Scorecards are part of our day-to-day business in building reputation. At Weber Shandwick, we are expert in identifying the right rankings, scorecards, league tables (whatever you might call them) for companies and their leaders. It makes perfect sense to me that vying for the best rankings helps boost reputation. It is but one way to spread the word that your company is worthy of what it is doing. Of course, if you dig too  deep in some of them, you discover flaws. We recently advised a company against issuing a press release on a survey that had fewer than 50 respondents because of its limited sample size and lack of representation. Sometimes you just have to rise above it.

Well, companies are not the only ones to compete for these honors. Countries have caught on as well according to an article I just read. “With investment scarce and jobs even scarcer, countries that sparkle in global league tables can send a powerful signal to investors.”  Countries are in a race to the top of the World Competitivness Index published by IMD, the business school, or the World Bank’s “Doing Business” league tables. Saudi Arabia just made it to the near top (11th place) from 55th place one year ago and Rwanda has moved up from the very very bottom to a more respectable showing. These accolades can go far in convincing investors that a country is business-friendly and investor-worthy.

Turning to company awards, I often talk about rankings fatigue and this article on airline awards in the WSJ nailed it. As it said, “The travel world is overbooked with awards these days, with some two dozen organizations around the world giving out annual awards for the ‘best.’ Each has different selection criteria, different funding and different judging, so they end up with different results.”  That’s alot of applications to fill out and data to provide. This leads me to think that there should be a new corporate title in 2011 — Chief Rankings Officer.