Refreshing the Role of Internal Communications: A critical business response to our quickly changing

OMOBONO LTD, THE WAREHOUSE, 33 BRIDGE STREET, CAMBRIDGE CB2 1UW, UK

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Refreshing the role of

internal communications:

A critical business response to

our quickly changing times

Francesca Brosan, Chairman, Omobono Limited.

February 2010


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Internal communications has

a vital role to play in driving

the value of business

relationships.

The recession has put the

marketing community in a

difficult place. With increasing

pressures on budgets, and from

boards demanding proof of ROI,

marketers have found

themselves having to answer

the question, „what does a

marketer do without any

budget?‟

Internal communicators face the

same predicament. Like many

marketing disciplines, internal

communications budgets are

pulled when times get tough and

departmental staff follow shortly

afterwards.

This promotion-centric view of

marketing and internal

communications is the one that

is challenged in the research

recently undertaken by The

Judge Business School, of

Cambridge University, on behalf

of Omobono, the digital B2B

communications agency.

Omobono‟s belief, that it is

relationships that drive business

and that the ultimate role of

marketing is to drive those

relationships, was examined

against both academic theory

and business practice. What

emerged supported Omobono‟s

belief in the need and benefits of

looking at an organisation‟s

relationships holistically in order

to increase their value. This

view, coined Enterprise

Relationship Management

(ERM) by Omobono, had some

major implications for the role of

the internal communicator.

Times have changed. Internal communications

are critical to the way in which companies need

to respond.


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ERM research puts internal

communications centre

stage

Omobono has been working

with corporate clients since its

inception in 2001 to increase

internal engagement with

corporate objectives and

believes it is a key contributor to

business success.

As Harvard Business Review

put it:

‘“It is a truth of business that

if employees do not care

about their company, they will

in the end contribute to its

demise.” 1

But increasingly this represents

a backward looking view of the

role of internal communications -

one in which the function is

there simply to communicate

whatever it is that the

organization has already

decided to do. Effectively,

internal communications teams

are involved in conveying the

message, but not in developing

the strategy behind it.

This disconnect means that as a

result, and far too often, internal

communications as a function

sits low down in the food chain,

struggling to make senior

management aware of its critical

contribution.

The Judge Business School

research, which looked at ERM

across three sectors (service,

public sector and

manufacturing), found a need

for far more importance to be

placed on the internal

communications function.


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Relationships matter in

business

The research, conducted with

senior marketers within a dozen

world class companies,

confirmed that relationships are

central to the success of

business. As Hakansson &

Ford expressed it in 2002:

“The overall performance of a

company will depend on how

well they are able to manage

their own relationships.”2.

However, the critical

relationships are not just those

between an organization and its

customers, but between the

organization and its workforce,

its suppliers and a wider

stakeholder group. (see Fig 1)

Whilst success depends on how

good the relationship is, this is in

turn influenced by how well it is

managed by the organization.

As Professor Evert Gummesson

of Stockholm Business School

and father of relationship

marketing puts it, “The quality

and nature of the relationship

depends on the quality of the

interaction process.”3

Source: Morgan, R.M. and Hunt, D.H. (1994)4

Fig. 1


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Managing relationships

relies on the ability to use

everyone as part time

marketers

As the research also confirmed,

success depends on the

interaction being an ongoing

process right across the

company, not the province of

one particular department such

as marketing or sales. This is

an approach also propounded

by Gummesson, who goes on

to break down the contributors

to the interaction into „FTMs‟

(full time marketers) and „PTMs‟

(part time marketers).

Looking at success through the

lens of Enterprise Relationship

Management it is clear that

internal communicators have a

significant contribution to make,

working with senior

management to ensure that

these „PTMs‟ are aligned behind

organizational goals.

And if success in the future

relies on marketing being not

just a job for the marketing

department, then

communications is not the only

thing internal

communicators should be doing.

Service is what‟s driving the

economy

Another key insight revealed by

the JBS/Omobono research

project was the impact of the

shift towards a service economy

on every business sector,

demanding a new set of

behaviours and a new marketing

approach. Businesses, then, are

not pushing a product but co-

creating value by sharing

knowledge, service systems and

networks across their

relationships. (Fig. 2)

Source: Godson, M (2009)5

Fig. 2


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The need to share

knowledge across the

organization is common to

all sectors.

