The first Power Panel of Day 2 of the main conference at the IndiaSocial Summit 2012 was on the Future of Reputation and was moderated by Kushan Mitra, Associate Editor at Business Today. The panelists were Karthik Srinivasan, AVP, Corporate Communications, Flipkart; Narendra Nag, Co-Lead, 2020 Social; Rajesh Lalwani, Founder, Blogworks; and Senjam Rajshekhar, Director, Group Corporate Communications, Vedanta.
Senjam introduced reputation in today’s day and age.
“Everybody is under a microscope – the bigger you are, the more name you have – the more people will look at you, and not everyone will be happy with you.”
Narendra Nag presented his vision of the future of reputation but echoed the same sentiment.
“If you think of a brand as a story, every story has its ups and downs. These are not driven by the brand but by the experiences that people have with it. So perhaps the most important thing is to be significant. Not everyone will love you.”
Rajesh Lalwani gave the A, B, C of reputation:
- A. Authenticity – Do you do what you say?
- B. Big data
- C. Community - Organisations need to come down from the stage and become a part of the community.
Karthik Srinivasan presented five action points for buliding and maintaining a reputation:
- Listen – all the time.
- Use the intelligence gained from listening.
- Share the intelligence with your stakeholders
- Realise the difference between ‘what we are’ vs. ‘what we want to be’ vs. ‘what others perceive us as’
- When talking about yourself, use the intelligence to frame what you want to say
The panelists all agreed that the essential building blocks of good reputation remain the same – good products, good practices, listening to your customers, responding to them – these will never change.
