Warren Buffett once said to a group of managers of Salomon Brothers in the aftermath of the trading scandal that shook the investment bank in 1991: “If you lose dollars for the firm by bad decisions, I will be very understanding. If you lose reputation for the firm, I will be ruthless.” (Source: J. Fuerbringer, New York Times, August 27, 1991).
A strong reputation has a shelf life, and in today’s fast-changing world, it can fade quickly. Reputation — built on admiration, excellence, and status — is like water, always flowing somewhere. As a business asset, it is definable, measurable, and always improvable.
With this in mind, a new multi-year study set out to identify the most respected wholesale banks operating in Europe. The goal was to create the equivalent of a Pulitzer Prize for wholesale banking — banks providing commercial, corporate, and/or investment banking products and services. Reputation is to strong performance as chicken is to egg. It’s not always clear which begets which, but it’s hard to have one without the other. In essence, business clients rent the reputations of their banks.
To come up with the definitive list of elite wholesale banks in Europe, over 4,000 C-level executives and senior managers from Fortune Global 500 and Forbes Global 2000 companies nominated their top three (European and non-European) banks operating in Europe. Banks were rated on six key success factors: [1] client centricity, [2] external engagement, [3] competitiveness, [4] quality of leadership and employees, [5] innovativeness, and [6] business model efficiency and effectiveness (indicators include the bank’s agility, resilience, responsiveness, and reliability).
The extensive study, independently conducted, aimed to identify the wholesale banking practices most respected by C-level executives and senior managers. It focused exclusively on banks providing commercial, corporate, and/or investment banking products and services. Since C-level executives and senior managers are among the most knowledgeable people in business, their verdict yields the true ‘A list’. It’s hard to imagine a more critical judge.
Recently, the study’s first report was published: Goldman Sachs — The Blueprint for Leadership. It is the definitive report card on Goldman Sachs’ reputation and performance, seen through the eyes of this influential group of decision-makers — the firm’s key clients.
Presented in three editions, Goldman Sachs — The Blueprint for Leadership focuses exclusively on the firm — independently, systematically, and comprehensively. It offers unique data and dozens of actionable insights and recommendations for Goldman Sachs, its peers, investors, and other stakeholders.
For more details on the study’s dataset, methodology, findings, and report contents, visit www.pieterklaasjagersma.com/reports/goldman-sachs-1, www.pieterklaasjagersma.com/reports/goldman-sachs-2, and www.pieterklaasjagersma.com/reports/goldman-sachs-3.