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With the proliferation of activities that any company does, there needs to be a mechanism through which it advertises its achievements, answers queries about its performance, and has a window to the external world in times of crises and other catastrophes.
The corporate communication department of any organization performs the three functions listed above. Before the deepening of private sector activity, companies used to have public relations departments or used to outsource their public relations activities to specialized firms that had the expertise.
Even now, many multinationals have corporate communication teams that double up as event management teams in addition to their media interfacing activities. Indeed, companies like Infosys have dedicated spokespersons whose sole function is to liaise with the media because these companies often are in the public eye.
Apart from the reactive media interfacing in response to queries and requests for information, corporate communication teams also are proactive in media management, which means that they actively suggest media coverage to the press and set the agenda about what to be written about the company and how it is to be covered.
It is often the case that many employees in the companies think that corporate communication teams are all hype and fashion with no substance. This is because of the nature of the work that they do which is glossy and hip. However, it needs to be mentioned that corporate communication teams play a vital role in driving the news coverage about the companies and in these days of 24/7 news coverage, the onus of representing the company’s viewpoint accurately and reliably falls on the shoulders of the corporate communications teams.
In most IT companies, the nerdy and the geeky crowd often downplay the importance of the corporate communications teams. This is not the ideal attitude towards the practice of corporate communications and should be discouraged. Instead, a nuanced appreciation of what corporate communications is all about must be articulated by the management to the employees so that they do not dismiss it as all hype and no substance.
If we start with the disadvantages first, it is clear from the recent downsizing in many IT companies that unless the media are kept informed about the stance of the management, the media coverage would be anything but friendly.
Often, there are many rivals with agendas and these translate into poor or negative reporting about the company.
On the other hand, if the corporate communications teams proactively brief the media about instances of downsizing and other crises and shapes perceptions that are favorable to the company viewpoints, then the advantages of having corporate communications teams becomes apparent.
There is no denying the fact that in this current media landscape where news changes by the minute, having a dedicated corporate communications is the answer to the problem of having the company’s perspective put forward.
In conclusion, corporate communications teams are indispensable and any attempt to sideline them as a peripheral activity would boomerang on the company.
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