Corporate communication

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Corporate communication is the communication issued by a corporate / organization / body / institute to all its public(s). Publics here can be both internal (employees, stakeholders, i. —e. - share and stock holders) and external (agencies, channel partners, media, government, industry bodies and institutes, educational institutes and general public).

An organization needs to talk the same message to all of its stakeholders, in order to transmit coherence, credibility and ethic. If one of these points is broken, the whole community can make this organization disappear. The Corporate Communication area will help this organization to build its message, combining its vision, mission and values and will also support the organization by communicating its message, activities and practices to all of its stakeholders.

According to the book Essentials of Corporate Communication^[1] by Cees van Riel and Charles Fombrun the term Corporate Communication can be defined as the set of activities involved in managing and orchestrating all internal and external communications aimed at creating favorable starting points with stakeholders on which the company depends. Corporate communication consists of the dissemination of information by a variety of specialists and generalists in an organization, with the common goal of enhancing the organization's ability to retain its license to operate.

As Jackson (1987)^[2] remarks: Note that it is corporate communication — without a final "s". Tired of being called on to fix the company switchboard, recommend an answering machine or meet a computer salesman, I long ago adopted this form as being more accurate and left communications to the telecommunications specialists. It's a small point but another attempt to bring clarity out of confusion.

Corporate communication serves as the liaison between an organization and its publics.

Organizations can strategically communicate to their audiences through public relations and advertising. This may involve an employee newsletter or video, crisis management with the news media, special events planning, building product value and communicating with stockholders, clients or donors.

Contents 1 What corporate communication encodes and promotes 2 Key tasks of corporate communication 3 Tools of corporate communication 4 The communication agenda: to build reputation 5 External communication 5.1 Media relations 5.2 External events 5.3 Company/spokesperson profiling 6 Brand management 7 Corporate identity/organizational identity 8 Corporate reputation 9 Crisis communications 10 Employee communication 11 Organisational communication 12 Internal communication 13 Corporate communication officers 14 See also 15 References

[edit] What corporate communication encodes and promotes

• Strong corporate culture
• Coherent corporate identity
• Reasonable corporate philosophy
• Genuine sense of corporate citizenship
• An appropriate and professional relationship with the press, including quick, responsible ways of communicating in a crisis
• Understanding of communication tools and technologies
• Sophisticated approaches to global communications

How an organization communicates with its employees, its extended audiences, the press and its customers brings its values to life. Corporate communications is all about managing perceptions and ensuring:

• Effective and timely dissemination of information
• Positive corporate image
• Smooth and affirmative relationship with all stakeholders

Be it a corporate body, company, organization, institution, non-governmental organization, governmental body, all of them need to have a respectable image and reputation. In today's day and age of increasing competition, easy access to information and the media explosion, reputation management has gained even more importance. Therefore, corporate communications as a role has become significant and professional in nature.

Gone are the days when corporate communication merely meant 'wining and dining the client' - it has now emerged as a science and art of perception management.

[edit] Key tasks of corporate communication

The responsibilities of corporate communication are therefore:

• to flesh out the profile of the "company behind the brand" (corporate branding);
• to develop initiatives that minimize discrepancies between the company's desired identity and brand features;
• to indicate who should perform which tasks in the field of communication;
• to formulate and execute effective procedures in order to facilitate decision making about matters concerning communication;
• to mobilize internal and external support behind corporate objectives.
• to co ordinate with international business firms

[edit] Tools of corporate communication

Integrated communication can be achieved in various ways. The main four practices are:

1. application of visual identity systems (sometimes referred to as "house style")
2. use of integrated marketing communications;
3. reliance on coordinating teams;
4. adoption of a centralized planning system.

[edit] The communication agenda: to build reputation

Corporate communication helps an organization to create distictive and appealing images with its stakeholder groups, build a strong corporate brand, and develop reputation capital (Dowling 1994^[3]; van Riel, 1995^[4]; Fombrun, 1996^[5]). To achieve those ends, all forms of communication must be orchestrated into a coherent whole (van Riel, 1992^[6]; Bronn, 2002^[7]), and success criteria developed that enable measuring the effects of the organization's communication on its reputation and value (Fombrun and van Riel, 2004^[8]).

[edit] External communication

[edit] Media relations

This involves building and maintaining a positive relationship with the media (television, print, web, et cetera). This includes, but is not limited to, drafting and dissemination of press releases, organizing press conferences and meeting with media professionals and organizing events for the media as a group.

[edit] External events

Could involve vendor / supplier / distributor meets, channel partner meetings, events related to product launches, important initiatives, et cetera.

[edit] Company/spokesperson profiling

Ensuring that the company/organization spokesperson is in the public limelight, is well-known and considered as an authority in the respective sector/field.

• Managing content of corporate websites and/or other external touch points
• Managing corporate publications - for the external world
• Managing print media

[edit] Brand management

• Development and upkeep of the corporate identity to ensure adherence to corporate brand guidelines

To improve overall business communications so as to clearly and effectively communicate the essence of the company.

[edit] Corporate identity/organizational identity

There are two approaches for Identity, respectively Corporate Identity and Organizational Identity.

• "Corporate identity is the reality and uniqueness of an organization, which is integrally related to its external and internal image and reputation through corporate communication" (Gray and Balmer, 1998)
• "Organizational Identity comprises those characteristics of an organization that its members believe are central, distinctive and enduring. That is, organizational identity consists of those attributes that members feel are fundamental to (central) and uniquely descriptive of (distinctive) the organization and that persist within the organization over time (enduring)". (Pratt and Foreman, 2000)

[edit] Corporate reputation

Reputations are overall assessments of organizations by their stakeholders. They are aggregate perceptions by stakeholders of an organizaitons's ability to fulfil their expectations, whether these stakeholders are interested in buying the company's products, working for the company, or investing in the company's shares.^[9]

In 2000, the US based Council of PR Firms identified seven programs that were developed by either media organizations or market research firms, and that were being used by companies to assess or benchmark their corporate reputations. Of these only three are conducted regularly and have broad visibility:

• "America's Most Admired Companies" by Fortune Magazine;
• The "Brand Asset Valuator" by Young & Rubicam;
• "RepTrak" by Reputation Institute.

[edit] Crisis communications

[edit] Employee communication

• Sharing information with employees, building employer pride, managing employee issues, et cetera.
• Manage the Intranet and other internal web portals

[edit] Organisational communication

Encourage and enable the employees to plan for new ideas and effectively implement them.
Main article: Organizational communication

[edit] Internal communication

• Managing corporate publications for employees and partners
• Organising internal events for staff

[edit] Corporate communication officers

Recent research on the corporate communication function reports that corporate communication officers (CCOs) in Global Fortune 500 companies tend to have average tenures of about 4.5 years and that nearly one-half (48 per cent) report to the Chief Executive Officer. CCOs say that approximately 42 per cent of their job is strategic and 58 per cent is tactical. Over the next year, they will be focusing more on social responsibility, social media and reputation. The research done by Weber Shandwick and Spencer Stuart found distinct differences between CCOs in Most Admired companies versus Contender companies. ^[10]

[edit] See also

• Corporate video
• Corporate image
• Corporate propaganda
• Marketing speak
• Master of corporate communication
• Organizational communication

[edit] References