Saturday, July 7, 2007

CORPORATE COMMUNICATION RELEVANCE
















Corporate Communication Relevance


The activities undertaken by an organization to communicate both internally with employees and externally with existing and prospective customers and the wider public. Corporate communication is sometimes used to refer principally to external communication and sometimes to internal communication, but strictly speaking covers both. The term implies an emphasis on promoting a sense of corporate identity and presenting a consistent and coherent corporate image.





As services brands are a cluster of values, we explore the way in which values are communicated to both customers and staff. Values tend to be communicated to consumers via their experience of the brand as a whole, including their interactions with employees, external brand communications and the tangible elements of the service offering. For employees, values are communicated via HR practices and policies, internal and external brand communications and the example set by senior managers.


Multi-media dissemination of information now plays a major role in the life of every person and every business, with the business media the hottest-growing segment. Dealing with the business media is the responsibility of every senior executive, to ensure that messages about the organization are conveyed in the form and format that one desire. Besides the CEO, it's now the CFO and often, other senior financial executives, who are expected to be company spokespersons for the business media - which includes newspapers, magazines, television, radio, online and wire services. It starts with asking: "Who/what are we as a company?" "How are we viewed externally?" "How do we want to be viewed?" With answers to these questions, one will go about developing the plan. It's crucial that senior executives understand that a big part of their responsibilities as leaders of companies is to promote the public face of their company in this new media environment.


References:-



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21st CENTURY COMMUNICATION TRENDS

21st Century Communication Trends


There are five key areas in which the trends can be commonly seen:-

Globalization
Increasingly global sales, manufacturing, research, management
Movement from direct exports to having sales offices in different countries to having manufacturing to all functions spread across the globe
Increasingly global labor market
Due to:
ü reduced cost and improved quality of international transportation and communication
ü search for unsaturated markets
ü exploit regional cost and expertise differences

Workforce getting more heterogeneous sexually, racially, culturally, individually, etc.
Source of both innovation and conflict/communication problems
Need to cope with different styles of interaction, dress, presentation, physical appearance
Due to:
changing demographics
globalization of the labor market

Flexibility

Organizational systems and processes and people that can respond differently to different situations
Fewer detailed rules and procedures
Greater autonomy, encouragement for initiative
Customizable employment relationships: telecommuting, job sharing, mommy tracks, pay for skills
Lifetime employability, not lifetime employment
Due to:
differentiated customer needs -- filling them exactly is source of competitive advantage
increasing diversity in workplace
increased pace of change in technology and markets

Flat Structure


Fewer levels of management,
Workers empowered to make decisions
Fewer differences in responsibility (not in pay) across levels
Due to:
need for speed, which makes it helpful to empower employees to make decisions, which means fewer managers are needed
changes in information technology mean less need for the communication and control functions of middle managers
globalization means intensified competition, which increases the need for a flat structure.


Easing the way of doing business by Networking

Direct communication across unit & firm boundaries, ignoring chain of command.
Cross-unit team structures.
Outsourcing & downsizing.
Strategic alliances with competitors and others.
Now have firms that are your competitors, customers and collaborators all at the same time.
Close coordination among firms (e.g., JIT systems) and information sharing (open computer systems).
Across the board contact with customers, not just official boundary spanners.
Customization
Decentralization
Due to new information technologies, especially groupware, client-server, distributed computing
fast changing customer needs and competitor offerings
more complicated products require better integration of manufacturing, design, and marketing functions

References:-


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CRISIS MANAGEMENT


CRISIS MANAGEMENT

It's all about the different crises that can pounce on us unannounced, and how to manage and cope with them. Categories range from relationships and finance to illness and accidents.

"Every little thing counts in a crisis". - Jawaharlal Nehru 1889-1964, Indian Prime Minister.
Typically, a ‘crisis’ involves chaos and confusion, and misrepresentation of facts and figures.
The hard fact is you never know with who and how you may have to interact. Do you have a plan that prepares you for any eventuality?
Experts list seven must-have elements in every crisis communications kit. The odds are incredibly high that your company will experience a crisis of some kind in the next five years. A vital factor whether that crisis builds or seriously damages your company is how you handle that crisis with the media.
It will help to bear in mind that this crisis may allow you to continue business as normal, or it may end up as a situation where you’ll not be able to access the tools you normally use to do your job (natural disaster, union strikes, etc.). To cope with this, your crisis communications kit must be flexible enough to provide the appearance of normality even in the most abnormal situations.
Thus it’s important for your crisis communications kit to not only be duplicated in some offsite location, but to also include information, disks, graphics, computer files, photos, etc. that are normally readily at your fingertips in your office.

