In recent years, the issue of the impact of sustained links between institutions and their audiences on the achievement of results in modern business has become a constant focus of communication debates. These conceptions have taken on more and more force, to the point that today the arrival of what has been called the new Era of relations is alleged, whose basic postulates draw, fundamentally, from the theoretical corpus of Public Relations, theories on the study of audiences, Relationship Marketing and Relationship Management. Despite their more or less diverse views, all these paradigms emphasize the need to manage strategic public-institution relations from a set of coordinated and coherent phases and stages of research, planning,implementation and evaluation and control of a set of actions aimed at promoting and maintaining lasting and generative links between the two, which facilitate integration and mutual understanding.
The age of relationships
Man, as a social being, needs to communicate, establish connections, recognize himself in the other. Life in society is structured on the basis of links that, analogous or not, allow adaptation, integration and control of the social system.
In this way, the relationships between each of the parts that make up said system are not only a necessity, they are an axiom, a guarantee for balance, cooperation and order of the processes, a sine qua non condition to ensure their survival. and reproduction.
A first etymological approach to the word relationship refers us to its Latin origin: relatio, formed by the prefix re, which indicates reiteration; the root lat, which means to carry something; and the suffix tio, which indicates action and effect. If we then analyze the translation of the term, we would have the following meaning: "action and effect of wearing something again."
Society is a product of the reciprocal action of men, says Rayza Portal. This reciprocity is the basis of social relations, which refer to a multitude of interactions between two or more individuals or groups, regulated by social norms, and in which each one has a position and performs a social role.
For the outstanding communicators María Luisa Muriel and Gilda Rota, the concept of relationship, seen from the field of communication studies in companies, includes all possible kinds of contacts or experiences that take place between the institution and its audiences. It is, in short, the exchange that takes place between the two (Muriel and Rota, 1980: 24).
In a context marked by the competitiveness of brands, it is increasingly urgent for companies to establish lasting and profitable relationships with their audiences. Proving by themselves the validity that they entail, these conceptions have been imposed little by little, and have gained their space in the most diverse scenarios, which has led the experts to affirm the step, more and more remarkable, to a new it was in the institutional world: the so-called Age of Relationships.
The relational approach, whose first steps are ascribed to the basic postulates of Public Relations, has also passed into the area of management, marketing and the most current theories on the study of audiences.
1. Discovering the goose that lays the golden eggs: Public Relations
For Magda Rivero Hernández, an important professor in the field of communication in Cuba, Public Relations is a managerial function whose purpose is to create, maintain and consolidate adaptation and integration relationships between an organization and its audiences, which result in the full satisfaction of the same and society as a whole.
For Sam Black, the objective of Public Relations is to establish dialogue and achieve harmony and consensus through information, argumentation and two-way discussion.
Following this same line, Mario Piedra affirms that the main objective of Public Relations is "to obtain the sympathy, understanding or solidarity of the affected publics, or that affect the activity of an organization" (Piedra, 2002: 47). Piedra also ensures that their goals do not end here, but rather they are in charge of obtaining information about the criteria and opinion states of the company's public, so that the communication that is established constitutes a true dialogue, capable of produce an authentic integration between the organization and its social environment.
According to the aforementioned authors, then, Public Relations are translated into the permanent effort to achieve harmony between the organization and its different audiences.
For Piedra, these have a dual character, since they exercise a managerial and consultative role at the same time, inasmuch as they provide the company, and its governing bodies, with tools that allow it to conduct itself properly, and are in charge of assuming proactive positions in relation to changes and unforeseen events in the environment.
In order to fulfill this role, the pioneer and one of the greatest exponents of the Latin American School of Public Relations, Román Pérez Senac, in a Conference given within the framework of the XXIV CONFIARP Meeting, which took place in Varadero in September of year 2002, defines, as the key functions of Public Relations, the following:
- Analyze the trends of the organization and its audiences, in the scope of its situation or context, based on the legitimate interests of both. Diagnose the situations that configure the tendencies of both parties. Predict the possible consequences. Advise those responsible for The organization on the general policies of the Nation Plan and implement communication programs Control the development of the programs and evaluate their results. (Pérez 2002, cited in Gorgas, 2005: 75)
The functions proposed by Senac, in addition to their general and ecumenical nature, go through the different phases or fundamental stages of the management process to which the practice of Public Relations today is devoted: research or diagnosis, planning, implementation and evaluation or control, which appears endorsed in the paradigmatic IACE formula (a concept enunciated for the first time by John Marston, in which the well-known RACE formula is verbalized - failing that in English -: Research, Action, Communication & Evaluation, and which is also known as “the Public Relations process”), which gives it a character of technical-administrative discipline, while validating its application.
