How We Measured Respect

The 2020 BW Businessworld survey of Most Respected Companies was conducted by TechSci Research across 21 sectors and 553 respondents senior and mid-level employees. The sectors covered included apparel/textile, automobile, banking, cement manufacturers, chemicals and paint, consumer durables, e-commerce, FMCG, handset manufacturers, healthcare, hospitality, infrastructure (power, heavy engineering), IT/ITeS, metals and mineral, NBFCs, oil & gas, pharmaceuticals, real estate, retail, technology, and telecom.

The exercise was divided into four stages. It began with framing the questionnaires, followed by respondent identification, data collection and finally an analysis of the data. The questionnaire was designed to gauge the respondents’ perception based on the following eight parameters — effective growth plan, financial return, innovative product/services, trustworthy leadership, embracing latest technologies, corporate social responsibility, women-friendly policies and work culture. 

The respondents from 80-plus companies were identified based on their age and work experience. The largest pool of 227 respondents were those with more than eight years of work experience and were aged 35 and above. The next lot of 180 respondents had 4-7 years’ work experience and were in the 28-35 age group. The smallest lot of 146 were self-employed individuals of age 30 and above. The database was created targeting employment hubs including Noida, Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Pune, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.

The data was collected from employees through interviews on phone calls, links sent through email and LinkedIn. Automated validation checks enabled data hygiene, followed by stringent quality checks on the data files. About 10-15 industry employees and 10-15 non-industry employees were selected from each sector to map the perception straight from the stakeholders as well as from the outsiders. In addition, 20-25 respondents from each industry were identified and asked to rate 1-3 for companies of their domain. Finally, each of the parameters were mapped on a five-point scale. In the last stage, weightages were assigned against the eight parameters and a score was calculated for ranking the most respected companies.