Consider this starter list of six items that should be included in any crisis communications kit:

1. A list of the members of the crisis management team, which should include, a trusted assistant/top manager from the CEO’s office, heads of each department, public relations, marketing and security team members. In case of actual crisis, this team will be focused down to the group applicable to that specific crisis.

2. Complete contact information for key officers, spokespeople, and crisis management team members including company and personal phone numbers, email addresses, cell numbers, pagers, faxes, instant message handles, addresses, even spouse’s cell numbers.

3. Fact sheets on the company, each division, each physical location, and each product offered, preferably in camera-ready condition.

4. Copies of your company, division and product logos, your press release format and the scanned in signature of your CEO on disk.

5. Pre-written scripts answering key questions that you have generated through your crisis scenario analysis. What words will you use to the typical “We don’t have that information yet, but will let you know as soon as it becomes available.”

6. Contact information for each of your key media contacts both locally, nationally, and if appropriate, important financial press and analysts.

A Crisis Tools Glossary

Because new technologies breed new words at an ever-accelerating rate, here is a glossary of terms for directors who may need help speaking and understanding the new language of technocrats:

Blast email is a form of mass email that can easily send as many as 1 million emails per hour.

Blog, short for Web log, is a Web site where entries are written in chronological order and displayed in reverse chronological order. Blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; some function as more personal online diaries.

A corporate Web log is similar to a blog except that it is published and used by an organization instead of an individual to reach its organizational goals. CEO blogs serve a similar purpose.

A dark Web site is a communication portal held in reserve that can be quickly fed with content and "turned on" in response to a particular PR crisis.

An intranet is a private computer network that functions as a private version of the Internet to securely share part of an organization's information or operations with its employees.

Listserv, a registered trademark of L-Soft international Inc., is often used as a generic term for any email-based mailing list application.

A microsite, also known as a minisite or weblet, refers to an individual Web page or cluster of pages that are meant to function as an auxiliary supplement to a primary Web site. Typically they are used to add specialized editorial or commercial information.

A podcast is a specific type of webcast that, like radio, can mean either the content itself or the method by which it is distributed; the latter is also termed podcasting.

RSS is a family of web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. RSS feeds may contain either a summary of content from an associated Web site or the full text.

SMS, or Short Message Service, also called text messaging, is a means of sending short messages to and from mobile phones.

Streaming media is multimedia that is continuously received by, and normally displayed to, the end-user while it is being delivered by the provider.

Vlogs are video web logs, similar to blogs except that they concentrate on videos rather than textual material.

Vidcast or vodcast is a term used for the online delivery of on demand video clip content.

Web feeds allow software programs to check for updates published on a Web site and/or links to content on a Web site. Web feeds are used by the weblog community to share the latest entries' headlines or their full text, and even attached multimedia files.

Web syndication is a form of syndication in which a section of a Web site is made available for other sites to use.

References:-

http://crisisandmanagement.com/blog/?p=119

http://directorsandboards.com/DBEBRIEFING/July2007/Feature707.html

http://technorati.com/blogs/crisisandmanagement.com/blog
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COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES















COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES
Communication is a process that allows beings - in particular humans - to exchange information by one of several methods. Communication requires that some kinds of symbols from a kind of language are exchanged. There are auditory means, such as speaking or singing, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch or eye contact.
The beginning of human communication through artificial channels, i.e. not vocalization or gestures, goes back to ancient cave paintings, drawn maps, and writing.