2. Of love and other demons. The role of relationships in the study of audiences
In current market conditions, companies are increasingly part of a highly complex social structure, in which it is no longer enough for them to focus their efforts on achieving profits and profitability as determining factors in their success, but rather they have to face a public opinion that questions and judges the legitimacy of their work.
Understanding and interacting with the key audiences that affect or are affected by the management of companies is an essential imperative for the modern company, both for the development of corporate reputation and for the detection of potential conflicts.
According to Marketing specialist Phillip Kotler, the public of an institution is any group that has a real or potential interest in, or can influence, its ability to achieve its objectives.
In recent years, it has become increasingly common to focus studies on institutional audiences based on the relationships or links that these audiences have with companies. In this sense, three fundamental paradigms stand out: the situational theory of audiences, the theory of links and the theory of stakeholders.
The situational theory of publics was proposed by professor James E. Grunig in 1966. This model assumes the existence of links between publics and the organization based on three basic conditions: individuals or groups face a similar problem, they recognize that the problem exists and they organize to do something about it.
According to this theory, there are four classifications of audiences: the latent, made up of those people who face a similar problem but do not detect it; the informed or conscious, among which it recognizes the subjects who are affected by a similar problem and acknowledge its existence; assets, which in addition to being affected by the problem, and recognizing it, do something about it; and non-publics, where individuals who do not meet any of these three characteristics are inserted. In accordance with this, the type of link established will affect how each of these audiences will understand the topics that are proposed to them.
The theory of links, for its part, was proposed by Esman Milton J., in 1972, and recognizes the existence of four essential links for the organization to survive:
- Enabling links, referring to those established by organizations and social groups that provide authority and control the resources that make the organization's existence possible; Functional links, which are those established with organizations and publics that provide inputs and take outputs. In this section, the sociologist Evans establishes the presence of two types of special relationships: input links, which include relationships with employees, unions and suppliers; and output links, where relationships with other organizations that use the company's products or services are grouped, or with individual consumers of its products or services; Regulatory links, established with organizations that face similar problems or that share equal values;And the fuzzy links, which are those that are established with elements of society and that cannot be clearly identified.
The stakeholder theory, which focuses its gaze on all those publics with which the company is related and who have an interest in its activity (clients, suppliers, shareholders, media, political, social or governmental institutions, internal public, among others) has been making its way among the latest studies related to organizations and their publics.
According to this theory, stakeholders, betting publics or interested parties are, basically, those people, groups or organizations that may affect and / or be affected, or may become so, by the objectives, actions, rules and regulations. institutional policies, so they have expectations about the company, some of which become universal.
The term stakeholder was first exposed by R. Edward Freeman, in 1984, in his book Strategic Management: A Stakeholder Approach. Freeman's proposal formulated the possibility and relevance of identifying and modeling the groups interested in the company from the basic principle of who matters and what really matters.
Starting from this, González Esteban proposes a set of key patterns in the identification of institutional stakeholders, based on the dialogue that is established, which could be summarized as: the existence of interests, be they particular, group or universal; be considered not only as a person affected by business activity, but as a valid interlocutor; and be both strategic or instrumental and communicative.
The fundamental success of these theoretical approaches lies in recognizing the company inscribed in an open and dynamic system of interdependencies, which is why it undoubtedly acts within a macro set of social, political-administrative and economic institutions that impose constraints on its actuate while they are modified by it. Knowing and relating to these institutions is vital for the survival and development of the modern company.
3. Towards a new paradigm. Relationship management
The design and application of the strategies of relation with the different public of the organizations, has been subject, traditionally, to the area of Public Relations; But, in recent years, and with increasing force, new tools have been imposed to manage the links established between companies and their audiences, one of them is relationship management.
At the base of this new conception, presented by MA Fergusson in 1984, and understood as the “direction of the relations between organizations and their publics”, various disciplines converge such as negotiation, interorganizational behavior, interpersonal communication and management.
The assumption and implementation of this trend, says Ignasi Vendrell, in his article “Relationship management. The natural evolution of Public Relations ”- involves the analysis of the types of relationships established between organizations and their audiences, and the momentum of these relationships.
