Image Audit - Frequently asked questions

What is image audit? 

Image audit is a research tool to measure the hidden perception of internal and external stakeholders.  Internal stakeholders are employees and external stakeholders are customers, media, regulatory authorities, general public, etc.  In other words, Image audit is a barometer to measure the internal and external image.

Generally the employees are highly closed and do not reveal their perceptions about the functions of the management.  Is it possible to measure the hidden perception of the employees?

Yes. It is possible to extract the hidden perceptions of internal stakeholders.  It  depends on the manner in which the Image Audit is administered on the employees.  The administrator of the audit should create a confidence amongst the employees that the individual datasheet so collected would not be handed over to the management and only the consolidated opinion would be passed on to the management. Further the audit is to be conducted anonymously, so that the respondent is not identified.

What is the basic difference between market research conducted by different organisations and the image audit?

Generally market research is being done for consumer products. In this case, target audience  are not having any fear or reservation about their views on the product.  In the Image Audit, we conduct an audit of the perception of the employees, who are really afraid of giving out their views to others for their personal reasons.  In the market research, identity of the respondent is not an issue.  In the image audit, identity is kept anonymous.  Image Audit  deals with a  highly sensitive issue and it is mind oriented.  If not administered carefully, the target audience will not come out with basic perceptions.

Is there any difference between the image audit conducted during the emotional situations and during calm situations?

yes definitely.  Normally image audit is to capture the basic perception of the target audience.  Normally basic perception is likely to oscillate due to emotions.  This oscillation is only temporary and will come back in due course.  When image audit is conducted during this situation, when there is an oscillation of basic perception, the output may not reveal the realistic situation.  We need to wait for the time, when the target audience is not affected by emotions.  For an example, if an employee gets a cash reward from the management, on that day, he would perceive the management better due to emotions.  Another person, who is not getting the reward may rate poorly.  These phenomena are only temporary and they will be back to normalcy after a week or so.

For any additional information, send a mail to prpoint@gmail.com.

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Manage the perception to achieve business results

S Narendra

* S Narendra (Former Information Advisor to Prime Minister of India)

I am happy to be back among fellow professionals of Chennai. I compliment the Public Sector PR Forum for the meticulous care with which the Forum and the brains, arms & legs behind the Forum, has set up this workshop, exhibition on PR and the presentations.

The theme of today’s workshop constitutes the core concern of the communicator of an organisation, call him by whatever designation you like. He requires professional standing and courage and confidence to bare this subject, particularly to an organisation or to a person who is employing you and me.

If the employers care to have value for the money, he or she will encourage us to provide more of image . A person is a very poor CEO who shoots down the messenger of bad news. No Prime Minister in any monarchy dared to tell the emperor that he had no clothes. I am not suggesting that an organisations communicator’s role is to convey only the bad news. Often in our personal lives, the mirror tells us what any human close to us failed to tell us, including the fact that our fly is open.

In the orient, especially, east Asia, if some one loses face,. He will not show up in public again. In the old school of management, when "company" was not yet a Corporation as is the fashion today, the balance sheet nominally, gave a value to the goodwill enjoyed by the company. In the sale transactions, an amount was paid towards ‘goodwill’. In assessing a society by country’s growth, economists have developed the concept of ‘social capital’ built. It is not just the sum total of numerous development indices, but the capacity of a community of citizens to actively participate in a democratic discourse.

In the teaching material available to us whether it is management or communication and Public relations, we borrow heavily from the western experience and literature. It is rich and required. Image management or Perception Management have acquired a mystique appeal, sound complicated and somewhat alien. It is because we don’t relate such terms and concepts to our own language and traditions. If I utter the same words in our language, I am sure all of you here would say "oh! I know it. It is old hat "

You have heard the word "pratibimba". ‘prati" is representation or copy original is ‘bimba’ the ‘substance’, the inner light, energy. Another word ‘swayam prakasha’ leading to ‘sarva prakasha’.