A book titled "Five Epochs of Civilization" by William McGaughey (Thistlerose, 2000) divides history into the following stages: Ideographic writing produced the first civilization; alphabetic writing, the second; printing, the third; electronic recording and broadcasting, the fourth; and computer communication, the fifth. The media affects what people think about themselves and how they perceive people as well.
The latest trend in communication, termed smartmobbing, involves ad-hoc organization through mobile devices, allowing for effective many-to-many communication and social networking.

Two types of communication are essential - external and internal.

External communication reaches out to the customer to make him or her aware of your product or service and to give the customer a reason to buy. This type of communication includes your brochures, various forms of advertising, contact letters, telephone calls, Web sites and anything else that makes the public aware of what you do.
Image is extremely important in external communication! Your logo should represent who you are; your letterhead should be a selling tool; your telephone message should reflect your professionalism.

Internal communication is essential to attracting and retaining a talented staff. You must provide the direction for the company by consistently communicating that message; you must motivate your staff through various forms of communication, which can include awards, newsletters, meetings, telephone calls and formal and informal discussions.

Electronic media
In the last century, a revolution in telecommunications has greatly altered communication by providing new media for long distance communication. The first transatlantic two-way radio broadcast occurred on July 25, 1920 and led to common communication via analogue and digital media:
Analog telecommunications include traditional telephony, radio, and TV broadcasts. Digital telecommunications allow for computer-mediated communication, telegraphy, and computer networks.
Communications media impact more than the reach of messages. They impact content and customs; for example, Thomas Edison had to discover that hello was the least ambiguous greeting by voice over a distance; previous greetings such as hail tended to be garbled in the transmission. Similarly, the terseness of e-mail and chat rooms produced the need for the emoticon.
Modern communication media now allow for intense long-distance exchanges between larger numbers of people (many-to-many communication via e-mail, Internet forums). On the other hand, many traditional broadcast media and mass media favor one-to-many communication (television, cinema, radio, newspaper, magazines).

Mass media
Mass media is a term used to denote, as a class, that section of the media specifically conceived and designed to reach a very large audience (typically at least as large as the whole population of a nation state). It was coined in the 1920s with the advent of nationwide radio networks and of mass-circulation newspapers and magazines. The mass-media audience has been viewed by some commentators as forming a mass society with special characteristics, notably atomization or lack of social connections, which render it especially susceptible to the influence of modern mass-media techniques such as advertising and propaganda.
Basic Communication Tools
Specific tools that can be used for communication include:-

Telephones
Pagers
Fax
PDA
Email
Internet
Digital Camera
Scanners


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COMMUNICATION THEORIES

Communication Theories

There are different theories given by different experts:-

Harold Lasswell - One of the earliest attempts to describe the communication process was Harold Lasswell's "Who says what to whom with what effect."

Wilbur Schramm - this model includes encoder interpreter and decoder with the feedback mechanism.




Claude Shannon - Shannon and Weaver suggested a linear model where a "sender encodes a message that is transmitted through a channel to be decoded by a receiver."

Norbert Wiener – He originally proposed a concept called cybernetics. This is a process model based on built-in monitoring of the environment and modifying components of the overall system.



The Purchase Funnel – It is a variant of communication theories like AIDA (‘attention’, ‘interest’, ‘desire’, ‘action’) or DAGMAR* which became popular in the 1950’s and ‘60’s.
Purchase Funnel The ‘Purchase Funnel’ is one of the most prevalent models of the consumer’s decision making process used by marketers today. It’s found in many industries, and in the automotive industry, it looks like this:

These models were derived from classical learning theory and have in common the assumption that, for marketing communications to be effective, the consumer must go through a linear sequence of mental events, with each stage dependent on the success of the previous stage, producing a ladder-like progression towards purchase.


Total Quality Communication Model

Assembling these parts results in a model of communication that incorporates the primary variables that a communicator may manipulate in the communication process to increase effectiveness and efficiency of communication in organizations.