To carry out this analysis, Vendrell proposes six types of fundamental links, which can be summarized as:
- Reciprocal relations: those that imply cooperation and coordination between organizations, instead of the establishment of domination and control of one over another. Necessity relations: refer to the quality of the relations derived from regulatory aspects Asymmetric relations: imply power exerted on another organization or its resources Stable relationships: are those that involve the establishment of relationships between different organizations in the prediction of an uncertain environment Effective relationships: in their essence underlying relationships aimed at improving internal input / output ratios, thus reducing transaction costs Legitimate relationships: those that take place when relationships between organizations appear to justify or are in accordance with pre-established norms or beliefs.
In addition to the analysis of the type of relationship that is established, it is necessary to take into account the state in which these relationships are found. Hence, it is convenient to know when and how an audience affects an organization, or an organization affects an audience.
According to Vendrell, in these situations, organizations have prepared various strategies with which to deal with these momentum, such as:
- Integration strategy: in which common points of interest are sought and common problems are solved. With the application of this strategy all parties win (win-win situation). Distributive strategy: seeks to reach a situation in which the organization wins the most and minimizes losses (win-lose situation). Other strategies to have The following would be taken into account: the strategy of approval, evasion, complacency, arrangement, cooperation, unconditional constructiveness or “all or nothing”.
For Diego Torres, although the first experiences of applying relationship management basically responded to external pressures, with a limited focus on the issues that generated immediate conflict, many companies have begun to develop more systematic approaches in order to manage relationships with its audiences, starting from a more proactive, open and constant dialogue; what has generated the evolution of the multi-stakeholder dialogue to various mono-stakeholder dialogues with the groups considered strategically most important, the transition from the general dialogue to the thematic dialogue, the geographical extension of the dialogue to the different territories in which the company operates, and not only to their closest environment, and the shift from defensive dialogue to inclusive dialogue, no longer focused on reputation,but in the search for business opportunities and the identification of joint projects.
Little by little, these new dynamics are changing the traditional way of managing contacts with strategic audiences of organizations, and are giving way to the creation and maintenance of lasting and sustainable relationships between companies and their strategic audiences.
4. If you could love me. Relationship marketing
Marketing theories and practices have also evolved towards a relationship management-oriented approach as a guarantee for corporate success. At the beginning of the eighties, from the hand of Professor Leonard Berry, at the University of Texas, the vision of the need to transcend from a marketing approach directed to transactions, to relationship marketing emerged.
The Glossary of Marketing Terms conceives this proposal as the set of efforts made to create mutually satisfactory and long-term relationships with key markets, in order to achieve and maintain exchange processes with them, sustained over time, in addition to achieve a preference for the company and / or its products and services.
According to this definition, marketing efforts, in the new context, are directed towards achieving a comprehensive knowledge of the consumer, target audience or interest groups, in order to optimally satisfy their wants or needs.
In this sense, we can affirm, then, that the marketing of relationships supposes an interest of the company to conserve its public, from the establishment of frequent and beneficial contacts for both parties; that implies a long-term vision, based on a strategic projection that allows the establishment of cooperation based on trust and the existence of close ties; and that it needs personalized communication efforts for each specific audience, depending on their profile and their wishes or needs.
From these elements emerge its six basic principles, also known as the "six" I's of marketing:
- Information based on building a reliable database of audiences Invest in the best audiences Individualize or personalize offers and communications Systematically interact with audiences Integrate or incorporate audiences in the value creation process Intention to create a unique and different relationship with each audience.
Relationship marketing also coined a new concept: Costumer Relationship Management or CRM, which, succinctly defined, is the process of identifying, acquiring and retaining the fundamental publics of the institution, and allows the company to focus its attention on the client to interact more effectively with him, identify his importance and retain him.
In this effort, it is necessary to take into account that getting customers to be loyal means knowing them, knowing who they are, what their tastes are, their preferences, in order to be able to offer them what they want, when they want it and how they want it.
From a holistic perspective, the approach of this corporate philosophy, even when its orientation towards consumers of the company's products and / or services is plausible, can also be applied to the management of relationships with the rest of the institutional publics (suppliers, distributors, media, community…) in order to know and retain them.
In the Cuban context, where little by little steps are being taken towards greater commercial and economic openness, the establishment and maintenance of business relationships with each of the groups involved in the organizational field, and not only with their clients, acquires a extraordinary importance.
In this sense, Dr. Ernesto Manuel Conde Pérez, vice-dean for research and postgraduate studies at the José Martí Pérez University Center, of Sancti Spíritus, recognizes that a strategic approach to relations is essential to sensitize the groups involved with a view to achieving the objectives defined in the organizational strategy of the company. For him, managing relationships is a necessity in order to achieve competitiveness, a solid position in the market and long-term sustainability of the entity.
