Welcome to blog two. On the last entry, we prompted a discussion on how the European Court of Justice recently paved the way for any medical media article to be treated as ‘advertising’! It may be too early to see ramifications, but we continue to watch with interest…
But central to this news runs a familiar narrative of ‘reputation’. It is the buzz-word of recent weeks, with frequent headlines decrying MPs’ expenses. Gordon Brown’s eventual apology came at the annual Royal College of Nursing conference, in which he praised nurses with “just as you have the highest standards for your profession we must show we have the highest standards”.
The Evening Standard also successfully re-launched with ‘sorry’, ‘promise’ and ‘listen’ at the forefront of their campaign – essentially showing an acknowledgement that ‘reputation’ is central to successful relations with stakeholders and the public, and ultimately the enterprise itself. When this is at threat, it takes decisive and definitive action to redress the balance.
But do the dynamics of reputation work in the same way for the pharma industry? Findings presented at the recent Thames Valley University conference, and reported in the current edition of PharmaTimes (http://www.pharmatimes.com), suggest they do. According to the research, almost 80% of consumers would take a drugmaker’s reputation into account given the opportunity to choose their medicines. This is particularly important when you consider the stated figures that a 5% positive change in a firm’s reputation can translate into a 3-5% positive change in its market capitalisation. So maintaining a good reputation is not just key to credibility but also key to sales. It all makes sense in theory, but in reality how many in the healthcare industry are consistently measuring the commercial benefits associated with reputation…?
[...] better. As we discussed in an earlier blog, reputation is directly linked to increased sales <http://blog.virgohealth.com/2009/07/reputation-reputation-reputation%e2%80%a6/> and as Witty highlights, "the biggest retention tool I have with employees here is what we [...]