Whilst each of the sectors

surveyed by Omobono had

specific issues they needed to

address in terms of how their

relationship focus would need to

change in response to this

market shift, the need to share

knowledge across the

organisation was common to all.

In fact, this sharing is critical in

order to deliver an improved

experience to customers, staff

and other key strategic

partners,.

Service

For service organisations,

knowledge is the fundamental

source of competitive advantage

so the ability to share

information across the

organisation is paramount.

But knowledge is not simply

about knowing something. It is

also having the application skills

to put action into practice.

This presents the internal

communications function with an

opportunity to set up structures

which enable knowledge

sharing, becoming the deliverers

of corporate strategy, not simply

the people that tell employees

about it. (Fig. 3)

Public Sector

Not-for-profit organisations

meanwhile typically have a

functional structure where each

department specialises in

providing a particular service to

customers. The key problem

with this structure is that

different departments hardly

interact with each other.

Customers on the other hand,

want a one-stop shop from

which they can receive all the

services they need. This is

driving public sector

organisations to reorganize,

aligning to deliver to customer

needs, rather than according to

government funding or legacy

structures.

Source: Omobono 2009

Fig. 3


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This new partnership working is

not something public sector

organisations are well versed in,

and again the opportunity is for

internal communicators to take

the lead in putting structures in

place to share knowledge and

processes across the

organisation. (Fig. 4)

Manufacturing

In the manufacturing sector

goods have become

commoditised, leaving

manufacturers constantly in

search of new value

propositions in a highly

competitive global market.

Service propositions in which

partnerships are formed with

suppliers and end customers

are taking over from simply

transforming materials. In order

to do this they need to a work

not only with internal

departments, but with external

partners, as well as to funnel

knowledge back into the

organization in order to be able

to deliver the service again for

the customer.

This is a sea of change for many

in the sector as it relies heavily

on the company‟s ability to

share. Internal communicators

will be needed not simply to tell

employees what‟s going on but

to instil new ways of working,

interacting and behaving.

(Fig. 5)

Fig. 4

Source:

Fig. 5


Fig. 5



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In conclusion

Relationships are central to

business success and are driven

by the quality of the interaction

right across the company.

Critical to this, is ability to

successfully share knowledge

and build relationships across

the organisation, connecting

marketing with sales, key

account teams or HR, and

aligning everyone behind service

delivery to customers.

Viewed in the context of how

important enterprise

relationships are for the future

success of businesses and

public sector organisations in

the service world, internal

communicators are critical;

moving out of the space in

which they only think about the

techniques of communication to

one where they directly

contribute to what needs to be

done.

1. Harvard Business Review January 2002

2. Hakansson, H. and Ford, D. (2002)“How

should companies interact in business

networks?” Journal of Business Research,

55(2), 133

3. Gummesson, E. (2008) Total Relationship

Marketing, Elsevier Ltd Oxford

4. Morgan, R.M. and Hunt, D.H. (1994) “The

Commitment-Trust Theory of Relationship

Marketing”, Journal of Marketing, Vol.58

(July 1994), 20-38.

5. Godson, M (2009) Relationship Marketing,

Oxford University Press


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Relationships drive

your business.

We drive your relationships.

ERM® helps world class

organisations drive

value from their business

relationships by examining the

ways they interact with their

customers, partners and staff; and

how that is measured to help

achieve organisational goals,

deliver to customers and create

mutual value. We look largely at the

contribution online technologies can

play, and how companies can

maximise value from the

infrastructure put in place over the

past 5 – 10 years. By exploring

alternative approaches to improving

B2B marketing effectiveness, ERM

enables us to think about marketing

differently, to put it back to its

original place; where marketing has

a meaning and purpose beyond

communication and becomes a

business essential, not a business

expense.

This whitepaper was previously

featured on the Melcrum

Publishing website.

http://www.internalcommshub.com/open/cha

nge/casestudies/brosan.shtml

Francesca Brosan is Chairman

and Founder of Omobono Limited,

the digital communications services

company. A former Board Director

of WCRS, her career has spanned

consumer advertising, PR, live

events and digital. She now

focuses on B2B strategy for the

agency’s corporate and public

sector clients. Francesca is the

author of 3 IPA Advertising

Effectiveness Awards and is a

regular speaker and contributor

to marketing forums.

uk.linkedin.com/in/francescabrosan