Communicating Strategically
Communicating Strategically
Environmental changes have affected corporate communication in the past. In this chapter I will discuss the importance of the linkage between corporate communication and company’s strategy. I would also discuss about communication theories and how these theories can be used to set up successful communication strategies.
Communication TheoryMost communication theories are based on notions that can be traced thousand of years. At this time, communication was called rhetoric. Aristotle is most often associated with the development of rhetoric as an art.
According to Aristotle, every speech has three components. These are the speaker (source), the massage, and the constituency. All of these components are interrelated so that communication process is never linear.
Developing Corporate Communication Strategies
The first step is to set an effective organization strategy. In this step the organization has to determining the objectives first. It is very important for an organization to know how they want to influence their constituencies through communication. Determining how an organization wants to communicate about something depends heavily on what resources are available. These can be money, human resources, or even time. The mangers should concern about long-term and short-term costs. Furthermore, the managers on an organization have to underestimate the required resources for a successful corporate communication.
The next step is to analyzing the organizations constituencies. The corporation has to analyze who are their constituencies. They have also consider if their constituencies change over time or if they are still the same. The company differs between two different groups of constituencies, primary and secondary constituencies. Furthermore, the organization has to know that constituencies interact with each other, and an organization must sometimes work through one constituency to reach another. Another important sep for the organization is that the company knows about the constituency’s attitude toward the organization and what the constituency knows about the topic.
The next step by developing a corporate communication strategy is to deliver massages appropriately. The organization has to choose a communication channel, this can be old (speaking, writing) or new (mail, fax) channels. The most effective message structures for an organization are direct and indirect. But experiences showed that the message should be as direct as possible. Indirect messages could be harder to understand and confusing.
The third option of message is that there is no message, but this message does not work with a today’s public.
The last step is the responses of the constituencies. The organization has to assess the results of their messages in order to determine if the communication had the desired result. In some instances, this feedback can be gathered nearly immediately after the delivery or sometimes later. The organization has to analyze the results and has to decide how the organization has to react.
Examples
I saw the importance of communication channels during my time in a bank. The bank developed an intranet for its employees. This channel was created just for the employees. It was very fast and safe. The employees had the chance to announce important information very fast and change files.
Another example is that the bank published important information during the internet to its constituencies. All interested constituencies had the chance to use this channel. The bank used it for the annual reports and other important stakeholder information.
Links
https://www.commerzbank.de/media/aktionaere/service/archive/konzern/2007/gb2006/commerz_gb_e_2006.pdf
http://www.hyperoffice.com/hypermain/Intranet_Solution.cfm
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/nt/2002/nt_2002_11_25_intranet_questions.htm
http://onlineinc.com/mls/sep00/nelson.htm