Le us go to the meaning of "Image". The Dictionary says it is ‘likeness’, ‘ an appearance’, ‘that which closely resembles anything’ a representation in mind. It is ‘pratibimnba’.

From this we can understand ‘perception’. The word is derived from ‘perceive’ i.e. to become aware of through senses; to get the knowledge of my mind. It comes from Latin ‘per’ i.e. thoroughly and ‘capere’ i.e. to take. The dictionary does not help much. It says perception is ‘the power of perceiving’.

I said earlier that ‘perception’ is to become aware of through the senses. In our language it means that whatever the communication the mind receives through ‘indriyas’ or the sensing organs about the outer environment.

On  ‘ auditing’, I read some books to simplify this. All of us seem to be afraid of this function performed by an outside agency. It relates examination, most often of accounts by an authorised person. Examination itself means a careful, detailed, formal study designed to uncover pertinent facts or information. It is scrutiny at its best.

We have chosen a very difficult topic for discussion today. It is a conjunction of two words or two different words. In Physics, Image is a reflection of something or an object. How does , one subject something that is a representation in mind to a careful, detailed, formal study designed to uncover pertinent facts or information. Are you a mind reader or a psychic you may ask.

We in the business of PR are the authorised persons or auditors, since it is our job to bring about an ‘understanding’ of the organisations goals and its working during the different publics. We are addressing the cerebral world as well as the inter world. Adi Shankara cautions the human against the deceptive reality – a rope being mistaken for a snake. It is sagely caution in Business.

‘Image’ has 3 aspects to its. First is the self-image. Every Organisation sets goals, assembles resources from a variety of sources, uses such resources to achieve the goal. Often the goals set define the ‘Image" and there is a self-perception of what you think you are. That is ‘ Bimba’. While interacting with the environment, the organisation transmits or communicates the goals along with the image.

Image as perceived by others is a complex mixture of the organisation’s interactions. Its competitors interactions, expectations of the ‘I’s in the circle, Image is Corporate Identity ‘plus’. In marketing and advertising, we often use the word ‘Brand Equity’. Again, I would stress that ‘Image’ is something more than this "Branch equity’.

Experts call this as the ‘PERCEPTUAL ASSETS’ which affect business results. Personality, I feel it is somewhat constricted view of the Assets, a typical financial auditors view.

Now comes the question of how to audit the Perceptual Assets or liabilities for drawing up a MIS – oriented balance sheet. The typical auditor’s report concentrates on the financial results, the ‘dividend’ to the shareholders. Over centuries auditors have developed Matrices, the result of their endeavour is like an ‘autopsy’, a post-event examination. On the other hand, Audit of ‘Perceptual Assets’ is like an internal Financial Advisors or Company Secretary’s monthly or quarterly ‘Memo’. We loosely understand them in our profession as ‘Feed-back’.

No Matrices have been formulated, no homework for establishing benchmark, are available. It is routine, often intuitive, dependent on the style of top management, not driven by the Organisation’s communication division. More often than not it comes in various ways from the Marketing Division.

It is a fact that today there are not many credible Research Organisations which can provide regular assessments of the Image Perception

The task I set to ourselves today is to think about this topic in a conceptual level; Arrive at an approach to a Matrix. For example, for those serving in the Corporate world, I suggest this. Generally, the PR man releases a photograph and C.V. of the new Chairman or top executive when he takes over. You may even arrange a TV sound-bite. You are anxious to ensure publication or broadcast. You have created a self-image at that very moment. How many of us think beyond that day/ While sending the clippings to the top executive, how many of us make a note of what he told the TV or the Press? Is the person compared to his predecessor? to his peers in the profession? How many of us advise him before he gives the sound-bite?

While PR is one of the tools in Perception or Image Management, PR as it is commonly practised in a way goes against Perception Management. In an Organisation, Personnel is Managed; Finance is managed; sales and marketing are managed; Why not Perceptional Assets Management/ Can we not address the Perceptional Management over long time/

The first variety of PR, I mentioned is the ‘Arms and Legs’ variety of PR, not the mind and heart level of PR.

