Communication is key to any successful business operation. It ensures a smooth flow of processes, and a harmonious relationship among the employees from the Chief Executive Officer down to the company’s errands persons. For this reason, companies and institutions all have teams dedicated to internal and external communications.
Thankfully, this era of advanced technology allows for easier facilitation of communication processes. For example, devices can now be linked through wireless or Local Area Networks so that the teams can simultaneously view each other’s documents. Online platforms even allow people in different areas to access and work on documents, seeing edits and changes in real-time. Companies that deal with high volumes of calls every day can rely on Xorcom IP phones, which help a person multitask and manage several devices.
There is already a world of probabilities with what you can do given new technologies. However, communication is still essentially among people. It is therefore important that you strengthen the human factor. Your communications team may be a small or large group, and in some startups, there might even be just one person handling all these processes.
Here are some points you could consider when organizing your communication processes.
Know the function of communication in your company
What do you specifically need it for? Communication processes will support you depending on the kind of operations you do. Your kind of business will also determine what kind of communication channels and media you will need to invest in.
Do you provide services? You might want your communication channels to be two-way so your customers can provide feedback to cater to their needs. Are you selling a product? You’d need to give a convincing message about your product. Do you function as a middleman between suppliers and buyers? You’d need to reach out to both groups to convince them to choose you over the others.
Establish your internal and external communication needs
For your internal communications, the bigger your company the higher your needs for communication structures. You have processes for every layer of management that will need specialized communiques.
It is up to you if you want to have a centralized unit or you wish to deploy your communication personnel per department or level. Again, it depends on your needs. What is important is that you do not do homogeneous communication campaigns. Try to follow the strategy of market segmentation. The information needed by one unit is different from another.
Consider also how often you will need to deal with people outside your company. Will you be hiring an external company to do your mass communications? Are you doing it on your own?
Small companies may not need a big unit for internal communications. However, if it is targeting to reach a large population, then you will have higher needs for external communications. Thankfully, there are consultancy groups that can be outsourced for this — for example, experts in advertising campaigns, advocacy and lobbying plans, etc. —
if you could not yet afford to maintain your team.
Have a communication plan
A communication plan allows you to have focus — both to your internal and external audiences. If you are offering services or selling products, identify your specific target buyers. Who are the ones most likely to buy your products? Who are those who need more convincing? How will you convince them? These are just a few of the questions you would decide as an institution when you craft your plan. This way, you will also not be wasting money on general campaigns that are too generic.
Planning for your internal communications is also necessary because you want each of your employees to understand what they need to about your operations. Although you might have a transparency report available to everyone, not all parts of the report are significant to each employee. Get them to focus on the important parts by translating the managers’ jargon into a language they could understand.
If there are available programs that could do more than what one person could, invest in it. You can even have applications designed especially for you to more efficiently reach your target market. There are also some parts of your operations that more efficient if mechanized, eliminating the risks of human error. However, communication is necessarily human. In the end, you as an institution is composed of humans. Your target markets or clients are humans. These people are the ones who need to send and receive messages. Technology is just there to hasten the process and make it easier.
