CORPORATE COMMUNICATION

Corporate communications deliver the company's strategic message to all its audiences: customers and potential companies, shareholders, employees and regulators. These communications create and preserve the company's brand and help everyone move in concert with the company's mission. Just as with any aspect of the business, corporate communications performance require evaluation; thus objectives are written so that success or failure can be measured.

Awareness

Corporate communications departments typically set objectives around improving awareness among various audiences of a product or organizational position. The communications reach these audiences in a variety of ways: social media, traditional media, one-to-one relationships, annual reports and Intranet or employee newsletters. Objectives revolve around a particular medium or message. For example, one objective might be to meet one-on-one regularly with all journalists or analysts who write about your company. Another might be that 60 percent of car shoppers will say in a survey that they've heard that an independent organization ranked your car as No. 1 for safety. Examples of internal communication objectives are that 80 percent of employees indicate in surveys that they understand the reason for layoffs or that the employer answers individual employee questions regarding benefits changes within two hours.

Goal-Oriented Action

Knowledge of a product or issue alone doesn't move people toward the company's mission. Corporate communications departments also must set goals around behaviors, engagement or outcomes. For example, improving employee retention by 10 percent, having 90 percent of customers provide excellent or very good reviews on social media, seeing a rise in positive approval ratings by 10 percent, increasing sales of a new product by 50 percent or having positive media coverage outweigh negative by four to one. Before setting goals related to action, companies research their industry and company history and undertake surveys or focus groups to determine a reasonable objective, according to Alice Brink, an accredited business communicator, in "Communication Planning: Measurement Comes First and Last," March 1, 2013.

Performance to Budget

Business success is about profit; i.e. whether your revenues exceed your costs. While the value of some aspects of corporate communications, such as positive media coverage, will be difficult to pin directly into a revenue vs. cost model, some objectives will reflect the return on investment in corporate communications. For example, one objective might be to meet sales goals without an increase in marketing staff or more than a 10 percent increase in marketing expense. Other objectives could focus on the number of media inquires or number of employee-benefits questions to which corporate communications responded.
Corporate communication is the practice of developing, cultivating and maintaining a corporate identity or brand image. Every business--big or small--invests in corporate communication initiatives to mold its image, communicate with internal and external audiences and sustain a long-term positive reputation. Corporate communication has been responsible for the worldwide success of Fortune 1000 American corporations such as McDonald’s, Wal-Mart, IBM,
Importance
Corporate communication encompasses methods and processes in promoting a company’s credentials, its positioning pitch and its acceptability in the marketplace. It involves a series of planned, interconnected activities and programs to communicate and engage with internal employees and externally with partners, customers and other stakeholders. Corporate communication helps highlight a company’s annual earnings and achievements, its roster of products and services and its philanthropy and community outreach efforts. The intent at all times is to project a unified message and a consistent corporate identity.
Purpose
Corporate communication is generally acknowledged as the best possible method of building long-term corporate identity. A well-articulated and consistent corporate communication strategy, along with larger advertising and PR campaigns, reinforces a positive image about a company. This practice has helped businesses, corporations and even startups to develop and sustain corporate brand identities. Strategic, timely and well-orchestrated corporate communication initiatives have helped companies to limit negative fallouts of market missteps, crisis scenarios or unseemly or controversial utterances by key business executives.

Role of Corporate Communication Department
The in-house corporate communication department is the key enabler of any corporate communication effort. A senior executive and the brand communication manager devise, develop and revise various initiatives. They understand the need to be flexible and account for evolving business environments and contextual organizational shifts. The team drafts news releases, prepares executive briefs for top management, ghosts op-eds and columns for business unit managers and arranges interviews of key personnel in relevant industry and trade publications or for panel-based programs on cable and network news channels. The department also liaises with an external PR agency to manage nationwide PR campaigns and press conferences.
Influence of Top Management
The top management or key business executives play an influential and nuanced role in shaping the corporate communication agenda of an organization. They offer strategic inputs and suggestions to fine-tune specific programs, communicate key organizational highlights and corporate governance practices for the corporate communication team to highlight and also allocate budgets for programs.
Benefits
A well-managed, flexible and sustained corporate communication practice can reap medium-term and long-term dividends. It enables a company to have a distinctive identity in a crowded and intensely competitive marketplace environment. Customers are more loyal to the company and generally feel positive about buying or consuming the company’s products and services. Business investors stay committed to investing in the company. Shareholders remain confident about the capabilities of key executives and the long-term prospects and profitability of the company.

   BY SHAYO ISSAH