CORPORATE COMMUNICATION RELEVANCE

Why communications are important ?


Organizations must communicate to survive. Continuous, day-to-day interactions with stakeholders are as essential to the functioning of an organization as breathing is to a human being. Indeed, one might say that if the finance function is one of the essential, life-sustaining corporate systems, communication is the other. The two are as interdependent, and as inseparable, as the lungs and the heart. But still a common question is to be noticed that is like appointing a CFO for a company, why a communications directors were not more frequently appointed to the boards of companies.


Most of the reasons given by respondents fell into three distinct groups:

• The difficulty of measuring effectiveness,


• The difficulty of communicating what the communication director does


• The lack of adequate credentials on the part of serving communication directors.

Unfortunately, however, communications are often viewed within the organization — and within the corporate world as a whole — either as a gratuitous or a defensive activity, a nice add on or a tiresome burden. The constantly shifting politics of our peer group, to learn, even to maintain our health and well-being, depends on our ability to communicate.



What communication really means?



Communication is fundamentally about interaction — it is only in a very secondary sense about information, persuasion or presentation. In general communication just means “say", "talk" or "tell"'. This myth of communication has now, paradoxically, become a burden for the communications director to carry. It has created expectations of corporate communications that often can't be met, and can be difficult to manage. The organization's equity is not in its investment in communication collateral but in the 'social capital' built up through its interactions with its audiences. Communication is talk. The communications director is responsible for trying to open up a conversation with some groups on some topics, and to try to steer this conversation so that those groups might come away feeling more positively about the organization.
The skill of corporate communications is, therefore, skill in conducting conversations — in opening up areas of interest, and in steering the discussion away from issues that might be damaging. It's not about crafting Teflon coated messages — which, in any case, tend to turn their listeners off.



It’s about process, not product


One of the biggest issues that seems to have held corporate communications back — a central tenet of the 'myth of communication' — is that it is about a product, rather than a process. Because the media through which many communications take place can often take quite tangible forms (and, perhaps more importantly, because much of the spend is take up by these forms) it is easy to imagine that it is the brochure, or the website, or the press release that is the important thing. But in fact, the product is only a part of an ongoing conversation, and it is sustaining that conversation which delivers value to the organization.
A 'product' focus can even have counterproductive results — as, for instance, when resources have been used up in a major infrastructure project (such as a website, or an intranet), constraining the ability to maintain an ongoing dialogue. One of these products may represent a substantial investment by the organization, but it represents only a transient event in the development of a relationship. The organization's equity is not in its investment in communication collateral but in the 'social capital' built up through its interactions with its audiences.


What future for corporate communications?


In the coming decades the corporate communications will be facing more challenges, we can’t just underestimate it. as we are entering a new era where access to information has never been easier, and less controllable. Audiences are more sophisticated at deconstructing – and debunking messages than ever before.
The main key for successful communication will be to successful communication will be to re-connect with its bases in fundamental human activities. By understanding what it is that really makes a message interesting, relevant and credible.

REFERANCE:-


http://www.masternewmedia.org/corporate-marketing/corporate-marketing-communications/Cluetrain-online-corporate-communications-as-marketplace-meeting-ground-Tombolini-20070418.htm
http://www.expresscomputeronline.com/20050207/technologylife01.shtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_identity

EXAMPLE:




Despite the fact that Coca-Cola was legally constrained to focus on an internal audience, its
experience in this crucial area can be instructive. Rarely ever is crisis communication aimed
even partially-- at an internal audience analyzed, and so even expert practitioners often overlook this decisive factor. Holtz (2002) says bluntly, “You won’t find many public relations professionals who agree with me that your employees are your most important public relations audience” (p. 269). This oversight is unfortunate because, as Fombrun (1996) contends, employee image is one of the four pillars of corporate reputation, which in turn drives almost everything from share price to executive recruiting. Therefore, any activity aimed at rebuilding a tarnished internal corporate image should rate as a first priority, and that apparently is the level of importance that Coca-Cola has attached to communicating its diversity efforts to all employees—however belatedly this campaign was undertaken.