Nearly two-thirds (65 per cent) of global chief communications officers (CCOs) say that crisis management experience is today’s prerequisite for success. These findings come from the annual survey, The Rising CCO, conducted by executive search firm Spencer Stuart and PR firm Weber Shandwick.

With more than 70 per cent of CCOs reporting that their companies experienced a threat to their reputations in the past two years, it is not a surprise that 65 per cent say improvement in corporate reputation is their highest priority.

Source: The Rising CCO, Spencer Stuart and Weber Shandwick 

Crises are time-consuming to resolve – most CEOs (74 per cent) spend their time doing so. It takes around 15 months to get past the problem and such crises beget a host of other issues, such as more media scrutiny (60 per cent), more governmental scrutiny (51 per cent) and reduced employee morale (42 per cent).

Power of social media
 

Social media is the fastest-growing communications tool for CCOs in all regions (40 per cent of CCOs say they are prepared to manage a social media threat to their reputation today compared to 33 per cent in 2010). However, social media is not always part of the crisis. Nearly one-half of CCOs whose companies suffered a crisis in the past two years said that social media did not play a role, and only 7 per cent said the crisis began in social media. However, when social media was involved in a crisis-making event, CCOs said it was more likely to help resolve the crisis than make it worse (34 per cent compared with 22 per cent, respectively).

Source: The Rising CCO, Spencer Stuart and Weber Shandwick 

“Social media is expected to grow dramatically and have a tremendous impact on corporate communications department budgets,” says Leslie Gaines-Ross, chief reputation strategist at Weber Shandwick. “It is encouraging to see that global CCOs are embracing social media’s ability to temper a crisis and consequently diminish additional reputation loss.”

Focus on CSR
 

Nearly eight in 10 global CCOs (76 per cent) believe that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is critical to safeguarding reputation. For this reason, 52 per cent say the need for a dedicated CSR communications professional is growing and 38 per cent have either hired individuals with CSR communications expertise during the past year or plan to hire such individuals over the course of the next year.

Source: The Rising CCO, Spencer Stuart and Weber Shandwick

Methodology
 

The Rising CCO, now in its fourth year, examined the roles, responsibilities and opinions of CCOs in the world’s largest companies. The 142 survey participants came from companies based in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. The majority of respondents work in global Fortune 500 companies. The survey was conducted online from January to March 2012.