References:-

ü http://images.google.co.in/images?hl=en&q=Communication+Theory&gbv=2

ü http://images.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://adotas.cachefly.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/funnel2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.adotas.com/2006/03/is-the-purchase-funnel-dead-how-the-internets-rewired-consumer-buying-behavior/&h=272&w=400&sz=52&hl=en&start=5&sig2=7Sqxrs_4v6VVTphanJGkhg&tbnid=h1SmL9HdmhxpuM:&tbnh=84&tbnw=124&ei=ZkSPRv63EoaciQHkysDaBQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3DCommunication%2BTheory%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den

ü http://images.google.co.in/images?svnum=10&hl=en&gbv=2&q=Harold+Lasswell%27s+Communication+Theory

ü http://images.google.co.in/imgres?imgurl=http://www.baclass.panam.edu/comm2002/Textbook/illustrations/laswell.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.baclass.panam.edu/comm2002/Textbook/Chapter02.html&h=75&w=434&sz=5&hl=en&start=5&sig2=6ias8jh8L9Mghzboh-vrsQ&tbnid=K4ycnTp51GdaDM:&tbnh=22&tbnw=126&ei=WlePRv_CLKiyigHZiZj3BQ&prev=/images%3Fq%3DHarold%2BLasswell%2527s%2BCommunication%2BTheory%26gbv%3D2%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den

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Friday, July 6, 2007

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

A study by consulting firm Watson Wyatt found that companies with the highest levels of effective communication between employees experienced a 26 percent total return to shareholders from 1998 to 2000, compared to a -15 percent return for firms that communicated least effectively.

Internal communications and the Changing Environment

Today’s employee is a different person in terms of values and needs than his or her counterpart in earlier decades. The workplace of today is also different – tighter staffing, longer hours, greater workloads and more emphasis on performance are the norm. Today’s employees increasingly are demanding participation in the conversations that are driving organizational change. Managers need to recognize that, if they provide information to employees and also listen to them, those employees will be excited about their work, connected to the company’s vision.

Organizing the Internal Communication Effort

Communication audit is the best way to assess the effectiveness of a company’s internal communication efforts. Both Starbucks Coffee Co. and Kinko’s Inc. hired outside consultants to conduct internal communication audits to identify strengths and weaknesses in those companies’ existing communication practices.

Goals for Effective Internal Communications

Effective internal communication should reinforce employees’ beliefs that they are important assets to the firm. This can happen only if management believes that it is true, and if the communication effort is handled by professionals.

Where Should Internal Communications Report?

In the past internal communications reported to the human resources area. But recent surveys show that over 80 percent of corporations in the U.S place the responsibility for internal communications in the corporate communication area. Ideally, both the corporate communication and the human resources departments in large companies have someone in charge of internal communications.

Implementing an Effective Internal Communication Program

The ideal method of communicating with employees in a small organization is one-on-one meetings with small groups of employees. Even in larger organizations, however, this intimacy in the internal communication effort is a good start for building a more formal program.

Key steps in implementing an effective internal communication program:-

* Communicate Up and Down

* Make Time for Face-to-Face Meetings

* Communicate Online

* Create Employee-Oriented Publications

* Communicate Visually

* Focus on Internal Branding

* Consider the Company Grapevine

References:-

ü Corporate Communication by Paul A.Argenti

ü http://www.starbucks.com/

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MEDIA RELATION

MEDIA RELATION
One of the critical areas within any corporate communication function is the media relations department. The media are both a constituency and a medium through which investors, suppliers, retailer, and consumers receive information about and develop images of a company.

The News Media
The news media are ubiquitous in our society. Referred to as “the press” in earlier times, the expanded media is a powerful part of society. The media have helped shape attitudes in this country on issues as diverse as gun control and hemlines, abortion and corporate pay. But the business has always had a more antagonistic relationship with the press. Increased public and media interest had a profound effect on business and its dealings with the media. Sometime in the 1970s, business coverage started to change. Since then, the private sector has become much more public.

