INVESTOR RELATIONSHIP

Investor relations is a set of activities which relate to the ways in which a company discloses information required for regulatory compliance and good investment judgment to bond and/or shareholders and the wider financial markets. Investor relations is considered a specialty of public relations by the U.S. Department of Labor.^[1]

Most public quoted companies now have dedicated IR officers or managers who looks after the company's investor relations activities and deal with investors wishing to know more about the company. Functions of investor relations personnel often include collection of information on competitors and dissemination of information via press conferences, one-on-one briefings, investor relations sections of company websites, and company annual reports. The investor relations function also often includes the transmission of information relating to intangible values such as the company's policy to corporate governance and its wider corporate social responsibility.

The investor relations function must be aware of current and up-coming issues which the organization may face, and which may have an impact on the organization. In particular, it must be able to assess the likely impact or reaction of any announcements (or any research reports issued by Financial analysts) to be made on the share price of a company. It will have top-level access to the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman or President of the corporation to ensure that the image of the corporation is maintained in a coherent fashion.

Due to the potential impact of legal liability claims awarded by courts, and the consequential impact on the company's share price, IR often has a role in crisis management of, for example, product liability issues and industrial disasters.

The professional body for Investor Relations in the U.S. is the National Investor Relations Institute known as NIRI. In the United Kingdom, the recognised industry body is the Investor Relations Society, while in Australia the professional body is the Australian Investor Relations Association and in Canada the professional association is called CIRI (Canadian Investor Relations Institute).

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act

The Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002 increased the duties and roles of investor relations professionals. The act established new requirements for corporate governance, reporting, and disclosure and it added significant new criminal and civil penalties for non-compliance. Notable provisions of the act which apply to investor relations include enhanced financial disclosures and accuracy of financial reports, real-time disclosures, off-balance sheet transaction disclosures, pro forma financial disclosures, management assessment of internal controls, and corporate responsibility for financial reports.

MEDIA RELATIONS.

Journalism has entered an introspective, self-critical phase. In Britain, the government launched an all-out assault on the BBC in the aftermath of the Iraq war and, improbably, appeared to gain a total victory. In the US, the Jayson Blair scandal has raised questions about the integrity of all journalists. Everywhere, business correspondents face difficult questions about their over hyping of the dot coms followed by their lack of scrutiny of unfolding corporate scandals at Enron, WorldCom and Parmalat.

Newspapers are struggling to maintain circulations in a commercial market in which consumers expect news to be free. Reporters feel underpaid and poorly resourced when they glance enviously at the pay and conditions of those working in public relations and corporate communications. There’s an enduring myth of the journalist as Lone Ranger: the individual battling to uphold truth and decency in a hostile world; but in reality most journalists work for large organisations, often with diversified business interests and little stomach for lengthy, expensive and awkward investigations. Risk averse accountants and lawyers call the shots.

Within these constraints, reporters are under constant pressure to be first to break stories in a world where news is ubiquitous. Above all, they are struggling to adjust to an online age in which journalists have lost their monopoly on news.

Yet what has happened to the media in the digital and online era that was meant to lead to disintermediation? Rather than going away, the media has proliferated. The three terrestrial television channels in Britain in the early 1980s have become hundreds of channels today.




Newspaper circulation may be in decline, but their reach has massively increased through online means. As my colleague David Phillips points out, the UK’s Guardian newspaper (a low circulation broadsheet) has disproportionate worldwide influence via the web thanks to its investment in online content. While its circulation may be low, its reputation is riding high.

Trusted PR

If there are simple guidelines to suggest which news sites we find trustworthy, what are the principles behind trustworthy public relations?

Here are my suggestions. Public relations should be:

· Transparent (are you who you say you are? is it clear who you represent?)

· Creative (are your ideas good, though not necessarily whacky?)

· Credible (on whose authority are you speaking?)

· Sourced (is your research clearly identified?; three times this morning on the radio the question was put: 'what's your evidence?')

