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A new survey of 25 companies selected from five major sectors – aviation, communications, consumer goods, infrastructure as well as food and beverage – shows Dangote Group as the top-ranking company in three categories, namely, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Product Quality and Brand Appeal. The survey – released on Monday by the Governance Advancement Initiative for Nigeria (GAIN) – was conducted between September 30th and October 6th, 2016, and it tallied the opinions of 1,091 respondents.

The survey measured the performance of some of the largest enterprises in Nigeria across five broad categories. Apart from CSR, Product Quality and Brand Appeal, the other two categories covered by the survey are Ethical Standard and Terrible Reputation.

Nestle Nigeria was ranked as the most ethical company in the country with 5.77% of respondents favouring the company, followed by GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Nigeria with 5.63% and Julius Berger having 5.35%. In fourth and fifth positions in the Ethical Standard category were Etisalat and Unilever, respectively.

Globacom came second (with 8.49% of respondents' votes) in the CSR category, after Dangote (8.78%); Etisalat, MTN and Coca-Cola were ranked third, fourth, and fifth, respectively, in terms of social responsibility. GAIN said CSR-related projects, which are separate from promotions, include "funding community skills development centres, donation of drugs, provision of basic infrastructure needs, scholarships and educational endowments, amongst others."

While the survey shows the telecommunications companies are doing well in the area of CSR, the airlines are the worst-performing firms in this category. Dana and Arik were among the bottom three firms in the CSR category.



Dangote also edged out the major multinationals in terms of brand appeal; Coca-Cola came in second, while Etisalat, Cadbury and Nestle were ranked third, fourth and fifth, respectively. The bottom three brands were Promasidor (23rd), Lafarge (24th) and Multichoice (25th).

In its evaluation, the polling organisation said it found a high correlation between CSR and brand appeal.

"This reinforces the notion that CSR does not only benefit communities that are the beneficiaries of the “give back”, they could also be beneficial to the firms themselves, helping to boost their brand equity & appeal," GAIN said.

Cadbury and Nestle were ranked second and third, respectively, by respondents in the Product Quality category that Dangote also led. Meanwhile, the bottom three firms in this category were Dana (23rd), Multichoice (24th) and Arik (25th).

Ranked by reputation, Arik, MTN, Multichoice, Dana and Airtel were deemed to be the least reputable firms in Nigeria. The top three most reputable firms, according to the latest GAIN survey, were Unilever, Honeywell Group and PZ Cussons.



In terms of the overall ranking, Dangote was the top-ranked company, followed by Nestle, Etisalat, Cadbury and GSK. The lowest-ranking companies were Dana (23rd), Multichoice (24th) and Arik (25th).

"There seems to be a crisis of reputation and a lack of impactful community engagement by firms in the Nigerian aviation industry. The two aviation companies that were on our list of 25 firms used in this inaugural survey ended up among the bottom three companies in the overall rankings," GAIN noted.

GAIN, which has previously carried out polls on political governance, said this inaugural corporate performance index excludes financial institutions – banks and insurance companies. The company said its next survey will cover more firms, including some selected top-performing organisations in the financial sector.