Crisis? What crisis?

It's not just about building a corporate reputation, it's about knowing how to protect and safeguard it as well. Weber Shandwick's chief reputation strategist Leslie Gaines-Ross, who also wrote a book on the subject and titled it Corporate Reputation: 12 Steps to Safeguarding and Recovering Reputation says, "You have to realise your reputation is going to be in some peril at some point - it happens to everyone. There shouldn't be surprise when something happens. Most of the times when you look at crises there were early warning signs."

Gaines-Ross also indicated companies were too quick to think the crisis was over. "Based on research we've done, it takes about four years to recover your reputation after a crisis. Most leaders and most companies think if you have a crisis, you manage it for three months and then it fades," she says.

This may be the case, but Hill & Knowlton's corporate reputation expert Glenn Schloss warns, "a lot of companies in Asia would lose interests if you told them corporate reputation is something which takes a long time to build because companies here have much more of a shorter term focus." He says, "When you are developing corporate reputation strategies for companies operating in Asia, you need to focus on short term wins and the importance of building a reputation over the long term."

Having a solid corporate reputation will undoubtedly make it easier for companies to recover swiftly from a crisis but its function should be more than this. Schloss says, "Corporate reputation is very important but we [H&K] focus more on the business outcomes - the way in which corporate reputation delivers economic value to the company, for example, how it can retain and attract the best talent to your company." But you can't create corporate reputation out of thin air, senior management needs to drive this - and in times of crisis, they're the ones who need to stand up and be counted.

"You need your CEO, your leadership to take the heat and explain what happened, and you can't just say no comment anymore. You need to communicate tirelessly to all your audiences including your employees because when you're in a crisis, you're employees are the ones thirsty for knowledge," Gaines-Ross says.

She adds, "New media has changed everything. You have no control like you used to. Does it make it more exciting? I think it makes it more challenging and harder, but it also makes public relations more important."

H&K's Schloss agrees. "Spin is dead," he says.

"There's no other alternative but to be honest and transparent. Stakeholders, the public, NGOs and the media are so well informed now thanks to the internet and the growing scrutiny which societies, particularly in Asia now, are demanding from governments and corporations." He cites the collapse of Enron as a classic example of where cover ups made the crisis worse and help lead to the destruction of what was a very large company.

"I think too many companies only think about engaging in PR when something goes wrong and they look at crisis communications or PR as a quick fix - a band-aid solution. Companies really need to take a much broader and longer term view about corporate reputation. When you build up a strong corporate reputation its easier and faster to recover from a crisis," Schloss says.