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180 Retrospect and Prospect

of professional development including: (a) job rotation, (b) receiving training in the
strategy process and financial management,(c) education in research and monitoring,
communications counsel and advice, management and control of administrative
tasks within the department,and (d) adopting a generally reflective approach towards
communications practice and its contribution to the organization.

Together, these three challenges suggest an interrelated set of changes for further
development. Shifting to a strategic approach of linking communications pro-
grammes to overall corporate objectives is intimately related to a structural location
of communications close to the executive board and to manager role enactment, and
vice versa. Each of these three challenges, ideally, needs to be met in the near future
to enable communications to play a strategic role within the management of the
organization, and thus to have the corporate communications philosophy come to
full fruition.This, of course, may not be an easy task, because of established power
relationships and a traditional craft tradition among practitioners or, indeed, historical
precedents. Nonetheless, change and development is needed.
A general theme running through all of these challenges, and the suggested
changes and development, is to show the added value of communications to the
organization.Each and every function or set of disciplines within a corporation is eval-
uated and scrutinized by senior management for its contribution to the organization
and to the achievement of corporate objectives. When the contribution or added
value of a particular function to the organization is high and visible, it is more likely
that the function will be granted input into strategic decision making.To illustrate,
the function of human resources (HR) has recently been criticized by senior man-
agers for not being sufficiently focused on the practicalities and demands of the
business, and thus does not warrant any strategic input.Vivienne Hines, a consultant
with Deloitte and Touche, argued to this effect in a recent piece in the Financial Times
that ‘for HR to be seen as a commercial part of the business,HR leaders,on the board
or not, need to quantify and communicate the contribution they make’. 1
The same goes for communications, which as every other function (human
resources, finance, marketing, etc.) is measured with the same stick. Capturing and
quantifying the contribution of communications to the organization and to the
commercial bottom line is thus key, although unfortunately not yet commonplace.
In a recent survey in the US,only 48 per cent of those practitioners interviewed used
measurement and evaluation.And in an Institute of Public Relations study in the UK
only 28 per cent of those practitioners interviewed found using techniques to assess
2
communications was worthwhile at all. Instead of using research to quantify results,
practitioners, it seems, often rather fence with the idea that, whether or not results
are quantified and visible, organizations cannot in any case do without communica-
3
tions. In a recent commentary piece,one practitioner,referring to CEOs who ques-
tion the bottom line and cost of communications, even said that they only have to
look at the millions of dollars, pounds or euros lost by corporations which have dis-
4
inherited the trust and confidence of one or more key stakeholders. That may
indeed be so, but in order to be judged as accountable and as adding value to the
organization,communications practitioners would,however,be wise to continuously
measure the reputation of the organization with stakeholder groups (see Chapter 3),
and to quantify the effect that communications has had upon them.