The Growth of Business Coverage in the Media
Before the 1970s, business news was relegated to a few pages toward the back of the newspaper (consisting mostly of stock quotations) and to a handful of business magazines.
Today, so many magazines and web sites are devoted to business news that it is nearly impossible to find a topic not thoroughly covered by one media outlet or another. With the 24-hour networks and all-day business coverage that one can find on FOX, CNBC and CNN, corporate news is virtually impossible to ignore.
Building Better Relations with the Media

To build better relationships with members of the media, organizations must take the time to cultivate relationships with the right people in the media. This might be handled by employees within the company’s media relations department (if one exists) or given to a public relations firm to handle. According to Ron Alridge, former publisher and editorial director of Electronic Media, to have “Good Media Relations” one should “understand the news organization” he is dealing with.
Conducting Research for Targeting Media
Each time a journalist covers a firm in the industry, corporate communication professional need to determine what angle the reporter has taken. Suppose a look at the records shows that the reporter who covered the company’s beat has recently written a piece about a competitor firm moving into a different market as part of its new global strategy. Chances are, this reporter will not be interested in writing the same story again about another company. Thus, the competitor should not pitch its story to this reporter.

Responding to Media Calls
Responding to media requests carefully can make a powerful difference in how the company appears in the story. To begin with, calls should come into a central office that deals with all requests for information from important national media. Next, the person who takes the call should try to find out what angle the reporter is taking on the story. The person responsible for that telephone call should try to get as much information as possible while being careful not to give in return any information that is not already public knowledge.

Preparing for Media Interviews
Once the research and analysis are complete, the executive who will be interviewed needs to be prepared fro the actual meeting with the reporter. First, the executive should be given a short briefing on the reporter or producer’s prior work. Once the executive has been briefed on the reporter’s background and likely angle, he or she should be given a set of questions that the reporter is likely to ask. In addition to thinking about what to say, the executive needs to think about the most interesting approach to expressing these messages. Using statistics and anecdotes can help bring ideas alive in an interview. Finally, the executive needs to be prepared to state key ideas as clearly as possible at the beginning of the interview.

Gauging success
Looking at not only where the ink has landed but also how well the company’s key messages are communicated is the proper way to gauge the success after a media encounter. This is what has been doing. Part of elevating Verizon’s media score is finding out where the media hits have landed (with what constituencies), not just determining that the media carried a story on the company. contracted research and consulting firm Yankelovich Partners to conduct an annual survey of business journalists to gauge perceptions of AT&T and its media relations staff.

Developing an Online Media Strategy
v Extend Your Media Relations Strategy to the Blogosphere – Blogs are publicly accessible personal Websites that serve as sources of commentary, opinion, and information on a variety of topics.

v Handle Negative News Effectively – The communications department should quickly assess the potential damage that the news might cause.

References:-
· Corporate Communication by Paul A. Argenti (page )
· http://www.wsj.com/
· http://www.verizon.com/
· http://www.att.com/
· http://images.google.co.in/images
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Thursday, July 5, 2007

Corporate Advertising

Corporate Advertising

  • Of the many options available for organizations to communicate their identity, paid corporate advertising is the easiest and fastest. Any corporate advertising campaign should be:-
    Strategic – Looking toward the future of the company so that it will have longevity and won’t become stagnant or “old news.”
    Consistent – Image advertising cannot be viewed as a separate corporate message; rather it must fir with company vision.

    The History of Corporate Advertising in America

    According to expert Thomas Garbett, the earliest corporate ad paid for by the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T), started its run in June of 1908. The ad had, as its headline, “Telephone service, a public trust.” This ad had to be proliferated to defend its (then) monopoly status and combat the assumption that it couldn’t possibly be acting in the public’s interest because of the lack of competition.
    A decade later, many companies were running corporate advertisements. By midcentury, “institutional advertising,” as it was called, was widely used throughout the United States. During the World War II, use of this form of ad had increased because the company’s were unable to produce products for public; they were busy producing for the Army. But after the World War II, corporate advertising faded from view until its revival in the 1970s, when oil companies found themselves battling allegations of exorbitant profits during the oil crisis and companies again turned to corporate advertising to defend themselves.
    Today, corporate advertising is highly visible and intensely scrutinized by constituencies. Magazines from Advertising Age to Business Week to IR Magazine feature annual “best of” lists praising corporate campaigns deemed to be best overall or most memorable.

    How is it different from Product Ads?

    A major difference between corporate and product advertising is who pays for each of the two types of advertising. A company’s marketing department typically is responsible for all product-related advertising and pays for such ads out of its own budget. Corporate advertising, on the other hand, falls within the corporate communication area and either comes out of that budget or, in some cases, is paid for by the CEO’s office.




