Communication has been achieving the status of a valuable and indispensable management tool, along with the obligations that such status entails. Communications managers, according to the results of a recent study by the Conference Board (USA and Canada), which compares the results of 10 years ago, are no longer mere "conduits of information", but play the role of strategic advisers to the company. management (Troy, 1993).
Communication, along with financial management, production management, and human resource management, hopes to contribute to the achievement of the company's goals. The role of communication in this process is briefly summarized as: "He who professionally performs the window function and the reflex function."
The expression "window function" refers to the preparation and execution of the communication policy, the results of which are messages that represent all the facets of the organization in a clear and interesting way. The anticipated results of the representation are the changes desired by the company at the cognitive, affective, and conative level, in those target audiences with whom it is intended to establish and maintain a relationship.
The "reflex function" refers to the supervision of changes in the relevant environment and the "anticipation" of their consequences in the company's communication policy: for example, building and projecting an image among shareholders and financial market agents making known the objectives achieved (eg market shares), the development of future trends, and, in particular, keeping abreast of changes within the organization.
Basic forms of communication.
Organizations use three basic forms of communication. The most important is "management communication"; that is, the communication of the management with internal and external target audiences. To carry out this task successfully, the companies have hired specialists in the field of marketing communication and organizational communication (public relations, relations with Public Administrations, investor relations, communication with the labor market, advertising corporate, etc.) The wide range of internal "resources" can lead to a fragmented, even contradictory, vision communicated by the company, when viewed in its entirety.Companies are aware of the dangers of fragmented communication and strive for consistency in all forms of internal and external communication.
Corporate communication includes marketing communication, organizational communication, and management communication. It would be an organization in which several communication specialists - working from a strategic, mutually established organization - can integrate their communication inputs. The basic philosophy underlying the organization could be described as that which directs the communication policy of the company from within the triangle «corporate strategy - corporate identity - corporate image». Representatives from various communication specialties advise the development of common starting points (PPC); which are directly related to the agreed communication strategy for the implementation of the desired corporate identity,and for the basis of the company's image.
Importance of the image in the contemporary company.
The image of a company is not a secondary element or a fad, it is a strategic instrument of the first order and a differentiated and lasting value that accumulates in the social memory, it is a supervalue that is imposed beyond the variability of products and services, which at the same time protects. The image is a global added value that covers and transcends all the company's achievements, productions and communications, to which it injects identity, personality and its own exclusive meanings.
With this thought, the transcendence of the image and its indisputable value as an intangible resource of the company is revealed, while discovering how the image can become a source of benefit for the institution and an indispensable condition for its survival. Among the benefits that the image brings to a company, the following can also be mentioned:
- Globally differentiates the company. Adding lasting value to what it does, performs and communicates. Staying in time and social memory, beyond ads and campaigns. Globalizing and diversified function. Integrating other content and actions. Marketing practice, advertising, the management of external communication, public relations and communication with the media Coordinates interdependence.
This set of factors makes corporate or corporate communication, as it is also known, rise and take on a new role, with a substantially different approach, which conceives the institution as global, as an integrating whole, in which the image is found at its highest point.
The most important thing for the company is its ability to offer a world of unique possibilities, a singular reality, different from that of its competition, and in this lies its greatest strength. The empowerment of these differences, positioning based on such differences is made possible through integrated resource management.
From image…
Corporate identity is described as the self-presentation of a company; It consists of the information that an organization provides through its "behavior," "communication," and "symbols." Such signals are received by key people with whom the organization needs to establish interactions at various levels. As more signals are received, and the interest and participation of those who receive them increases, the clearer picture, or image, of a certain object will appear. The object can be a product, an organization, or a company, or even a country.
An image is like a photographic reel that is about to be "revealed" in people's minds. It provides the recipient (an individual) with a means to simplify the reality of objects, through concepts such as "good bad" and "pleasant-unpleasant". The image of an object is created by means of a set of impressions that individuals experience when they face it, directly or indirectly. As a consequence, the following image definition is used and assumed by the authors:
An image is the set of meanings by which we come to know an object, and through which people describe, remember, and relate it. It is the result of the interaction of beliefs, ideas, feelings, and impressions that a person has about an object. (Dowling, 1986)
The great interest in images lies in the assumption that a positive image is the basic prerequisite for establishing a business relationship, direct or indirect, with different target audiences. Initially, this interest was focused on images that focused on the sale of products / brands (brand image). As time has passed, interest has grown, and an enormous number of publications on corporate image have emerged in the course of the last decade.
