Dyson, Alliance, Mothercare and Next also feature highly

Rolls-Royce Aerospace is the most reputable company in the UK, according to the Reputation Institute’s 2011 UK. RepTrak Pulse Study. The report, which measures customer perceptions of top UK companies on a ‘pulse’ scale of 0-100, ranked Roll-Royce top with a score of 86.89, ahead of Dyson, Alliance, Mothercare and Next.

Despite recent controversy – a Rolls Royce settled for £56mn after one of their engines exploded mid-air – they received one of the highest scores ever recorded for the products and services dimension of the report with a score of 93.37. Other notable achievements were the John Lewis group, who were the only company to place in the top 10 for all dimensions.

The report, which assessed 191 companies, asked participants to describe their perceptions of FTSE 350 companies with whom they were ‘very’ or ‘somewhat’ familiar. The results were drawn from over 10, 000 customer responses in the first quarter of 2011 based on 7 dimensions: products/services; innovation; performance; leadership; workplace; governance; citizenship.

The research also highlighted the correlation between reputation and supportive behaviours: for every 5 points by which a company improves its RepTrak score, the level of supportive stakeholder action increases by 6%.

Reputation Institute Managing Partner, Anthony Johndrow, noted that “the reputation economy of 2011 is characterized by a heightened focus on three things: trust in companies and leaders rather than product brands, multiple stakeholders and their interactions, and building a connection between a company’s reputation strategy and its business strategy.”