· Timely (not too soon, preferably not embargoed; not too late in the day; and never call the day after publication…)

We’ve known ever since Intel was forced to replace its Pentium chips because of Usenet mutterings back in 1994 (Gillmor, 2004, 46) that online forums can influence the media and cause even the largest organisations to rethink. Yet it’s when these mutterings tip into the media mainstream that we really sit up and take note.

We can influence the media through newsgroups and weblogs; we can know more of individual journalists through their blogs (for example, here’s The Independent’s Charles Arthur having a rant about badly-directed news releases); but the most satisfactory relationships sooner or later have to progress from the virtual to the real world.

Media relations remains as important and as unpredictable in the digital age as it has always been. It’s not the only game in town, but it still has a special place in making public relations distinct within corporate and marketing communications – since media coverage brings credibility to public relations messages. As the UK’s Institute of Public Relations suggests, ‘public relations is about reputation: the result of what you do, what you say, and what others say about you’. It’s the last of these clauses that’s hardest to influence, but most valuable to the PR practitioner.
REFERENCES:
www.websitemarketingplan.com/pr/

www.iaocblog.com/blog/

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.

Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), in many different ways, and for all beings, and some machines. Many or all, fields of study dedicate some attention to communication, so when speaking about communication it is very important to be sure about what aspect of communication one is speaking about. Some definitions are broad, recognizing that animals can communicate with each other as well as human beings, and some are more narrow, only including human beings within the parameters of human symbolic interaction.

Nonetheless, communication is usually described along a few major dimensions:

1. (what type of things are communicated)
2. Source (by whom)
3. Form (in which form)
4. Channel (through which medium)
5. Destination/Receiver (to whom)
6. Purpose/ aspect (with what kind of results)
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

Between parties, communication content include acts that declare knowledge and experiences, give advice and commands, and ask questions. These acts may take many forms, including all variations of nonverbal communication. The form depends on the symbol systems used. Together, communication content and form make messages that are sent towards a destination. The target can be oneself, another person (in interpersonal communication), or another entity (such as a corporation or group).

Depending on the focus (who, what, in which form, to whom, to which effect), there exist various classifications. Some of those systematical questions are elaborated in Communication theory.

communications technologies are as much about time and temporality as they are about distance and space. Synchronous media permit direct communication in real time. Asynchronous media permit communication only through use of a recording medium (e.g. text), and not in real time. Both intervene in the temporality of our relations.

Because communications media enable us to stretch our relationships across time and space (by framing the possibilities of our interactions), they inform and even produce our proximity to one another. These proximities involve rhythms of interaction, activity coordination, ways of communicating, and ways of offering or protecting our availability to each other. They put us into a kind of virtual immediacy with respect to our access and presence to each other. We become virtually equidistant to one another.

Proximity, commonly measured as a physical field in which persons are distributed in space, also unfolds temporally, as duration. We can think of proximity as a distribution of relations in a spatial sense, and an intensification in a temporal sense.

Unlike physical proximity, whose distances are extensive, or spatial, the distances that characterize temporal proximity are intensive. They can be described as having qualities (not quantities) of speed, duration, acceleration, rhythm, and synchronization.

To this end, a critical part of our inquiry into the impact of communication technology rests on the assumption that we, as individuals, sense and pursue some level of synchrony in our interactions with one another. We will argue that it is through a temporal synthesis, and not just through understanding made possible by language, that action binds us to one another. It is in creating and producing shared time and times that interaction is also a coordination of action. And it is in this domain, this temporal proximity if you will, that we experience the profound depth of spontaneous social experiences and the relations that emerge from them.

Our presence availability to others for interaction is informed by possibilities of communication and interaction with them. Technology becomes a means of production for interpersonal communication and interaction because it enables communication regardless of spatial (and temporal) distances. Connective technologies radically transform our presence and presence availability to others in relational and temporal terms.

Language occupies a privileged position in the co-production of intersubjective experiences. When people speak, their proximity in physical terms becomes a proximity in relational terms also. This is because speech not only serves as a means of expression (statements of fact, for example): speech produces effects that bind us.