    Corporate advertising generally falls into three broad categories:-

    Image Advertising
    Financial Advertising
    Issue Advocacy

    Image Advertising – Many companies use corporate advertising to strengthen their identities following structural changes like entering a new business or merging with any other company. Since the company needs to explain their new vision, organization and strategy to constituents who may have known them well in an earlier incarnation but are struggling to understand the new organization.
    Tyco used corporate advertising to rehabilitate its image in the wake of corporate fraud by former CEO Dennis Kozlowski and former CFO Mark Swartz.

    Financial Advertising – This kind of corporate advertising can stimulate interest in a company’s stock among potential investors as well as buy-side and sell-side analysts. In a survey of 200 research analysts – “strength of management” was the number-one factor influencing the decisions to invest in a company. James Gregory of Corporate Branding LLC explains, “the CEO’s ability to paint a picture of the company’s future is the linchpin of a successful corporate advertising campaign.”
    The television campaign run by W.R. Grace in the early 1980s – “Look into Grace” series, highlighted the company’s financial and business attributes and then asked, “Shouldn’t you look into Grace?”

    Issue Advocacy – Issue or advocacy advertising is used by companies to respond to external threats from either government or special interest groups. Issue advertising typically deals with controversial subjects: it is a way for companies to respond to those who challenge the status quo. By taking issues directly to the consumer, companies can compete with journalists for a share of the reader’s mind. As a result, issue advertisements often are purposely placed on op-ed pages in prominent newspapers.
    Amway ran a series of ads that positioned the company as environmentally aware. One had a photograph of five Amway distributors and the headline “Find the environmental Activist.” The copy goes on to explain that everyone in the ad is an environmental activist and that all Amway distributors are committed to the cause of environmental awareness. The tag line reads “And you thought you knew us.”



    Who Uses Corporate Advertisements and Why?

    Cigarette companies, oil companies, pharmaceuticals and other large industrial companies all have image problems to deal with, from concerns about health, to drug recalls, to pollution. Overall, heavy industry spends more on corporate advertising than consumer-packaged-goods firms, which lead all other industries in product advertising.
    A good corporate advertising program can clarify and enhance a company’s reputation, and the absence of one can hurt packaged goods companies and retailers as well.

    Reasons companies invest in corporate advertising campaigns:-
  • Increase sales – Through corporate advertising, companies can draw out features about themselves that they think will appeal to the public and, as a result, make consumers want to buy products from them.
  • Create a Stronger Reputation – The best corporate ad creates goodwill and enhances reputation by letting constituencies in on what the organization is all about, particularly if it does beneficial things that people might not be aware of.
  • Recruit and Retain Employees – Corporate advertising is an indirect way of building morale among employees. It can also help companies attract the bests and the brightest both at the entry level and for senor positions.
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Identity, Image and Reputation

Identity, Image and Reputation

Walk into a firm’s office and it takes just a few moments to capture those all-important first impressions and learn a great deal about the company. Reputation of a company is shaped by the image and identity the company has.

What are Identity and Image?

A company’s identity is the visual manifestation of the company’s reality as conveyed through the organization’s name, logo, motto, products, services, buildings, stationery, uniforms, and all other tangible pieces of evidence created by the organization and communicated to a variety of constituencies.
Image is a reflection of an organization’s identity i.e. it is the organization as seen from the viewpoint of its constituencies. Depending on which constituency is involved, an organization can have many different images.
Thus, to understand identity and image is to know what the organization is really about and where it is headed. This is often hard for anyone but the CEO or president to grasp. For e.g. the reality of an organization as large as Exxon Mobil, as diversified as General Electric, or as monolithic as Mitsubishi is really hard to know.

Differentiating Organizations through Identity and Image

Given how industry today faces global competition and companies are trying to manage with limited resources, an organization’s identity and image might be the only difference that people can use to distinguish one company from the next.
As products become much the same all over the world, consumers are increasingly making distinctions based on notions other than the product itself, thereby making image and identity even more powerful differentiators.
A consumer purchasing gas for his vehicle might choose an Exxon Mobil station or a Shell station based on his perception how he sees the company. He may have a strong negative feeling about Exxon Mobil, for example, because of the oil spill at Valdez. Or, conversely, he may be delighted by the consistent returns to shareholders that this behemoth provides.

