Communicating Strategically

The topic stresses on the imperative use of communicating strategically and its importance in effective business communication. Communication plays a important role in all the business applications, its proper use is not only essential to the top management, but also to the low-level management. With organization expanding rapidly on global terms it becomes even more important for organizations to be particular in their corporate communications skills and its value should be adopted uniformly throughout the organization. Organizations should be very precise in the message they intend to communicate and the constituents whom the message is targeting at. The proper communication of messages depends on the channels, and the structure of the message. The message then reaches the constituencies. Constituencies can be primary, which include the employees, customers etc. as well as secondary which includes media, legal and government bodies etc. It’s very important to note that the attitude of these constituencies towards the corporation is very important as it has impact on the constituency responses. Constituency responses give a feedback to the corporation whether the constituency responded the way they had anticipated or should they modify the message. Finally, its job of the corporation to see whether the communication was successful, what it wants each constituency to do, and what is the corporation’s reputation. By linking corporate strategy to corporate communication, managers can mitigate the potential loss in reputation.

Author Paul A. Argenti (http://sloanreview.mit.edu/smr/issue/2005/spring/15/), says that both internal and external factors are responsible for an increasing necessity towards strategic communications. He also stresses on the point that constituencies plays an important role in deciding the reputation of the corporation. He conducted a research, and reached to the conclusion that messages should be delivered through proper communication channels, and targeting proper constituencies.

From my internship at JJMI, in which I did a project on “Employer Branding”, I learnt how to communicate, what to communicate, through what channels and to whom. It taught me how to communicate in an organization.

The Changing Environment for Business

Over the past two decades we have seen a rapid increase in globalization. But going global is not without problems. We are moving toward a world in which barriers to cross-border trade and investment are tumbling; perceived distance is shrinking due to advances in transportation and telecommunications technology; material culture is starting to look similar the world over; and national economies are merging into an interdependent global economic system. Globalization due to technology and communication has resulted in the formation of a “Global Village”. The companies should learn how to compete in a changing environment and the four ways in which the companies can do this:
Recognize the changing environment.
Adapt to the environment without compromising principles.
Not assuming problems would automatically disappear.
Keep corporate communication connected to strategy.

According to Mary Anne Wilson (http://ezinearticles.com/?Marketing-Strategy-Globalization&id=315754), no country should restrict itself in its domestic market and should continuously look for opportunities to expand into the foreign markets. Lately all organizations have been coming up with innovative strategies to enjoy the competitive edge amongst its competitors in the long run. She suggests strategic market planning for organizations for adapting to the changing environment. Due to increased globalization the business environment is getting influenced by economic and political factors. She also advocates implementing standardization for all the global organizations which may help them in developing good ideas on a broader geographical scale.

I can relate this to my internship with Johnson & Johnson Medical India. JJMI has been a big player on the global front for many years now. But even they had to concentrate on employer branding to counter the heavy competition they were facing from their competitors due to globalization. I was responsible for developing the base for their employer branding and during that, I understood the strategic importance JJMI was putting on it and thus got a feel of the changing global environment and strategies organization plan to counter it.