These effects are described by sociologists and linguists as the product of a special case of language use called speech acts. Speech act theory offers descriptions of the ways in which speaking is doing and speech is action. The actions may only "occur" as mutual understanding reached by those in conversation, and produce no material consequence; or they may accompany physical activity also (such as in transactions involving material exchange, the coordination of task-based activities, and so on).

It is through linguistic exchange that people reproduce the normative basis of society. In other words, society is reproduced and maintained through speech-based performances. These performances, though colored by individual style of expression and delivery, embed the normative claims "belonging" to a society at a given time. Actors unwittingly embed these claims in their own use of language as speech.

Speech act theory further argues that these performances bind actors to one another through their mutual understanding of the claims embedded in their exchanges. To accept the premises of speech act theory, in other words, is to view society as a system of meanings that have claims upon individuals, but which is only maintained through their use of language.

It would seem that a view of communication in which the binding of actors to one another is a linguistic phenomenon, and the effect of which is to reproduce society and nothing less, would place the mediation of communication in a position of critical importance.

The consequences of mediation are many, but among them are some of direct significance for a communication-oriented view of society. First is that speech act theory and its related theoretical perspectives tend to assume face-to-face interaction and performance. This opens up several lines of concern.

First, is the bracketing of physical co-presence, which means the elimination of access to visual and physical cues, or what are described as "facework." Mediation eliminates the physicality of interaction and thus the countless non-linguistic gestural cues we provide through facework, body language, intonation, and so on-what are also called "paralinguistic markers."

Second, is the loss of physical context. "Situated" (co-present) interactions provide actors with access to contextual cues and meanings belonging to location. Our interactions are informed by where we are (physically) and how that place is coded (culturally). By reflecting the expectations that characterize a place, we help to maintain it.

Third, is the integration of space and time. All human experience unfolds in a here and now. But the "here" that characterizes mediated interactions has neither place nor visibility. The virtuality of interaction through technology indeed creates a new kind of experience, but not as a form of "cyberspace." Rather than look for spatial dimensions in virtual interaction, we will argue that it's concepts of temporality and time that help us to understand this transformation.

The point of this digression was to show that mediation involves phenomena on several levels simultaneously. Our use of technology for communication transforms not only our interactions, but also their role in reproducing and maintaining relationships that persist through space and time. To summarize, then, the bracketing of the physical and co-present performance of linguistically-embedded interaction by technologies of communication mediates: 1) the facework of interaction, 2) the contextuality of situation, 3) and the intrinsic relationship of action to time and place.

Our inquiry into mediation of communication will take the shape of an investigation of the transformative effects of mediation, and for several reasons. These run from the micro to the macro, or from the impact technology has on the user and his or her immediate experience (or, the user experience) of communicating through technology, or primary effects, to the macro, or what we might call the secondary effects of mediation.

The investigation begins with the idea that mediation should be regarded as a means of the production of communication. In fact we'll call these technologies production formats of communication. We will investigate the impact technology has on the emergence of communication and interaction practices at the micro and macro levels: from the individual user to society. We will also examine secondary effects of mediation. These include social obligations and commitments, trust, the integrity of institutions, organizational hierarchy, and much more.

REFERENCES:

www.1888articles.com/communication-technology
www.gravity7.com/articles_

Communication theory

here is much discussion in the academic world of communication as to what actually constitutes communication. Currently, many definitions of communication are used in order to conceptualize the processes by which people navigate and assign meaning.

We might say that communication consists of transmitting information from one person to another. In fact, many scholars of communication take this as a working definition, and use Lasswell's maxim, "who says what to whom in what channel with what effect," as a means of circumscribing the field of communication theory.

A simple communication model with a sender transferring a message containing information to a receiver.

Other commentators suggest that a ritual process of communication exists, one not artificially divorceable from a particular historical and social context.

Communication stands so deeply rooted in human behaviors and the structures of society that scholars have difficulty thinking of it while excluding social or behavioral events. Because communication theory remains a relatively young field of inquiry and integrates itself with other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and sociology, one probably cannot yet expect a consensus conceptualization of communication across disciplines.