5. Ready, set, go. Approaches to relationship management
The concept of management, etymologically derived from the Latin gestĭo, refers to the action and effect of managing or administering. Managing means doing errands conducive to the achievement of a business or any desire. Managing, for its part, involves planning, organizing, directing and controlling each of the available resources, in order to achieve the greatest possible benefit.
Starting from this, management is equivalent, then, to the process in which the different phases or stages aimed at solving an issue or specifying a project are integrated, which must follow a logical sequence, and be consistent with the objectives of the instance that them generate.
Organizations in the 21st century need the integral management of their assets to be able to survive in a globalized and highly competitive world, affirms Abel Guerra in his Bachelor's Thesis. In this sense, we are talking today about social management, project management, knowledge management, environmental management, communication management and, in recent times, a new concept that has been strongly imposed: relationship management.
In the organizational world, the management of the relationships established between companies and their stakeholders or strategic audiences, part of a still fresh vision, which draws, as we discussed previously, from the source of Public Relations, management, relationship marketing, communication management and studies around organizational audiences.
According to these references, relationship management, understood from a process approach, will involve a set of coordinated and coherent phases and stages of research, planning, implementation and evaluation and control of a set of actions aimed at achieving the construction of meanings. shared, and to promote and maintain sustainable, long-lasting, interactive and generative links between companies and their audiences, which facilitate integration and mutual understanding.
The bases of said management should include, on the one hand, the organization of an area or structure that generates it and assumes responsibility for each of its stages; and, on the other, the establishment of policies that operate as a general framework or guide for the fundamental action of said management in the company.
According to Manucci, to develop this process of building and maintaining a bond, the offer that the organization makes must take into account the needs, interests, habits and expectations of the recipients. This consideration gives the sense of "common action" to the relationship between the organization and its public, which allows the production structure to keep its processes up to date depending on the environmental conditions.
It is also valid to point out that relationship management must be integrated as part of the overall management of the entity, and be aimed at achieving a productive exchange of meanings between the organization and each of its audiences, an exchange in which communication will be the fundamental means for achieving a strategic positioning and an acceptable image that allow a sustained and sustainable relationship between the organization and its stakeholders.
As part of the process of managing these relationships, entities must follow four fundamental phases or stages that, assumed from the most diverse approaches and from multiple nomenclatures, could be summarized as: diagnosis, analysis or research; planning or planning; the implementation or execution; and evaluation and control.
5.1. The investigation
Research involves an activity aimed at obtaining new knowledge, in terms of describing trends, forecasting attitudes or detecting threats and problems. Called with the most dissimilar qualifiers and attributes, but assimilated, yes, by the majority of authors from the most diverse latitudes, the diagnosis is imposed, by its own weight, as the first phase of any management process.
Before planning or executing any action aimed at achieving and / or maintaining ties with institutional audiences, it is imperative to carry out a thorough and thorough investigation that allows the company to make value judgments that contribute to the conception and implementation of strategies adequate, effective and consistent.
Basically, this research must include the analysis of the institution and the internal and external factors that are mediating and determining its relations with the public, the analysis of the audiences, and the analysis of the current state of the relationships established with each one. of them.
The internal analysis of the organization involves the study of the key factors that have conditioned, and condition, business performance, the evaluation of past performance and the identification of the strengths and weaknesses that the organization presents in its operation and operation.
The external analysis of the company will include the identification of exogenous factors, beyond the company, that condition its relationships with its strategic audiences, both from the point of view of threat and opportunity. These exogenous factors will integrate aspects of the political, economic, social, technological, legal and cultural spheres and, to analyze them, a series of basic questions will have to be made focused on the present and anticipating possible future scenarios. In that sense, it will be important to ask yourself which are the most important factors today and which will be the most relevant in the years to come.
Research on audiences will involve knowing, on the one hand, their main characteristics (demographic, cultural, psychosocial…) interests, desires and motivations; and, on the other hand, which of them are prioritized within the business strategies for the relationship, the objectives established for each one, the themes and key message lines, as well as the communication tools that are privileged, the areas from which the actions and messages originate, the frequency with which these audiences are exposed to them and the factors related to their cost, control and evaluation.
The most current views add to these edges a fourth element that should not be ignored as part of the diagnosis for relationship management: the detailed analysis of the state of the links between the company and its audiences.
