Nowadays it is not enough for a large company to make products or provide services and sell them efficiently. They also have to work even harder at selling themselves. Just consider the recent blunders at some of Europe’s biggest companies that seriously risk undermining their image in the market.

The most obvious case is Siemens. A year ago exactly, the German industrial conglomerate appointed an outsider for the first time in its 160-year history to run the company and revive it after being hit by an unprecedented corruption scandal. Peter Löscher, the new chief executive, seemed to have got off to a good start.