Currently, there is no paradigm from which communication scholars may work. One of the issues facing scholars is the possibility that establishing a communication metatheory will negate their research and stifle the broad body of knowledge in which communication functions.

History of Communication Theory

Communication as a named and unified discipline has a history of contestation that goes back to the Socratic dialogues, in many ways making it the first and most contestatory of all early sciences and philosophies. Aristotle first addressed the problem of communication and attempted to work out a theory of it in The Rhetoric. He was primarily focused on the art of persuasion.

Humanistic and rhetorical viewpoints and theories dominated the discipline prior to the twentieth century, when more scientific methodologies and insights from psychology, sociology, linguistics and advertising began to influence communication thought and practice.

Seeking to define "communication" as a static word or unified discipline may not be as important as understanding communication as a family of resemblances with a plurality of definitions as Ludwig Wittgenstein had put forth.

Communication Theory Framework

It is helpful to examine communication and communication theory through one of the following viewpoints:

• Mechanistic: This view considers communication to be a perfect transaction of a message from the sender to the receiver. (as seen in the diagram above)
• Psychological: This view considers communication as the act of sending a message to a receiver, and the feelings and thoughts of the receiver upon interpreting the message.
• Social Constructionist (Symbolic Interactionist): This view considers communication to be the product of the interactants sharing and creating meaning.
• Systemic: This view considers communication to be the new messages created via “through-put”, or what happens as the message is being interpreted and re-interpreted as it travels through people.

Inspection of a particular theory on this level will provide a framework on the nature of communication as seen within the confines of that theory.

Theories can also be studied and organized according to the ontological, epistemological, and axiological framework imposed by the theorist.

Ontology essentially poses the question of what, exactly, it is the theorist is examining. One must consider the very nature of reality. The answer usually falls in one of three realms depending on whether the theorist sees the phenomena through the lens of a realist, nominaist, or social constructionist. Realist perspective view the world objectively, believing that there is a world outside of our own experience and cognitions. Nominalists see the world subjectively, claiming that everything outside of one’s cognitions is simply names and labels. Social constructionists straddle the fence between objective and subjective reality, claiming that reality is what we create together.

Epistemology is an examination of how the theorist studies the chosen phenomena. In studying epistemology, objective knowledge is said to be the result of a systematic look at the causal relationships of phenomena. This knowledge is usually attained through use of the scientific method. Scholars often think that empirical evidence collected in an objective manner is most likely to reflect truth in the findings. Theories of this ilk are usually created to predict a phenomenon. Subjective theory holds that understanding is based on situated knowledge, typically found using interpretative methodology such as ethnography and interviews. Subjective theories are typically developed to explain or understand phenomena in the social world.

Axiology is concerned with what values drive a theorist to develop a theory. Theorists must be mindful of potential biases so that they will not influence or skew their findings (Miller, 21-23).

Mapping the theoretical landscape

A discipline gets defined in large part by its theoretical structure. Communication studies often borrow theories from other social sciences. This theoretical variation makes it difficult to come to terms with the field as a whole. That said, some common taxonomies exist that serve to divide up the range of communication research. Two common mappings involve contexts and assumptions.

Contexts

Many authors and researchers divide communication by what they sometimes called "contexts" or "levels", but which more often represent institutional histories. The study of communication in the US, while occurring within departments of psychology, sociology, linguistics, and anthropology (among others), generally developed from schools of rhetoric and from schools of journalism. While many of these have become "departments of communication", they often retain their historical roots, adhering largely to theories from speech communication in the former case, and from mass media in the latter. The great divide between speech communication and mass communication becomes complicated by a number of smaller sub-areas of communication research, including intercultural and international communication, small group communication, communication technology, policy and legal studies of communication, telecommunication, and work done under a variety of other labels. Some of these departments take a largely social-scientific perspective, others tend more heavily toward the humanities, and still others gear themselves more toward production and professional preparation.

These "levels" of communication provide some way of grouping communication theories, but inevitably, some theories and concepts leak from one area to another, or fail to find a home at all.