Perception can increase or diminish value. Financial success of a company and success of a company are different. One strategy recommended is to manage the perceptions of those people who allow your company to achieve business results. Business results may be development of a strategic vision, a mission, higher sales, creating a legislative environment, employee agreement. Each of them have perceptual framework of values, needs, performance. Management experts are emphasising that a business that looks to the future will spend more resources to get the information from outside the organisation than from within. ‘Listening’ Organisations that change their perceptions while attempting to manage their perceptual assets will prosper. Meanings are in people. The content of your message and what is perceived out of that are with relevant to today’s world of communication, the way people receive their information is changing. The other factor is have we learnt to break through the sound-barrier, which is more than information dissemination.

It is important to see ourselves as others see us. Having acquired the capacity, the PR and communicator of the Organisation should be in a position to give value to the Management and in a position to tell that the emperor has no clothes.

If he or you can’t tell this, call in an outsider, a consultancy. All of us have the experience that the organisation rarely believes that the cure they are seeking is available right in their back garden. Therefore, it is useful to have an outside Consultancy. But it should not be allowed to overshadow our role as the Corporate Communicator,

*      separate ‘issues’ from ‘fads’

*      work out a time-table for bench-marking, change perception, reform-response, and adjustment

*      strategy for matching public expectation. 

In a way I can give no better advise than what Kanva Rishi told Shakuntala, while sending her Dushyanta’s palace.

Keep the senior management focussed on perceptual issues. It sometimes may queer the pitch for ourselves. If the tendency of the Managements to say ‘you do your job and I will do mine’. It is better to part ways. In perception management, persuasion plays a critical role. In the process of persuasive management, unless you and the Management are ready to be persuaded to change, you cannot succeed.   

* (This is the test of the speech delivered at Public Sector Public Relations Forum, Madras during 1998 by Mr S Narendra, then Principal Information Officer of Govt. of India and Information Advisor to Prime Minister of India -Mr Narendra, had served various senior positions and had served 5 Indian Prime Ministers as Information Advisor.)

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Role of Image Audit in Reputation Management

By T N Ashok *

Most corporates in India and worldwide are giving more importance today  to reputation management as opposed to public relations or image building.    

Is there really a difference, between the two, you might ask. Yes, there is. The big difference is that corporates who have some semblance of a reputation are more interested in preserving it, which is vital to its own future. It's definitely better than starting afresh and embarking on an fresh image-building exercise or a makeover exercise.  

A corporate takes several years to build an strong image for itself either in the public eye or in the market with its customers or vendors.  It is mostly based on the strengths of its financial assets, manpower, technology, quality, reliability and service. The image is externally based on strong internal fundamentals. A corporates strong internal unison and efficiency sustain this external image. 

If cracks begin to appear internally through financial mismanagement or faulty or delayed deliveries, then the corporates image takes a beating in the market. Once reputation suffers, business is hit and the corporates profit begin to dip, thus leading to unsustainable bottomlines. 

Therefore its imperative for a corporate to carefully preserve the reputation it has painfully created in the market over the years. To help achieve this objective, the top management of the company usually works in close cooperation with its communication department, making public healthy information about itself or retrieving a bad situation by explaining through background briefing to the friendly media the actual position and the industry environment in which it works. 

This helps sustain the corporates image. Transparency in communication helps the corporate sustain its image and it necessarily has to be selective in the general interests of the corporate. Hiding behind closed doors or dodging information seekers is not a healthy practice and leads to unnecessary media curiosity, often triggering unfounded or loosely sourced misinformation about the corporate that can adversely affect its image.

If the corporate is a listed entity it can cause considerable havoc in a day's dealings at the stock exchanges, affecting shareholders that have placed immense trust in the corporate. 