Roughly speaking, what this first phase of management intends is to show a picture, as complete as possible, of the organization, its audiences and the relationships maintained with them, as well as the environment or environment that intervenes and regulates said relationships, based on the detection of possible inflection issues in the current objectives and strategies, the establishment of new spaces and the improvement of current scenarios.
5.2. Planning
Planning, says Stoner, "is the process of setting goals and choosing means to achieve those goals" (Stoner, 1996). This process, according to Magda Rivero, involves a moment of decision-making, anticipation (anticipation), visualization (representation of the desired future) and predetermination (taking actions to achieve the concept of guessing the future). In this way, it becomes a basic tool that guides the management process, from the determination of its objectives, its steps and its means, based on the results obtained in the previous diagnosis.
As the second stage of relationship management, planning involves that phase in which the development and sequence of a set of coordinated and projected actions for a specific period of time is defined, with a medium or long-term vision of the future, as well such as the allocation and distribution of resources and responsibilities.
In this sense, it is necessary to distinguish between two specific types of planning: strategic, which establishes what and how to do things in a sustained period over time; and operational, which is carried out in the short and medium term, with emphasis on day-to-day aspects.
Planning relationship actions requires as a precedent an integral planning of communication, in a general sense, in the company. Likewise, it should start from the establishment of a set of governing documents for the activity, which serve as support for the application of the action programs. In this sense, it is valid to have policies, procedures and strategies for management.
In his book Institutional Communication. Social Approach to Human Relations, María Luisa Muriel and Gilda Rota point out that the relationship policies of organizations "pursue the objective of humanizing the administration and opening an objective and free dialogue with citizens, based on a spirit of public service" (Muriel and Rota, 1980: 329).
In this way, relationship policies add direct and human contact to administrative procedures that facilitates dialogue between the institution and its audiences. “This dialogue - Muriel and Rota say - becomes a communication channel that encourages the participation of citizens in the administration. With this, the various social groups participate with voice and vote in the projects designed to affect them, ensuring that the institutions efficiently adapt the administrative procedures and formalities to the needs of the public ”(Muriel and Rota, 1980: 329).
A procedure, for its part, is a document that clearly describes each of the consecutive steps to start, develop and conclude an activity or operation, the technical elements to be used, the required conditions, the scope, the limitations set., the number and characteristics of the personnel involved, etc.
For Kenneth Andrews, a leading researcher at Harvard University, strategy represents a pattern of objectives, purposes or goals, as well as the establishment of the main plans to achieve these goals.
Marcelo Manucci, for his part, affirms that strategies involve the design and management of a process. In the field of organizations, drawing strategies implies defining the parameters on which their area of competence is based and establishing a sort of script on which their daily activity will rest.
"The strategies - Muriel and Rota say - constitute ways to follow to achieve the purposes of the organizational system." A well-formulated strategy helps to organize and allocate the resources available to the organization, in order to optimize results and anticipate possible changes or inflections in the environment.
The adoption of a strategic approach to relations with their audiences allows institutions to generate a concept around which to conceive the links; This concept, at the same time, must be consistent with current organizational policies, and with the general objectives of external communication of the company, and collect a series of essential elements in the management of relationships, which, according to the researcher Magda Rivero, point towards: delimitation of objectives, definition of audiences or stakeholders (objectives and actions of the program for each one), communication program (lines and message strategy), action plan, assignment of responsibilities, time-period calendars, resource allocation,and design of (permanent) control and evaluation mechanisms (for which performance indicators are stated) (Rivero, 2010: 37).
It is also necessary to take into account, during the planning phase, the anticipation of the possible emergence of unforeseen events that may affect the effective execution of the proposed strategies, so it would be appropriate to establish contingent or alternative plans that allow reducing, as far as possible. possible, the impact of potential risks.
5.3. The implementation or execution
“If you have built a castle in the air - said George B. Shaw - you have not wasted your time: this is where it should be. Now you must build the foundation underneath it.
The implementation or execution phase is recognized by most authors as the concretion of institutional policies and strategies in relation to their publics. This phase, understood by Dr. Magda Rivero as “the ultimate goal of planning and the beginning of a new stage”, implies the implementation of the action plans contained in the proposed strategies.
Unlike the stages that precede it (research and planning), the execution implies concrete and visible actions for all, from which, Muriel and Rota point out, much of its importance is derived.
During the implementation, the details of the corporate relationship strategies are specified, and actions are followed to ensure compliance with the previously established objectives, compliance that will depend, to a large extent, on a correct implementation of the action plans, as If these do not crystallize properly during this stage, it will not be possible to achieve the planned goals.