Shaping Identity

Identity building is the only part of reputation management an organization can control completely. Here are some instruments through which corporate identity can be enhanced:-

A Vision – an inspirational corporate vision that encompasses the company’s core values, philosophies, standards and goals is most central to corporate identity. Corporate vision is a common thread that all employees, and ideally all other constituencies as well, can relate to.


Names and Logos – Branding and strategic brand management are critical components of identity management programs. And a subset of corporate branding includes – names and logos.
Companies often institute name changes either to signal identity changes or to make their identities better reflect their realities.
Logos are another important component of corporate identity – perhaps even more important than names because of their visuals nature.

Consistency is the Key – An organization’s vision should manifest itself consistently across all its identity elements, from logos and mottos to employee behavior.
Overnight package delivery pioneer FedEx is a good example of this.

Identity Management in Action

The dual nature of identity and image – embodied in physical objects yet inextricably tied to perceptions – creates a special dilemma for decision makers. Here are certain steps which if followed can help build the identity:-
Conduct an Identity Audit

Set Identity Objectives

Develop Designs and Names

Develop Prototypes

Launch and Communicate

Implement the Program

Corporate Philanthropy and Social Responsibility

Every organization today needs to consider corporate philanthropy and social responsibility when thinking about its own reputation. A 2001 survey conducted by public relations firm Hill & Knowlton revealed that three-quarters of Americans consider social responsibility issues when making their investment decisions. Many others factor it in when deciding where to purchase goods and services. The Shell and Exxon Mobil example earlier provides an example of this.
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An Overview of the Corporate Communication Function

An Overview of the Corporate Communication Function

A growing number of companies recognize the value of corporate communication and are adapting their budgets and internal structures accordingly.
Public relations (PR), the predecessor to the corporate communication (Corr Comm) function, grew out of necessity. Although corporations had no specific strategy for communications, they often had to respond to external constituencies whether they wanted to or not. As new laws forced companies to communicate many situations they hadn’t previously confronted, the constant need for response meant that dedicated resources were required to manage the flow of communications.

The First Spin Doctors

In addition to the internal PR staff, outside agencies often helped companies that either couldn’t afford a full-time person or needed an extra pair of hands in a crisis. The legends of the public relations field – such as Ivy Lee, Edward Bernays, David Finn, Harold Burson, and more recently, Howard Rubenstein and John Graham – helped the public relations function develop from its journalistic roots into a more refined and respected profession.
By the 1970s, the business environment required more than the simple internal PR function supplemented by the outside consultant. Mobil Oil developed one of the most sophisticated public relations departments of its time. Mobil’s Herb Schmertz revolutionized the field by solving communications problems with strategies that no one had thought of before.

To Centralize or Decentralize Communications?

One of the first problems organizations confronted in structuring their communication efforts was whether to keep all communications focused by centralizing the activity under one senior officer at headquarters or decentralizing the activities and allowing individual business units to handle communications. The more centralized model provided an easier way for companies to achieve consistency in and control over all communication activities. The decentralized model, however, gave individual business units more flexibility in adapting the function to their own needs.

Where Should the Function Report?

CEOs generally devote their time to communicating their company’s strategic plan, mission, operating initiatives, and community involvement both internally and externally. In many cases CEOs themselves are an embodiment of the corporate brand. As such, their behavior and commentary can easily and markedly affect a company’s financial performance. All of these imply that the CEO should be the person most involved with both developing the overall strategy for communications and delivering consistent messages to constituencies. Ideally, the corporate communication function will have a direct line to the CEO. The company’s head of communications reports directly to the CEO, president or chairman.
The Functions within the Function

According to recent surveys, over half of the heads of corporate communication departments oversee communications functions that include:-

Media relations
Online communications
Marketing
Special events
Product/Brand communication
Crisis management
Employee/Internal communications
Community Relations
Product/Brand Advertising
Reputation Management
Public affairs/Government relations
Overseeing Investors Relations
Company Annual or Quarterly Report
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Sunday, June 24, 2007

Communicating Strategically

Most managers have learned to think strategically about their business overall, but few think strategically about what they spend most of their time doing – communicating.

