THE NEWS, ANALYSIS, RECRUITMENT, EVENTS AND INTELLIGENCE NETWORK

The power of corporate communications

Lee: Know what drives the bottom line

What is needed is for all communicators, whether in-house or agency, to prove that they can marry the business requirements and the need to build stakeholder trust

The corporate communications industry revolves around service and people. You must treat people correctly and with respect. Multinationals recognise the role of communications – that is mostly now a given.

What is needed is for all communicators, whether in-house or agency, to prove that they can marry the business requirements and the need to build stakeholder trust. How do we contribute to the business agenda?

Firstly, to deeply understand the “DNA” of the company you work for and the specific challenges confronting it.

The key challenge at this moment confronting corporations is to out-perform the competition. That primarily involves driving a preference for people to do business with us, driving brand loyalty from customers and being a preferred employer. You must communicate well: for example, in my company, with our 47 million loyalty programme members worldwide.

PR as a major driver

At times, PR can be a major driver to reach out to customers rather than advertising. Either way, utilise the most appropriate channels to help generate revenue.

Managing our brands is very important. In the hotel industry this takes place at different levels – from the corporate or brand portfolio perspective and at each of our hotels - and it is crucial that customers know what to expect from each individual brand.

Communications managers operating at global or regional level may get isolated from the operating environment. For us in such roles try to get out into the operating environment as much as possible and develop some hands-on experience. This is very valuable to make one a better communicator.

Non communications skills

Communications is a multi-faceted role. It allows you to touch many aspects of the business. One day you could be talking about running a brand campaign, the next could be responding to a crisis situation in one of our hotels. And then you can be talking about developing a strategy that allows your company to address the environmental challenge. Or you could be promoting your firm as employer of choice.

It is important that PR and corporate communications people understand the numbers – know the business in its entirety and learn to read the balance sheets and then linking it to how we position our companies. Being financially numerate coupled with a deep appreciation of what happens at the coalface. These are important attributes that enable a communicator to operate at a higher professional level.

The rise of CSR in a corporate context

There is a deepening within IHG about looking at CSR from a holistic business operations point of view. We view CSR as an essential element of our business balanced scorecard. We look at the business in four quadrants: people, brands, responsibility in the widest sense, and financial returns.

Responsible business forms one quarter of how we think and run our business. It is about engaging with the local community, sustainable environmental practices and safety. CSR needs to be a reality for businesses – good intentions are never sufficient – you need to have a framework supported by process and tools in order to deliver tangible results.

It’s an exciting and rewarding time for communication professionals with rising expectations to use our expertise to address increasing market and regulatory challenges in many aspects of business. 

Eric Lee is Vice President Communications Asia Pacific for InterContinental Hotels Group. With over 22 years’ professional and business experience, he has worked in both agency and in-house communications and PR roles.

The Thought Leaders Forum is brought to you in association with Fleishman-Hillard, one of the world's leading communications consultancies