Assumptions

Another way of dividing up the communication field emphasizes the assumptions that undergird particular theories, models, and approaches. While this approach also tends to have as its basis institutional divisions, theories within each of the seven "traditions" of communication theory that Robert Craig suggests tend to reinforce one another, and retain the same ground epistemological and axiological assumptions. His traditions include:

• rhetorical - practical art of discourse
• semiotic – intersubjective mediation through signs
• phenomenological - experience of otherness, dialogue
• cybernetic - information processing
• sociopsychological - expression, interaction and influence
• critical - discursive reflection
• sociocultural - reproduction of social order (Miller, 13)

Craig finds each of these clearly defined against the others, and remaining cohesive approaches to describing communicative behavior. As a taxonomic aid, these labels help to organize theory by its assumptions, and help researchers to understand why some theories may seem incommensurable.

---

While communication theorists very commonly use these two approaches, it seems that they decentralize the place of language and machines as communicative technologies. The idea (as argued by Vygotsky) of communication as the primary tool of a species defined by its tools remains on the outskirts of communication theory. It finds some representation in the Toronto School of communication theory (alternatively sometimes called medium theory) as represented by the work of Innis, McLuhan, and others. It seems that the ways in which individuals and groups use the technologies of communication — and in some cases are used by them — remain central to what communication researchers do. The ideas that surround this, and in particular the place of persuasion, remain constants across both the "traditions" and "levels" of communication theory.

Some realms of communication and their theories

• message production: Constructivist Theory, Action Assembly Theory
• message processing: Elaboration Likelihood Theory, Inoculation Theory
• discourse and interaction: Speech Acts Theory, Coordinated Management of Meaning
• developing relationships: Uncertainty Reduction Theory, Social Penetration Theory
• ongoing relationships: Relational Systems Theory, Relational Dialectics
• organizational: Structuration Theory, Unobtrusive and Concertive Control Theory
• small group: Functional Theory, Symbolic Convergence Theory
• media processing and effects: Social Cognitive Theory, Uses and Gratifications Theory
• media and society: agenda setting, spiral of silence
• culture: Speech Codes Theory, Face-saving Theory (Miller, v-viii)
• Symbolic Convergence Theory

here is much discussion in the academic world of communication as to what actually constitutes communication. Currently, many definitions of communication are used in order to conceptualize the processes by which people navigate and assign meaning.

We might say that communication consists of transmitting information from one person to another. In fact, many scholars of communication take this as a working definition, and use Lasswell's maxim, "who says what to whom in what channel with what effect," as a means of circumscribing the field of communication theory.

A simple communication model with a sender transferring a message containing information to a receiver.

Other commentators suggest that a ritual process of communication exists, one not artificially divorceable from a particular historical and social context.

Communication stands so deeply rooted in human behaviors and the structures of society that scholars have difficulty thinking of it while excluding social or behavioral events. Because communication theory remains a relatively young field of inquiry and integrates itself with other disciplines such as philosophy, psychology, and sociology, one probably cannot yet expect a consensus conceptualization of communication across disciplines.

Currently, there is no paradigm from which communication scholars may work. One of the issues facing scholars is the possibility that establishing a communication metatheory will negate their research and stifle the broad body of knowledge in which communication functions.

REFERENCE:

• www.cudenver.edu/~mryder/itc/comm_theory
  
  
  www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal
  

CORPORATE ADVERTISING

Corporate Advertising which converts prospects into sales is the lifeblood of any company. Without marketing, a company will have a difficult time competing in one of the liveliest marketplaces in the world. The US does billions of dollars worth of business which now includes both online and offline companies that offer goods and services to a constantly growing consumer base. Some services and products are almost self selling in that they are needed in the day to day uses of the general public. In this case, exposure is the only thing needed to be successful in a venture. Other businesses offer consumers opportunities, products and services that must be promoted in a way that creates a niche from specially targeted consumer groups.