Communication Theory

The root of modern communication theory goes back to Aristotle’s major work – “The Art of Rhetoric”. This theory talks about three parts of every speech: the speaker, the subject and the hearer. Based on this theory the modern strategy has: organization, messages, and the constituency.

Developing Corporate Communication Strategies

The three subsets of an organization strategy include:

Determining the objectives for a particular communication – what does the organization want each constituency to do as a result of the communication?

Deciding what resources are available for achieving those objectives.

Money
Human Resources
Time

Diagnosing the organization’s reputation – reputation is based on the constituency’s perception of the organization rather than the reality of the organization itself.

Analyzing Constituencies

In this analysis following facts are determined:
Who your organization’s constituencies are
What each thinks about the organization, and
What each knows about the communication in question?

Delivering Messages Appropriately

It involves a two-step analysis for companies. A company must decide how it wants to deliver the message (choose a communication channel) and what approach to take in structuring the message itself.

Constituency Response

It has to satisfy two questions- did each constituency respond in the way the corporate wished? And should the corporation revise the message in light of the constituency responses?

Conclusion

By creating a coherent communication strategy based on the time-tested theories presented here, an organization is well on its way to reinventing how it handles communication.

Reference:

1. Corporate Communication by Paul A. Argenti (pg. 1-12)
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CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

The Changing Environment for Business

The business world today is different than what it was 50 years ago. A person who is now into a senior position in a firm must have taken birth during one of the most flourishing and buoyant periods in the American history. But today, along with other changes, business is being relentlessly scrutinized by the public and it has become severe in the last decade. In the subsequent part of the pack I will be discussing these issues.

The American Business’s Demography

It’s true that you can’t gratify each and everyone with whatever you do. Same has been the case with the American business. On one hand, in the 1860s, the working conditions of the steelworkers and the railroad builders were quiet terrifying. The Industrial Revolution which took place after that only intensified this situation. The exploitation of young women and children working in factories only added up to the negative perceptions of business. Whereas, the other side of the game is that the patriarchs of the big business were making big money. Although they had a negative perception in the public but it was the same public which envied their material wealth and the lifestyle and wanted to be one of them.
While all this was happening the stock market kept rising along with the rising discrepancy between the poor and the rich. But then there was this Great Depression in 1929 in which the stock market “bubble” finally explode. It was a dark time for both the businesses and the individuals.
And then came the World War II in the mid-1940s, which even though killed thousands of people but saved the American business and gave way to the prosperity of the 1950s and 60s.
In the early 2000s there was the “dot.com bubble” burst and the exposure of corporate fraud at large companies such as World Com, Adelphia, Tyco and Enron which led to the American perception that business can only deceive them.

The Powerful Channels: Media and the Internet

Through the years, the television news media have played a major role in conveying, filtering, and obstructing messages from corporations as well as government and activist groups. By the late 1990s, the internet also began to shape attitudes towards business. Today, environmental activists, animal rights groups and shareholder rights proponents can now propagate their views instantaneously through the world. As long as business has a negative public image, movies and television will continue to dramatize real life tales of corporate wrongdoing.

An Interwoven world

Technology has strengthened communication channel around the globe. Today, companies tend to specialize in their core competencies and outsource the other less-skilled jobs. Anticorporate activism also have benefited from technological advances. The 1999 antiglobalization protests at the world trade organization annual meeting in Seattle were largely coordinated by extensive online planning. Continuous technological advances also have made it difficult for companies to prevent both positive and negative news about them from reaching individuals in virtually all corners of the world.

Tools to Face These Challenges

First, managers need to recognize that the business environment is constantly evolving.
Second, companies must adapt to the changing environment without changing what they stand for or compromising their principle.
Third, assume things will only get worse and you will be better off in today’s complex and rigid environment.
Fourth, corporate communication must be closely linked to a company’s overall vision and strategy.

Conclusion

The way organizations adapt and modify their behaviour, as manifested through their communications, will determine the success of American business in the 21st century.

Reference:

1. Corporate Communication by Paul A. Argenti (pg. 1-12)
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