Identity, Image, Reputation.

A corporate identity is the communication of a company’s personality and the company personality reflects the inner values, which are the company’s philosophy. Consistent corporate identity can be favorable for the company as consistency can help strengthening the company’s image. In some cases the consistency of identity can help to strengthen the products of the company although such scenarios are created with a very conscious thought as most of the time product has a different profile than the rest of the company. This can be best explained with the help of car brand Mercedes that has brand identity of its own away from the company identity of DymlerCrysler

Corporate image is the way in which a company presents itself to its target groups. By being aware of how a company wishes to appear to its constituents, it can control its image and it is the projection of company’s corporate identity. Image is the perception of people about the organization, which can very well be changed by continuous efforts. A strong corporate image strengthens brand awareness of the company’s products. However, formation of company includes everything from written materials or promotional material to the way it deals with customers and other constituents.

Positive company reputation among its constituents is the utmost thing that any company would like to achieve. Company reputation relates to areas such as preferred employer (Google), good corporate citizen (P&G, IBM, HP) and openness in sharing information with constituents. The corporate reputation is built usually through internal and external communication. Bad company reputation due to reasons like dishonesty in financial dealing can cause serious damage to the company both internally and externally. The best example to this could be Enron, which is facing bankruptcy and various criminal charges thus affecting company reputation badly.

In today’s scenario, all three mentioned above i.e. corporate identity, image and reputation play a very important role in making or breaking organization and companies need to give time and resources in creating and retaining it.

Communication Theory

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.

History of Communication Theory
In the history of philosophy, 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.

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.

Some of the Communication theories are,

By Harold Lasswell (1948): Lasswell was a political scientist. His theory states the following, “Who says what to whom in what channel with what effect.”

By Shannon and Weaver: Shannon and Weaver produced a general model of communication and they suggested that all communication must have six elements such as source, encoder, message, channel, decoder and receiver.



Schramm’s Model: In his model Schramm provides the additional concept of “field of experience” which refers to the kind of attitude, which two people maintain towards each other while interacting. He says that communication is two-way and includes “feedback” in his model.




Westley and MacLean’s Model: Westley and MacLean realized that communication begins when a person responds selectively to his physical surroundings. In their model they considered feedback and said that communication is not always between two people rather it is more than just two people. Also they talked about different modes of communication like interpersonal, mass mediated communication etc.

Links:
http://envstudies.brown.edu/Thesis/2003/Jessica_Galante/pages/commmodels.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication_theory

A Changing Environment for Business

Impact of mass media in shaping people’s idea about business houses.
A country’s previous history, religion, culture, mass media and orators portray businessmen are biased against society and people. All of these depict that businessmen look for they’re for own good and not for the well being of the society.
To illustrate with my own experience, a year ago a movie was released in India by the name ‘ Corporate’, in that movie the founder director of the company releases a product harmful for people’s health. In order for his and his company’s survival he pushes down the blame on his company’s CEO and spoils her life, as a result she could not shape her life further. These kinds of movies play a significant role in the minds of people shaping their attitudes towards the modern day companies, as movies and television are a popular source of entertainment and source of knowledge to the people.
As they say there are two faces to a coin, all business houses will not do the same thing. There are many companies who are working for serving the society. They are having separate units which work on these issues.

Growth in Information & Technology
The concept of ‘Global Village’ has grown to its peak in connecting people around the world. People are able to bring in their cultures, communities, etc. into the blend of the businesses. Many governments are liberalizing their country’s economic policies, in order to facilitate cross-border trade and commerce. Some of the reaping benefits of global village concept are, large-scale mergers and acquisitions that are taking place around the world, outsourcing of work and services, specializing in core-competencies, etc.
With a large-scale globalization, companies have become powerful blocks, in running the governments or being influential in framing the policies of a country. One of the evil effects of globalization is that, exploitation of cheap labour, the natives of a country might loose an opportunity on the preference of being selected for jobs. This is for the reason that companies can get employees from all round the world and choose best out of them for less amount of salary and benefits.
A rapid growth in technology has made people around the world to share their ideas and communicate easily. Instant messaging, on-line chatting, websites like orkut.com and others help in sharing the ideas of people and bring them under one community. Any activity done by the companies is instantly revealed whether positive or negative.

