Canada leads the list of reputed countries of the world

Yet another year passes by and with the release of the annual country reputation report (Country RepTrak) from Reputation Institute, Canada was identified as the winner of the 2015 most reputed countries of the world. The Online study of reputation was conducted through a survey with about 48000 consumers was conducted on 55 countries selected based on their GDP according to IMF.

The Tops and Bottoms of the list are

Top of the List

1. Canada (78.1) 2. Norway (77.1) 3. Sweden (76.6) 4. Switzerland (76.4) 5. Australia (76.3)

Bottom of the List

1. Iraq (22.5) 2. Iran (29.8) 3. Pakistan (31.5) 4. Russia (35.1) 5. Nigeria (36.3)

Canada had held the top position for 3 consecutive years from 2011 – 2013 only to lose to Switzerland in 2014. However with it’s changed mechanisms and tourism initiatives, they won back their title to the top of the list. On the other end, Iraq which had not qualified in the last year’s list came back to the list at 22.5. India lists itself at 33rd position which is a positive trend from last year’s 36th position. The global mean is at 56.3.

The 2015 Gainers and Losers

The largest gainers and losers when compared to the last year (2014) are

Gainers

1. Egypt (+11.6%) 2. Iran (+10.8%) 3. China (+7.9%) 4. India (+7.4%) 5. Taiwan (+7.4%)

Losers

1. Qatar (-7.2%) 2. Russia (-3.2%) 3. South Africa (-3.2%) 4. Ukraine (-2.8%) 5. Brazil (-2.4%)

Russia’s troubles with its neighbour Ukraine cost both to lose their reputation. However India’s gain was due to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s assurance of changing policies and initiatives such as Digital India and Make In India that helped the growth of its reputation. The trends also identified that the Greece’s Crisis reduced the Europe’s overall reputation.

Internal Reputation

Whereas the above sections identify the reputation of a country from the perspective of people outside the country who wish to visit, invest, live, work, etc., The internal reputation (or Self-Image reputation) identifies the perceptions of the citizens of the country. The results of internal reputation evaluation of 22 countries identifies with

Top of the List

1. Australia (90.1) 2. Canada (84.3) 3. Russia (82.3) 4. India (81.7) 5. Germany (79.4)

Bottom of the List

1. South Africa (38.7) 2. Brazil (49.4) 3. Italy (53.5) 4. South Korea (54.5) 5. Argentina (57.4)

* Global Mean of Internal Reputation is at 68.3

Factors identifying the Country’s Reputation

The country reputation is calculated based on 3 key dimensions viz. level of development (economy), quality of life (environment) and the quality of its institutions (government). These factors are sub categorized to identify the offerings of the country to the rest of the world.

• Factors identifying the Economy: Products and services, Brands, Culture, Workforce, Education & Technology
• Factors identifying the Environment: Beauty, Enjoyable, Lifestyle, Friendly & Welcoming People
• Factors identifying the Government: Business Opportunities, Policies, Safety, Public Resources, Ethics, Internal Participation

These factors play a great role in the growth of the economy of the country as they attract various opportunities. The following are the

A country reputation is an emotional perception constructed through experience, communication, perspectives and accepted stereotypes. It has a great impact on their performance. Just like companies, they play great role in attracting opportunities and the growth of the economy. The following are the impact of a reputed country.

• Increased Tourism: Good reputation helps tourists to plan on visiting a country, even if they don’t visit.
• Investments: Good Reputation gains the confidence of the investors in investing into the Country there by increasing the FDI.
• Improves Public Diplomacy: Good Reputation helps to communicate with foreign visitors or identification & execution of foreign policies to create a better international relations.
• Increased exports: Good reputation gives businesses confidence to purchase from business vendors due to confidence on better products and services.
• Attract Knowledge and Talent: Good Reputation allows people from other countries to travel in search of good opportunities there by increasing the talent in the country.

India’s Perspective

Interestingly though the external perception about India is low, the internal perception of the countrymen is very high. The opportunities and initiatives have definitely raised hopes among people and the falling trend has started to see a better light. If the trend is held well, then definitely India could have much better reputation value on the global scale in the coming years.

* All scores are calculated on a scale of 0-100 with a difference among scores of ±1.4 points with a 95% level of confidence.

(The author is Satish Kota, an Author, Educator, Entrepreneur and Speaker. He is the author of an upcoming book “The Reputation Builder: Effective Techniques to Build and Improve your Reputation & Rule your industry – A Strategy based approach”. He is also a Reputation Specialist.)

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