Communicating Strategically

How does a company set an effective organization strategy? By determining its objectives, deciding what resources are available and diagnosing the organizations reputation. It is important for an organization to know its audience. Are they speaking to employees, customers, shareholders? Or are they speaking to the media, suppliers, creditors or the government? An organization must be in constant awareness of who they are speaking to and what their actions are showing to the outside. What the audience already thinks of the corporation is very important. Sometimes actions speak louder than words.

There is some really good information on strategic communication here:
http://www.cba.uni.edu/buscomm/buscomcourse/ReadingsSummer07/CommunicatingStrategically.pdf


For example: I work at a fast food restaurant that has 3 locations all within 3 miles of eachother. A customer came through the drive thru one day and had a complaint about the food and service that he had recieved at another location; which the owner of my restaurant also owned. He said that on several occassions the food and service was poor. He had already formed an opinion of the restaurant at that location. No matter how hard the owner tried to convince him that he would look into the problem, and even offered the next meal for free, the customer would not return to that location. Now, with regards to communication; that customer already had formed a bad opinion about that location, which he would probably tell his friends about and deter them from going. It was almost impossible to change the view of that restaurant in his eyes. This is why it is important for owners/managers to communicate with the outside public before an image is tarnished beyond repair.

I thought this picture went well with my story. It says "Build Credibility/ Share Knowledge"