your stakeholders – making sure they know what you are doing well? And how do you guarantee you are reaching out to the right stakeholders when you want to tap into their views, expertise or advice?
 
Simply identifying a list of organisations and picking up the phone is not enough. There needs to be a clearly defined purpose and desired outcome for each organisation that you want to contact. Far too often, companies set up meetings with NGOs without knowing what they want to achieve from them. Setting a clear agenda will help prevent this and ensure that discussions are focused.
 
The importance of putting such strategies in place becomes obvious as soon as you look at what can happen to companies that fail to interact with NGOs. Some of the biggest companies in the world have suffered intense public criticism in recent years in part because they have not been open to talking to their critics. Those organisations all have a common denominator – they have an insular culture and lack systems for engaging and processing feedback from external stakeholders into business planning.
 
When reacting to stakeholder criticism, these companies respond through traditional media relations, arguing that the free market should decide the companies’ direction. When this approach fails to defuse the criticism, they tend to come up with home-made solutions that lack substantive external input and therefore fail to mollify critics.
 
Ultimately, a lack of proactive stakeholder engagement can lead to lawsuits, shareholder resolutions, direct action campaigns and in some cases, regulatory intervention
 
Today, many forward-thinking businesses appreciate the competitive benefits of proactive stakeholder engagement. For these companies, stakeholders are barometers who can help the firm anticipate and respond to issues before they reach crisis point while also identifying opportunities for business growth. As investors take more interest in the ethics of business, strategic stakeholder relations can help the business ensure it is dealing with human rights, supply chain, climate change and ethical trading issues in an appropriate manner, reducing risk to brand damage in the process.
 
A strategic and systematic stakeholder engagement programme will help a company grow in a sustainable fashion. It can equip a business to anticipate and respond to tomorrow's social and environmental problems today, and to avoid the conflicts that can harm brands.
 
Businesses that ignore this are missing out on an opportunity to gather fresh perspectives on important issues, to establish partnerships that will give campaigns credibility and to build relationships that will bring long-term business benefits.
____________________________________________________________________________________________________
Paul Thomas is the Communications Manager - Sustainability & Innovation at AkzoNobel