Whatever the requirement or methodology used for corporate advertising, it is generally true that nothing really sells itself unless it is visible and promoted. Brick and mortar businesses no longer are the only ventures that must survive through good marketing methods. Online businesses must also face the challenge of promoting their goods and services in a virtual world where one company can see a stream of thousands of visitors a day without ever seeing the face of one of its customers. The overlap of virtual and real world business continues as many companies have seen their opportunity to create another market through online marketing concepts.

This has given corporations another avenue of sales that has seen phenomenal growth in the recent 5-10 years as some businesses have tapped into another consumer base. For some businesses, the entrance into the online business world has breathed fresh life into a slowly shrinking customer pool and many companies have downsized their real world storefronts in favor of their virtual counterparts. Others have seen a doubling of business due to growth in each avenue as smart business advertising has catapulted each area into a thriving business that melds the new and the old. Even though the Internet has changed the way everyone does business, traditional corporate advertising methods with contemporary changes continue to be the important link between consumer and company.

Methods of business advertising through media outlets, direct mail campaigns, online strategies and other promotions continue to be the tools to attract a customer base for business. Building a productive marketing strategy is based on some simple, basic guidelines. Know the target groups before activating any corporate advertising strategy. Marketing blindly is like shooting a shotgun at a target from 400 yards. It may hit a broad area, but the impact is so small that it is hardly noticeable. Hitting the bull's eye with the appropriate bullet is exactly what target marketing is all about. So, determine what consumer group to go after and develop a strategy to reach them. "Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path." (Psalm 119:105)

After determining the target group to pursue, develop an effective business advertising strategy to draw in the consumers. Using media outlets for broad range marketing can be very effective but can also dig deep into an advertising budget. Using telemarketing can be very helpful if pursuing fresh leads. This can also be more expensive if telemarketers are hired or outsourced. Larger companies may find this is an effective tool to follow up pre-confirmed leads that have been purchased from professional lead generators. Another method that can be used by both large and smaller businesses is direct mail marketing strategies.

This method offers a vast selection of avenues through letters, postcards, flyers, brochures, business cards and gift promotionals that just about any business can fit into its marketing budget. Direct mail continues to be one of the foremost strategies for advertisement used for both offline and online companies. The limitless ideas for mail strategies offer easy access and huge returns on some campaigns. Marketing experts analyze that roughly 1-2% of all direct mail campaigns will result in returns. This can be a significant bump in sales for any company that accesses thousands of consumers for one campaign.

The freshest and continually evolving corporate advertising method is online strategies that have only been significantly developed within the last 10 years. The growing online consumer base around the world has many businesses constantly trying to keep up with a tech oriented target group. For companies who have successfully tapped into the virtual business world, their base of economic growth reaches not only America but around the globe. The global economy is being stimulated by this phenomenon and will continue to grow as companies development more tools to reach potential consumers in Asia, Africa and Europe.

Internet tools such as sales generation leads, auto responders, marketing software, and email campaigns will continue to grow in sophistication and acceptance throughout many business advertising departments in the US. The opportunity to open up new frontiers for sales and capital growth will not reach their peek anytime soon. In order to keep up with the rapidly changing corporate climate and potential profit growth throughout the world market, current businesses have to merge the old with the new advertising methods
.


REFERENCES:
http://www.christianet.com/advertising

www.isnare.com/

CORPORATE IDENTITY, IMAGE, AND REPUTATION

IDENTITY, IMAGE, AND REPUTATION:

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 evidence created by organization and communicated to a variety of constituencies. Whereas Image is defined by the constituencies how they values a particular organization.

Given how every industry today faces global competition and companies are trying to manage the limited resources, and organization’s identity and image might be the only difference that people can use to distinguish one company from the next. That is why people prefer Nike shoes than Shoe from Puma does not matter whether they are cheaper.

It is increasingly acknowledge that intangibles assets are the backbone of 21st economy. Brands and corporate reputation are increasingly recognized as some of the most important intangibles that form the backbone of the post-modern economies. Intangible factors help to create brands and corporate reputations which provide the lasting competitive advantage and have become important determinants of organizational performance and value.