Lets see how reputation management serves the various interests in the company. Firstly, let’s look at the shareholders that form the backbone of the company.  

Stakeholders: Internal stakeholders are the employees and shareholders of the corporate. External stakeholders are its customers, suppliers, the media, government authorities and the society. 

Reputation: Perception is the mental impression of internal and external stakeholders of any organisation. The mental impression is formed by any person based on his individual experiences with the said organisation, coupled with the organization’s performance and ethics. Reputation is the commonly held evaluation of the organisation based largely on the perception of various stakeholders. 

What we are in effect saying is that the reputation of any organisation is directly related or proportional to its performance, ethics and experience it provides to the stakeholders. 

Reputation risk: Reputation of the corporate is compromised when an organization’s performance, ethics or experience with stakeholders suffers. Reputation is often enhanced or risked due to the following factors:

* Financial performance

* Corporate governance and quality management

* Social, ethical and environmental performance

* Employees and corporate culture

* Marketing, innovation and customer relations

* Regulatory compliance and litigation

* Communication and crisis management.

Reasons for reputation risk: A corporate is at great risk when its stakeholders' perception turns negative. The corporates reputation consequently takes a dip. Risk factors for any corporate or organization’s reputation could be attributed to the following factors:

*      Poor business performance

*      Lack of business ethics

*      Bad experience by shareholders

*      Lack of communication skills internally and externally

*      Lack of transparency

*      Not being proactive during crisis 

What should one do when a corporates reputation nosedives or suffers

*      Don't panic, be calm and strategise with a cool head

*      Don't pass the buck or blame others

*      Don't find a scape goat

*      Don't indulge in witch hunting

*      Sit and think calmly as to the reasons for the bad reputation

*      Handle the remedial measures proactively

*      Adhoc or homogenous approach is not feasible, if many companies are under one umbrella - each will have its own strength and weakness

*      Take the professional help or the experienced people in the organisation

*      Be transparent in all your transactions - you will win the day 

Proactive: Here is where an image audit will serve your purpose. Periodically study the perception of stakeholders through image audit. Understanding the stakeholders' perceptions and rising up to their expectations would often reduce the risks.

Internal departments - human resource or communications - can conduct image audits. But it is best done by a professional agency outside the corporate as they will be less biased in their approach. Moreover, stakeholders of a corporate will feel more comfortable with outsiders as they will fell freer to face the auditing process, and confidentiality will be guaranteed in respect to the identities of the respondents.

There are very few people trained in conducting image audits. There are some in Chennai and probably in Delhi and Mumbai too. If an internal communications department is to do it for the corporate, it is best done at tandem with the professional agencies involved in this work as they have wide experience, instead of doing it alone.

Conclusion: Effective management of risk will not only go a long way in protecting the corporates reputation but will also enhance it. Every challenge coming the way of the corporate is to be treated as an opportunity to enhance reputation. Ability to manage reputation and its associated risks will effectively become a core competence for a corporate in a fiercely but often murky competitive world.

* The author is a corporate consultant and formerly a Economics Editor of the Premier News Agency (PTI) of India.

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Basics of Image Audit

K Srinivasan

By K Srinivasan

Every organisation has a full-fledged mechanism to audit their finance, stocks, health of employees, etc. But least attention is paid by the Managements as to how their Internal and External publics perceive about their organisation. The sum total of the perception forms the Image of the Organisation. "Image Audit" is a tool to measure the perception level of various publics.

PERCEPTIONS

Perception is the mental impression formed by any individual on any organisation basing on his / her own experience. The sum total of the perception of various Internal and External publics form the Image of an Organisation.

The perception of the Internal publics (employees) indicate as to how the Management is being viewed by their own staff members.

