Corporate communications

Corporate communications is defined as communication which goes to all staff. Corporate communications 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.

What corporate communications 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 organisation, 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. So, corporate communications as a role has become significant and professional in nature.

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

Corporate communications comprises:

External communications

Media Relations

This involves building and maintaining a positive relationship with the media (TV, print, web etc. Be it drafting and dissemination of press releases, organizing press conferences and meeting with media professionals, events for media etc.

External event

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

Company / Spokesperson profiling

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

•Management of company internet/ web portals /other external touch points

•Managing company publication - for the external world

Manage Print Media

Internal communications

•Managing company publication - for employees and partners

•"'Internal events /

= announcements - for employees and partners =Bold text"'

Employee communications

•Sharing information with employees, building employer pride, managing employee issues, etc.

•Manage Intranet and other internal web portals

Brand management

•Develop and upkeep the corporate identity - ensure adherences to corporate brand guidelines

Crisis communication

•Manage crisis situations through effective communication

Corporate Communications Officers(CCOs)

Recent research on the corporate communications function reports that corporate communications officers in Global Fortune 500 companies tend to have average tenures of about 4.5 years and that nearly one-half (48%) report into the CEO. CCOs say that approximately 42% of their job is strategic and 58% 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 vs. Contender companies. [The Rising CCO, www.webershandwick.com, ]

ee also

*Corporate Video

References