Competition in Changing Environment.
Competitive players seek to capitalize on emerging events to get a competitive edge. The recent competition is characterized by developments like networking at and across local, regional, national, international and global levels, a competitive edge is realized by utilizing instant information, governments compete globally to attract firms and FDI, consumers worldwide seek access to the best available commodities and services.
In the Internet economy, digital connectivity and capacity have altered the rules of competition. To be ahead of competitors, to leap forward, to be imaginative and agile, and most important to shape the competition game, a company must embark creatively on two activities: it must utilize digital tools and refocus its priorities.
Bill Gates, Microsoft’s chairman and CEO, argues that in the globalization era firms must have the ability to run smoothly and efficiently, respond quickly to emergencies and opportunities, get valuable information on a timely basis to the people in the company who need it and to make prompt decisions and interact with customers. Gates also emphasizes that companies appear to realize that the race for competitiveness in the era of globalization situates the customer as the focal point. It is the customer who drives and determines their business. That is, companies compete to obtain access to customers on a global scale. Therefore, the global company has to build a competitive advantage founded upon discovering and fulfilling, on a timely basis, customers’ needs and ever-changing demands. Bill Gates provides some imperatives for achieving the capabilities mentioned above. They are, insist on communication flow, and use digital tools to eliminate single-task jobs, create a digital feedback loop, use digital communication to redefine boundaries, use digital tools to help customers solve problems for themselves.

Links

www.changeperform.com.au/change readimess.html
http://www.fund/ articles.com /p/articles/mi m/1038/is n5 v34 /ai 11308380



Communicating Strategically

Communication Theory
Communication is the expression and exchange of facts, opinions, ideas or feelings. Communication may be intrapersonal i.e., when we are trying to communicate with ourselves or it may be interpersonal when we convey a message to others. In interpersonal communication, there must be at least two persons to allow the completion of the process. One takes up the role of a sender and the other that of receiver. A medium is used to enable the transmission of the message.
Companies need to communicate strategically in order to transact some commercial activity i.e., providing goods and services, with the intention of generating profits. It is useful to acquire the skills of effective writing and speaking. In fact, lack of these may result in loss of business opportunities.
Modern business houses have recently started emphasizing on strategies in its communication. For this purpose the companies are considering many theories for its strategy under this area. The birth of these communication theories can be traced back to civilization of ancient Greece. The roots of modern communication find its roots in a work of Aristotle named ‘The Art of Rhetoric’. But the modern communication strategy improvises Aristotle’s theory emphasizing on organization in place of speaker in his theory, constituency takes the place of person to which it is addressed to and subject is being replaced by messages. The relationship between above variables determines whether the messages passed through the channel will be effective or not.

Developing Corporate Communication Strategies.
The first step in developing corporate communication strategies is setting an effective organization strategy. It includes determining objectives, deciding on resources available, diagnosis of organizations reputation. Determination of objective means the reason for communication. The reason for communication might be within the organization or outside the organization. The basic idea behind defining the objective is to get back the reaction from the constituent it is targeted upon.
The company must decide upon its resources how to communicate about its ideas. The basic resource includes money, human resource and time. Money plays a very important role in any aspect of life. A minimal expense must realize in maximum benefits.
A company’s Human Resources Department plays a major role in communicating its company’s ideas internally or externally. The effectiveness of the HR personnel can help the company to reach its greatest heights through there experience and networking.
Time is also important factor in implementing a communication strategy. A company must consider time factor in the flow of information. It will not be feasible for a company to consume too much time in passing on the information required. This may result in dilution of information and miscommunication.
I would like to quote my own experience in this regard. The company where I was doing my internship in HR used a strategy of using a type of method of formally conveying a message to its employees in an informal way. This method worked out in that company and the management was successful in conveying its messages to its employees in a very short span of time. The company saved its financial resources. As said before the message also reached its employees.
The reputation of a company also counts a very long way in accomplishing its objectives. The reputation of a company counts only when it is into specific constituencies. This can act as a lifesaver at the time of crisis to the companies.
Finally we can say that determining objectives, deciding on resources available, and diagnosis of organizations reputation are the building blocks on which communication strategy depends on.
The second step in developing communication strategy is analyzing constituencies of a company. The constituencies of a firm are of two they are primary and secondary. Primary constituencies include employees, customers, shareholders and communities. Secondary constituencies include media, suppliers, government, etc.
A company should analyze its priority constituencies through which it can goodwill and carry out its objectives. There should be mutual trust between the organization and its constituencies to build a strong relationship among them.


Delivering Messages Appropriately.
A company must choose a proper communication channel to deliver its information to its constituencies. Modern channels of communication are e-mail, Weblogs, Intranet, Internet, etc. The structure of message delivered should be short, adequate, precise and to the point. It should not waste the receivers’ time.

Assessment of Constituent Responses.
After delivery of information to the constituent, the feedback from the constituent should be assessed by the organization, whether the desired result of communication is achieved or not. If a negative response is received, the company should adopt alternative techniques of communication in order to achieve desired results.

Links:
www.collaborotry.nunet.net/dsimpsym/comtheory.html