Interest in the concept of image, both theoretical and practical, has its origin mainly in the field of marketing. This is true both for academic literature and for the achievements and publications of imaging professionals (eg, Ogilvy in the 1950s). In the last five or ten years, the basic ideas about image that were created, initially, in the area of marketing at the product level, have spread to an organizational level (corporate image).
There are significant differences between “brand” images and “corporate” images. These differences are extremely important if a company is to solve its "image" (ie, objectives, public) problems. With respect to their conceptual and functional development, there are no essential differences regarding the core of the meaning of both terms. However, we cannot say that the literature presents a clear and coherent concept about the meaning of "image", nor about the ideal method of measuring it. In fact, the opposite appears to be true.
The image is extremely important to the source of the image (the subject of the image) and to the recipient (the subject). The source (the organization) considers the transmission of a positive image to be the essential prerequisite for establishing a business relationship with the target audiences. It is the best way to introduce the "conjured set" to target audiences. For the subject, the image constitutes the way of summarizing the "truth" about the object in terms of a set of simplifications (good-bad, useful-useless, etc.). There is a relationship between the importance of the corporate image for the source and its importance for the recipient. The greater the trust that the subject places in the (corporate) image when making a decision, the more important it is that the company has a solid reputation.
The image must be based on the reality of the organization itself.
That an organization begins to worry about its image and try to manage it according to the strategy from the certainty that this will have a positive impact on its bottom line, demonstrating a degree of maturity and seriousness in its management that does not it will only prevent, but will provide the generation of a global management reconversion process prior to or simultaneously with this strategic management of its image, in order to "bring" its corporate reality closer to the intentional image it intends to give.
The second condition to achieve a positive image is that in the synthesis that this implies, the company's strengths prevail. This implies a rigorous management of communication and external relations.
The third issue is the coordination of formal policies with functional ones in image management. It is not possible to achieve a positive image if there is no coordination between formal policies (identity, corporate communication and the strong system of the organization), its functional policies (production, commercial, finance), independent management between both policies would prevent the overall development of the image.
The corporate image so far is seen as the face that the organization presents from which both its staff and clients have a clear representation of its dynamics, of its life, both external and internal, of everything that it can do that the corporation achieves not only the sale of its products, but also guarantees a better fulfillment of its plans, a better service and a better quality in its products.
It is N. Chávez (1994) who gives us a broader and more inclusive concept in relation to corporate image:
“The corporate image is a subjective phenomenon, which appears as a public record of the identifying attributes of the social subject. It is the public reading of an organization, the interpretation that society or each of its groups, sectors or collectives, has or constitutes intentionally or spontaneously. It is a phenomenon of opinion, a psychological representation of social scope ”.
The recognition of the importance of the corporate image within the organization and what it means for its development leads indissolubly to its study, and in organizational practice it has been proven that presenting a good “corporate image” guarantees success for many organizations.
Entrepreneurs begin to realize that actions on the image cannot be limited to simple makeup operations in the field of design, advertising or communication, but rather to talk about a coherent and integrated project in which all parties they are important and all must be given equal attention.
Bibliographic references.
- Guide for the study of Communication and Corporate Image. Social Communication career. Organizational Communication Discipline. University of Havana.Melo Crespo, José C: Implementation and Consolidation of the State Business Management and Direction System, Decree Law 281 of September 3, 2007, Document in Digital Format.Trelles Irene: (compiler) Communication and Corporate Image: new intangible values of the modern company. Document in digital format, 2005. Trelles I, Meriño J and Espinosa A: Communication, Image and Corporate Identity, Editorial Félix Varela; Havana, 2005 Villafañe, Justo: Positive image. Strategic image management in the company. Editorial Pirámide, Madrid, 1993.
