Our thinking

Britain’s best

15 March, 2024

This week saw the celebration for Britain’s Most Admired Companies 2023, with UK companies recognised for their strong corporate reputation and commitment to sustainable growth.

Britain’s Most Admired Companies is a long-running annual survey of corporate reputation in the UK, with data tracing back to 1990. The study is run by our friends at Echo Research with the support of academic partners from Coventry University. The methodology is straightforward: Over 300 C-suite peers, analysts, and industry experts rate companies in their respective sectors based on 13 criteria.

The outcome is a comprehensive and robust assessment of the reputation of over 250 of Britain’s largest companies across 28 industry sectors.  These criteria include companies’ capacity to innovate, their commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI), effectiveness of ESG, and the presence of inspirational leadership.

Whilst the panel this year said the criteria of ‘effectiveness in ESG’ had fallen in its importance within the ranking, good stewardship of other key ESG-linked elements (e.g. quality of management, long-term value, ability to attract talent) continued to form many of the building blocks of a good reputation. It appears the parts that make up ESG perform better than the whole and perhaps it’s not just companies that need to transform their reputation, but ESG itself.

Given the fact that reputation has a strong ability to influence opinions and drive behaviour, with a proven impact on employee advocacy, customer confidence, and brand value it’s great to see such a comprehensive view of reputation and great to see our client Aviva scoop the gold prize in the life assurance and insurance sector.

So, congratulations to all the winners, and a big thank you to Echo Research for continuing to shine a light on this comprehensive view of reputation.

By Meg Seckel