Companies in Latin America will soon have access to national reputation rankings through which they will be able to measure their positioning facing different audiences, thanks to a partnership between Reputation Institute, a global consulting firm, leader in the development reputation measurement and management tools, and Newlink, a leading collaborative consulting firm in South Florida with offices in Latin America, United States, and Europe.
“Today, the rules of the game have changed,” stated Sergio Roitberg, president and CEO of Newlink. “Reputation has become crucial for companies to compete in a landscape where their audiences are no longer passive targets and whom we can only connect with through a Shared Purpose.”
During the last two decades, Reputation Institute has paved the way in reputation knowledge with the development of a variety of tools to manage this intangible in companies, institutions, CEOs, cities or countries. Their RepTrak® model is the international standard for measuring and managing corporate reputation. This model is also applied in all their renowned studies and reports, such as Global RepTrak® 100, the Country RepTrak® and the City RepTrak®. Reputation Institute is headquartered in Boston and has operations in over 30 countries.
Newlink is one of the top 30 communications agencies in the United States, with ample experience in Reputation Management in specialized verticals such as Insights, Health and Wellness, Tourism, among others. Newlink developed a proprietary methodology, Orbital Thinking, which is a revolutionary work model that allows companies to identify their Shared Purpose and express it through innovative communications programs that generate engagement with all stakeholders.
Newlink recently acquired the Spanish agency, Globally, becoming one of the biggest communications firms in the international Spanish-speaking market, with over 300 employees and 200 clients between its headquarters in United States, Latin America, and Spain.
“Latin America is a key market in Reputation Institute’s growth strategy and this partnership with Newlink will not only accelerate that, but it will also constitute in a decisive way to consolidate our positioning as the consulting firm of global reference in reputation matters in the continent,” said Nicolas Trad, president of Reputation Institute.
The partnership between Reputation Institute and Newlink comes at a delicate time not only for the corporate reputation in the region, but for the countries themselves, as was recently published in the Country RepTrak® 2018 study.
“The global downfall of corporate and country reputation over the last year, has added on, in the case of Latin America, to a series of scandals linked to political and economic corruption that have aggravated, even more, the deterioration of public opinion’s trust in the continent,” stated Fernando Prado, president of Reputation Institute for Latin America. “It is necessary that Latin American leaders become conscious of this fact and articulate the necessary measures to revert the situation, as reputational crises affect the competitiveness of organizations and States alike, be it bottom-line loss, hindering tourism attractiveness or the nations’ investment.”
The key in becoming conscious of this, lies in “recognizing that hyperconnectivity has radically changed the world and accepting that this change requires a great amount of humility from those who have always been powerful,” said Roitberg. “Companies and countries that cannot expediently react to the changes we’re facing and respond with velocity, transparency, collaboration, and social conscience to stakeholder’s expectations, will undergo a progressive deterioration in response capacity, thus exponentially incrementing distrust toward them.”