For example, diverse firms such as Procter & Gamble, for example, have very distinct division between the brands (Tide, Ivory, to name a few) versus Procter & Gamble as an organization. General Electric, on the other hand, carries a consistent corporate identity across multiple products and divisions, such as GE appliances and even GE Financial Services.

CORPORATE IDENTITY:
Many companies, such as McDonald's and Electronic Arts have their own identity that runs through all of their products and merchandise. The trademark "M" logo and the yellow and red appear consistently throughout the McDonald's packaging and advertisements. Many companies pay large amounts of money for an identity that is extremely distinguishable, so it can appeal more to its targeted audience.

Corporate Identity is often viewed as being composed of three parts:

Corporate Design (logos, uniforms, etc.)
Corporate Communication (commercials, public relations, information, etc.)
Corporate Behavior (internal values, norms, etc.)

Corporate Identity has become a universal technique for promoting companies and improving corporate culture. Most notably is the company PAOS, founded by Motoo Nakanishi in Tokyo Japan in 1968. Nakanishi fused design, management consulting and corporate culture to revolutionize CI in Japan.


Brand Image and Corporate Reputation in the Pharmaceutical Industry:

The issue of corporate versus brand reputation is particularly pressing in the pharmaceutical industry. With the advent of DTC (direct to consumer) marketing in the 1990s, pharmaceutical brands began to develop a more interactive relationship with the end user. At the same time, through the 1990s firms such as Merck, Eli Lilly, and Pfizer began to manage broader portfolios of brands both within a therapeutic area as well as across multiple therapeutic areas. Lilly, for example, has blockbuster drugs in mental Health (Prozac, Zyprexa, Cymbalta), Urology (Cialis), Women’s Health (Evista, Forteo) and Diabetes (Humulin and Humalog Insulins, Actos and Byetta). In developing this portfolio, pharmaceutical firms have needed to understand the costs and benefits associated with linking brand and corporate identity across brands and with various stakeholders including consumers, doctors, and the FDA and other governmental bodies.

INTERNAL COMMUNICATIONS

The importance of internal communication

Internal communication is essential for every organisation, but very few are able to manage it efficiently, writes Sudipta Dev

Internal communication is considered a vital tool for binding an organisation, enhancing employee morale, promoting transparency and reducing attrition. Ironically, while everybody understands and talks about the significance of internal communication, very few are able to manage it efficiently. Both the long-term and short-term fallout of ineffective internal communication can be damaging for an organisation. It can start from the spread of rumours to disillusionment among employees to a gradual destruction of the company’s brand image. Worse, it may also lead to the slow death of the organisation.

When Deloitte and Touche Human Capital conducted a survey among American CEOs who were asked which HR issues are very important to the success of the organisation, 95 percent of them said “effective internal communication.” Simultaneously, only 22 percent agreed that they thought it was being delivered effectively. “I agree with the conclusions. In most organisations the quality of communication is either not effective or is absent. In the IT industry, human issues are even more important because people are an asset to the organisation; their skill-sets are the capital, their mindset is the driver,” says Sanjay Mandlik, corporate champion-HR & TQM, Emerson Network Power (India). He strongly believes that the HR person should be highly qualified in understanding the communication process, and should champion it with full ownership.

P K Sridharan, president, India operations, Hexaware Technologies, concedes that there is a gap between desire and action. “However in recent times companies have begun to realise the significance of their internal customers. But I believe that besides having effective internal communication, it is critical to have an efficient delivery mechanism.” He points out that there have been several instances in the past where internal communication failed as the delivery mechanism for it wasn’t perfectly ‘oiled.’

It is well-known that the root cause of most internal problems being faced by a company often stems from ineffective communication. “Industry standards like P-CMM in Level 2 include communication as one of the key process areas. In high-context cultures like India, the delivery of the message is as important as the message itself. It is therefore necessary to identify the best possible methods to reach your message to the target audience—in this case, your employees,” explains Sunder Rajan, general manager-HR, Infinite Computer Solutions.

