• Can companies influence RRC's ratings?
• Does RRC provide consultative services?
• What is RRC's research methodology?
• Who, specifically, benefits from the industry
ratings and how do they benefit?
• How do RRC's Reputation Reports differ
from other surveys now available?
• Who is RRC? Why does RRC feel it has the
"right" or ability to assign and publish ratings on corporate
reputation?
• How many industries will RRC cover?
• Will RRC's reports be global?
• Was the RRC concept created as a result
of the Enron scandal?
• What information does RRC provide to support
its public ratings?
Q. Can companies influence RRC's ratings?
A. No. RRC makes every effort to maintain the integrity, objectivity
and independence of its ratings and analysis. Unlike financial rating
agencies, RRC neither solicits nor accepts "inside information",
nor does it accept rating fees, from rated companies. By instituting
these structural safeguards against companies' apparent leverage over
the rating process, RRC avoids the alleged conflicts of interest that
have tarnished the reputations of other types of rating agencies and
research houses.
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Q. Does RRC provide consultative services?
A. No. RRC conducts research and analysis on industries and companies
and assigns and publishes ratings on those companies. Because its ratings
and research must remain completely independent and objective, it would
be inappropriate for RRC to offer consultative services on how companies
might improve or manage their ratings or their reputations.
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Q. What is RRC's research methodology?
A. For each industry selected for analysis, RRC follows a rigorously
designed and implemented research plan to identify senior-level executives
within that industry and then to conduct in-depth telephone interviews
with those executives. In addition, RRC interviews financial analysts
and other industry experts that specialize in that particular industry.
Once the data have been compiled and analyzed, an analyst expert in
the industry concerned prepares a comprehensive research study of the
industry and summary reports on each company covered by the market research
survey. Finally, RRC convenes a Rating Committee, similar to those used
in the credit rating industry, to review all the information that has
been gathered and, on the basis of the analysis and research presented
in the industry study and company reports and any additional information
presented to the committee, to assign a rating to each individual company
covered by the survey. For more details on Methodology, click
here.
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Q. Who, specifically, benefits from the industry
ratings and how do they benefit?
A. RRC believes that by conducting research that is widely recognized
in the marketplace to be both independent and objective, and by disseminating
its summary Reputation Ratings broadly into the public domain at no
cost to users, it can establish and maintain an objective, external
standard by which any company's performance can be readily evaluated
by interested third parties, both public and private (e.g., customers,
suppliers, investors, regulators, prospective employees, alliance partners),
by its peers, and by itself. Thus, first and foremost it is the public
that benefits.
RRC believes that the management of rated companies will also benefit
from RRC's ratings. RRC's research publications are priced at a small
fraction of the cost of traditional reputation studies. They provides
management of companies with an efficient and cost-effective means to
assess their own relative standing in each intangible asset category
and to determine whether they are over- or under-investing vis-à-vis
their peers.
Additionally, third-party market participants, including employees,
suppliers, customers, investors, and regulators, will, albeit for their
own individual and differing purposes, benefit from RRC's ratings by
having an objective standard by which to assess and rank a company's
performance along any one or more of the same intangible dimensions.
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Q. How do RRC's Reputation reports differ from
other surveys now available?
A. Through its ratings and research publications, RRC is the only independent
provider of a uniform and objective standard for assessing the strength
of a company's intangible assets and ultimately its corporate reputation
in the context of a specific industry. RRC's rigorous research
methodology, drawing upon in-depth telephone interviews with senior
industry executives, financial analysts, and other experts, has been
developed and refined by its joint venture partner ORC over more than
half a century. Analysts are chosen to prepare industry studies and
company reports on the basis of their expertise in particular industry
sectors.
Finally, RRC selects the core dimensions on which the research for
each individual industry will be conducted by first soliciting the input
of industry experts and then identifying the key drivers of reputation
for that industry. By customizing each industry's survey and ranking
all leading players from best to worst, RRC provides neither a "one
size fits all" survey nor a "beauty contest" in which
all contestants are winners to varying degrees.
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Q. Who is RRC? Why does RRC feel it has the "right"
or ability to assign and publish ratings on corporate reputation?
A. RRC is a joint venture between The Ratrix(SM) Group and Opinion
Research Corporation. The Ratrix(SM) Group is a publisher whose principals
have many years of experience in the credit rating business. ORC
is a well-established and highly respected market research firm with
over 60 years in conducting research on issues of corporate reputation
and brand strength, among others. In addition to the experience of its
founders and principals, RRC has assembled a team of individuals, including
a world-renowned professor of marketing at Harvard Business School as
a member of RRC's Board of Directors, with
the requisite knowledge, experience, and expertise to integrate the
rating and market research disciplines.
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Q. How many industries will RRC cover?
A. RRC plans to cover over 50 industries.
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Q. Will RRC's reports be global?
A. RRC plans to expand its coverage to companies and industries outside
the United States.
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Q. Was the RRC concept created as a result of
the Enron scandal?
A. No. RRC has been developing this concept for the past two years.
Events such as the problems encountered by Enron and the electric utility
industry in California only underscore the need for an independent,
objective standard to assess the strength of a corporation's intangible
assets in an effort to anticipate problems before they occur rather
than react to them belatedly.
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Q. What information does RRC provide
to support its public ratings?
RRC provides information including news releases and by-line articles
in premiere industry publications that highlight key findings of
its Reputation Studies and Ethics Reputation Studies. In addition, RRC
publishes comprehensive Reputation Studies and Ethics Reputation Studies
in an industry-by-industry context in RRC’s Reputation
Strength Rating (RSR) Series, that are offered by subscription to
parties interested in obtaining a deeper understanding of the research
and analysis that support and explain the ratings.
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