Market valuations and silent problems - are they correlated to each other?
24/7 Wall Street recently looked at the 10 Biggest Brand Disasters of 2010. Guess what? There is a close correlation to the exposure of silent problems and the loss of brand valuations. On the list:
1. BP: Need I say more.
2. Dell: This company has exposed numerous silent problems in recent years.
4. Sony: I’ve written about Sony and its silent problems numerous times.
5. Goldman Sachs: What can I say other than they’ve created a culture where silent problems are endemic to the organization.
8. Johnson & Johnson: J&J use to be squeeky clean when it came to their brand, now silent problems are eroding it.
10. Toyota: Toyota’s culture of silencing their problems was exposed in a big way in 2010.
The other companies on the list R.I.M. (Blackberry), Adobe, Nokia and Google. Interestingly, each of these are in the fast moving technology arena where a “what’s hot” and “what’s not” mentality can reside. Yet the 6-companies on the above list have direct ties to silent problems. Makes one wonder when the marketplace will finally look at exposure to silent problems in stock valuations.
Adobe:
I’ve been a critic of Sony for quite a while. They’ve lost more races in attempting to remain a technology leader than they’ve won in recent years. Companies like Apple, Google and Samsung are a few of the companies that are transforming the technology-consumer experience. And in this race, Sony has mostly been mostly a follower, not a leader.
Yesterday, I viewed Sony as a brand name that was worth the price. Today, I wonder if Sony is wasting away in a place called Sonyville, a small imaginary island in the South Pacific. It’s a land filled of yesterday’s achievements and devoid of today’s reality. It’s a land with tall buildings, smart people and smart titles. It’s a land that took decades to build and just maybe, it’s a land with many similarities to GMville.