According to Rajan, the IT sector faces unique issues peculiar to the nature of the industry. With employees of most IT services companies spread across geographies onsite, offshore and onshore, internal communication is a challenge. “However, because most IT employees are technology-savvy, the use of technology can largely address this issue. Intranets, e-mail, e-newsletters and video conferencing are some tools that can be used effectively to drive an internal communication programme,” he states.

In recent times, companies have begun to realise the significance of their internal customers P K Sridharan President, India Operations Hexaware Technologies	To get the desired result, the credibility of the information source must be strong Manoj Mandavgane General Manager, HR Icici Infotech	Internal communication ensures that initiatives are implemented and followed at a local level Gauri Deshmukh HR Head Sas India	Several organisations fail due to ineffective communication even though they have competent people Sanjay Mandlik Corporate Champion, HR & TQM Emerson Network Power India

Vital link

Effective internal communication helps the organisation to meet its objectives. It is the vital link that enjoins everyone to deliver his best. “Communication is not a language, but it involves trust, relationships, control and delegation. It also creates transparency within the organisation. Many corporates create their value statements by giving the right space for the communication to convey the right message to the people,” states Mandlik. He says that several organisations fail due to ineffective communication even though they have some very competent people.

Notes Sridharan, “In recent surveys conducted across industries, and especially the IT industry, money is a distant second reason why employees opt to be part of an organisation. The primary reason by far is a sense of direction clearly communicated by the top management to employees so that they feel a sense of belonging to and responsibility for the growth of the company. Successful organisations build this loyalty through effective internal communication.” He affirms that it is also desirable that employees get to know of company developments before they become public. This helps in raising the morale and motivation of employees, and thus increases productivity. Internal communication also helps stimulate much-needed feedback from employees to top management.

Gauri Deshmukh, head of HR at SAS India, lists the following reasons why internal communication is so important for an organisation:

• It provides information and encourages sharing by driving and supporting the organisation’s short-term and long-term goals and objectives.
• It ensures that these initiatives are implemented and followed at a local level.
• It ensures that knowledge-sharing and communication processes are part of the daily workflow across all functions of the business.
• It helps drive ownership and shared engagement.

Whose responsibility?

While the ultimate onus of internal communication rests with the HR, it is a shared responsibility since marketing, public relations, corporate affairs and others are all involved in the process.

Internal communication should take place as a series of steps and not as an isolated event. “Well-planned and delivered internal communication can drive the culture in an organisation. The most important thing is the credibility of an information source. To get the desired result from the audience, the trust factor must be strong,” states Manoj Mandavgane, general manager, HR, ICICI Infotech. He opines that while formulating internal communication strategy, the following factors should be taken care of:

• The purpose should be clear.
• The timing and medium are important.
• Language must be used carefully.
• The tools of communication should be effective.
• When people are vulnerable, their tolerance for ambiguity decreases, so they need to be told clearly to feel secure.
• Communication has to be supported by action.

Ways and means

The channels of communication are intranets, e-mail, newsletters, periodic speeches by the CEO / managing director, open house sessions, etc. Sridharan asserts that while formal channels are important, it is imperative to make informal communication a continuous effort. “Many a time our COO will discuss

the latest achievements in Hexaware during lunch in our common canteen. Our chairman sometimes discusses the path of the organisation while travelling in the bus with employees for a picnic,” he recounts, adding that most of these informal forums also enable two-way communication, which gives the top management a fair idea about how the company is perceived among employees.

Apart from the regular initiatives, ICICI Infotech has made its knowledge management (KM) portal a single window for communication; it includes presentations, information about new clients, and other company details. There is also an active discussion board. “Anybody who logs into the computer comes to the KM site to mark his attendance; this might be anywhere in the globe, including the client site,” informs Mandavgane.

Those organisations which have understood the significance of internal communication encourage employee feedback to continuously improve the process. Curbing the grapevine of misinformation is not easy; it needs constant vigil and continuous effort to enable best practices in internal communication—something that very few companies are able to do efficiently.

REFERENCE:

www.managementhelp.org/mrktng/org_cmm.htm


www.comms.gov.uk/