Here’s a sobering thought as we approach 2019: Just 4 in 10 Fortune 1000 executives feel confident that their companies are “very prepared” to manage the risk and disruption that they inevitably will face, be it from the rise of disruptive and unexpected rivals in the market to political upheavals.
This was one of the findings from research APCO Worldwide conducted in September of this year with 520 Fortune 1000 leaders in the U.S.
A Partnership
APCO’s response to the research was to eventually form a partnership with three other PR firms to launch a program aimed at creating agile brands and organizations. The thinking is that with agility comes the ability to react to rapid change.
APCO says its research shows the most agile firms felt more confident about facing change.
The announcement of the partnership came in mid October. The rather unsettling data behind the decision of APCO and the other firms is unveiled in this chart as an exclusive to PR News readers.
The three companies, called “consultancies in the Oct. 17announcement, joining APCO in the venture are: Gagen MacDonald, Oxford Analytica and the Boswell Group.
In addition to the partnership and in concert with the research, APCO developed a tool to measure brands’ agility.
Called the APCO Agility Indicator, it scores firms’ agility based on three dimensions of active leadership, enterprising culture and shared advocacy. There are 14 subsets within those areas, Evan Kraus, APCO’s president, says in an interview. Only APCO will operate the Agility Indicator, Kraus tells us.
He also says the use of the word “consultancies” in the release was intentional, “as was the decision to engage partners who don’t necessarily reflect the traditional PR skillset.”
Clients, he says, “want solutions, not tactics, and...solutions that impact the bottom line. Corporate agility delivers this, and our ability to enhance agility requires us to do things...outside the traditional purview of PR.”
In addition to agility, a company’s curiosity with external events is a key to predicting its ability to withstand future disruptions, APCO says.
CONTACT: [email protected]