The perception of the External publics like customers, suppliers, share holders, media, Government Authorities, etc is very important in projecting the image of the organisation

HOW TO IDENTIFY THE PERCEPTION

Normally the perception is the "mental impression" which every person used to hold to himself for various reasons. Unless this is brought out carefully, real Image of the Organisation cannot be measured. In the Image Audit, a set of questionnaire is prepared and administered to the audience and their feedback is taken anonymously. This would ensure free and fair revelations of their perception.

Normally, every individual is frank when he gives the opinion anonymously, in a group to any third person.

QUESTIONNAIRE

First the Management should identify the publics (whether employees, customers, suppliers, Media, share holders, etc.) from whom they would like to extract the perception. After identifying the target group, then the Management should finalise the areas where they would like to have the feedback. This is very essential because, the Image Audit would focus on selective areas. For example, if the employees are the target audience, the Management can focus on the handling of grievances, treatment given to them, etc. If the target group is customers, then customer satisfaction, availability of products to them, how the counter staff behaves with them, etc. can be taken for study.

After finalizing the target audience and the issues, then a set of questionnaire has to be developed. The questionnaire should be in two parts. The first part should contain the broad details of the respondent like Gender, Age, Occupation or year of service, etc. This may be decided basing on the project. Care is to be taken that the name, address and other finer identities of the respondent are not obtained.

In the second part, questions for the issues that are required to be analysed should be framed and the respondent may be given an option to choose one of the multiple choices of the answers.

ADMINISTRATION

The questionnaire should be administered to the targeted audience on a select day on random sampling basis. The sample size may be decided depending on the issue and other factors.

The administration may be done either personally or through post or onlinel. The analyst should also interact with few respondents and try to get the first hand information. This would help him later for finding solutions.

ANALYSIS

Analysis can be done basing on the requirement of the Management.  The data collected through this image audit is very large and will speak louder on various issues.  Interpretation of the data is very important.  This segment is the most important part of the Image Audit.  This needs more skills.

PREPARATION OF REPORT

A detailed report may be prepared covering the Methodology, No. of responses received, Break up of responses gender wise, age wise, etc. The report should contain the detailed analysis of the responses received in quantity and in percentage. The report should contain the observations of the analyst combining all the responses. The analyst should also spell out various suggestions for the problems identified through Image Audit.

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What is Image Audit?

Have you been auditing periodically your  Accounts, Cost, Stock, Health, Finance, etc. ?

It should be  a definite 'yes'.

Have you ever audited how your 'public image' amongst your Stakeholders like    

* Employees
* Customers
* Shareholders
* Suppliers
* Media
* Govt. authorities, and
* Others

as to how they 'perceive' you? The Managements of   many organisations take decisions based on the 'assumptions' and 'illusions'.

IMAGE AUDIT A RESEARCH TOOL 

Image Audit  is the research tool to study the 'hidden perceptions' of your stakeholders, in a scientific way. 

BENEFITS 

*  Helps to understand the hidden perceptions of the employees, customers and other stakeholders very clearly
*   Helps to formulate the communication strategies to improve the relationship and trust.
*   Helps to maintain a good 'image' internally and externally
*   Helps to rectify any misconceptions without delay. 

WHO NEEDS IMAGE AUDIT? 

*   Corporates in Private and Public Sector
*   Financial institutions like Banks and Insurance companies
*   Government Departments
*   Organisations offering customer service or products
*   Political parties
*   Educational Institutions
*   Trade Unions
*   Non Governmental organisations
*   All others who care for public image

METHODOLOGY 

*  Identifying issues and sample size
*  Preparing questionnaire
* Test administration and finalisation
*  Administration of questionnaire
*  Analysing the feedback and interpretation of data
*  Finalising report and recommendations

BENEFICIARIES OF IMAGE AUDIT

*  Tamilnadu Postal Department
*  Tamilnadu Police
*  Indian Bank
*  Laser Soft Infosystems Limited
*  Eswari College of Engineering (SRM Group)
*  Bharatiya Janata Party (Tamilnadu)
*  Rajalakshmi Engineering College
*  Corporation Bank Officers Organisation

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