Practices & Specialities
Corporate & Financial Communications
The reputation of a company and its senior management are extremely vulnerable and stakeholders are unforgiving of those that fail to manage this valuable asset.
Threats to your reputation are many and varied. An ill-timed comment by a director. An accident at a company facility. A badly-managed industrial dispute. An attack from the media, a pressure group, or non-governmental organisation. Or, even just a change of mood among analysts lacking understanding of a company’s vision and strategy. Your future success depends as much on dealing with the unexpected as on delivering good business performance.
The business climate is becoming more challenging as customers demand the highest standards from both you, and throughout your supply chain. Consumers are becoming more cynical and need to see a company deliver on the promises made in brand advertising and promotion.
Employees are constantly being asked to become more flexible to be ready to adapt to change on an almost constant basis. And all this is taking place in a 24-hour, news-hungry media-rich environment where nothing you do is ever invisible.
It can take years to build a reputation, but it can be destroyed in an instant. As reputation grows, the company profits. But if the company loses that reputation, shareholder value is destroyed, sales can nosedive, and employee morale can plummet – affecting productivity and customer relations. It can take years, if ever, to regain the position once enjoyed.
Burson-Marsteller has always been the company that businesses turn to in a crisis. But our real expertise is making sure you never reach that point. We are the international leaders in building and maintaining CEO Reputation – a vital part of a company’s overall reputation.
We are pathfinders in Corporate Social Responsibility, helping companies tackle mounting pressure from NGOs and consumers to be more responsible citizens. We are innovators in Internal Communication, helping senior managers lead their people through change and upheaval. We operate at the heart of the political process, helping shape political opinion to prevent ill thought-out regulatory change.
We understand how your stakeholders form their opinions and react to news; we also know how to mitigate risk though carefully planned dissemination of information. Similarly we train executives to maximise every opportunity to manage the reputation of the company effectively. If you’re scrambling to respond to the unexpected, it may be too late. You can’t afford to wait for it to happen. One question has to be answered every day: are you prepared and ready?
Contact
Amanda Pierce
Managing Director and Chair of the Corporate and Crisis practice
Office: London, United Kingdom
Telephone: +44 (0)20 7300 6237
Email:
Amanda Pierce is Managing Director and Chair of the Corporate and Crisis practice Burson-Marsteller UK. Read extended profile
Amanda Pierce is Managing Director and Chair of the Corporate and Crisis practice Burson-Marsteller UK. Amanda brings to Burson-Marsteller extensive national and international campaign strategy development, reputation management and experience in translating business strategy into workable communications’ programmes.
Over the past ten years, her work has featured in the awards run by PR Week, CIPR, PRCA and Sabre. She is an experienced communication specialist with a highly developed understanding of consumer and business issues that can provide advice, counsel and coaching regarding media/issues/internal stakeholder management and training, particularly at exec and CEO level. Her current clients include such high profile brands as Shell, DeBeers, Kimberly-Clark, Danone.
Previously, she was Head of Media and Internal Communications at McDonalds UK, where she built a small but award winning in-house communications team from scratch and consolidated agency support for the brand by coaching and developing both in-house and agency teams. She was principle media spokesperson for the McDonald’s brand and has built strong relationships with media at a national and international level in addition to being responsible for internal communications for 58,000 employees initiating a number of new campaigns and activities that link McDonalds’ external and internal communication goals, including a highly successful external brand ambassador campaign which lead to a 3 point increase in trust and reputation scores.