It is in this phase that, as the organization participates with its actions in the context, it also generates emerging events that put the dynamics of corporate reality to the test to face the unknown, says Marcelo Manucci.
It is necessary to consider that, at the same time that each of the previously proposed actions is implemented, a systematic control of its execution must be carried out, in order to determine and correct possible errors or biases in the strategy, identify and take advantage of opportunities for improvements, as well as adding those elements of the present reality that were not foreseen and that it is unavoidable to consider and assume.
During this phase, it is also necessary to ensure compliance with the individual responsibilities of each person and the adjustment, as far as possible, to the established budget and to the term-time calendars.
This stage of the management becomes the true litmus test of the process: an efficient and effective implementation of the proposed relationship actions will depend on the future of the links that the company will establish and / or maintain with each of the publics included in the strategies, plans or campaigns envisaged.
5.4. The evaluation
In general, evaluation implies the determination of the value or meaning of something or someone, based on a series of criteria with respect to a set of norms. The most recent research on evaluation agrees that evaluation cannot continue to be considered the last of the stages of the management process, but must be mainstreamed, and run at the same time as each of its phases is executed.
In her Doctoral Thesis, the Cuban professor Magda Rivero recognizes evaluation as one of the most important stages of management, which will allow knowing the effectiveness of the actions proposed and executed, and determining whether or not they respond to the interests and needs of the public, and to the business strategic objectives.
The evaluation, in this case, starts from two fundamental aspects, on the one hand, it will be necessary to evaluate the fulfillment of the relationship strategies and the proposed objectives and, on the other, it will be necessary to assess the state of the relationships that, until the date, are established between the companies and their strategic audiences, as a result of the application of the actions contained in the plans and campaigns.
In view of this, the evaluation process, then, will include, in the first instance, the examination of the underlying bases in the strategies and the business policies of relation, and the comparison of the real results with those expected, for decision making and the execution of corrective actions that allow what has been achieved to correspond to what was planned.
It will also be necessary to consider the perceptions of the public towards the organization that tries to establish or maintain a positive and long-term relationship with them, as well as the characteristics and status of said relationship at the present time. To do this, James E. Grunig and Linda Childers propose an index composed of six factors with the ability to measure its nature and quality, among which are the following delimitations:
- Mutual control, which involves the degree to which the parties agree who has the legitimate power to exert mutual influence Trust or level of security and the desire for one party to be honest with the other Satisfaction or degree to which Each party has a favorable feeling towards the other Commitment, which is given by the extent to which each party believes and feels that it is worth investing energy to maintain and promote the relationship The exchange relationship, in which one party provides benefits to the other only because the other party benefited him in the past or expects him to do so in the future The communal relationship, in which the parties provide benefits to each other, because each is concerned about the welfare of the other, even when they don't get anything in return.
Evaluating the state of the relationships that are established between companies and their stakeholders is a phenomenon that undoubtedly passes through the sieve of subjectivity, however, it is essential to consider their character and characteristics if you want to have a global vision of the state of institutional management around it.
It is also valid to emphasize that once the evaluation phase is concluded, its results should be used with future perspectives. In this way, it will be necessary to ask, according to Rivero Hernández, “why haven't the goals been achieved (and also why have they been reached)? What has to be changed (personal, structural, financial changes)? Who is going to take charge of the changes? When will the changes begin to be made? And when will the change phase end? "
Reporting the results of the evaluation to the management and working towards them, will be the phase that, far from concluding the process, becomes the genesis of a new management cycle.
Final thoughts
Recognizing yourself registered in the new era of relationships supposes a different role for business behaviors, and implies the transfer of a transactional approach to a relational one, in charge of creating, promoting and facilitating the spaces for dialogue necessary to articulate shared values, establish meaning and promote long-term and interactive sustainable links or links between institutions and each of their strategic audiences, as an essential element in the construction and review of the common project.
The relational approach, whose first steps are ascribed to the basic postulates of Public Relations, has also passed into the area of management, marketing and the most current theories on the study of audiences. Based on these references, relationship management, understood from a process approach, will involve a set of coordinated and coherent phases and stages of research, planning, implementation and evaluation and control of a set of actions aimed at achieving the construction of shared meanings., and to promote and maintain lasting and generative links between companies and their stakeholders, which facilitate integration and mutual understanding.
Bibliographic references
- Gorgas, Arianne (2005). From the real to the dreamed. Proposal of a functional Model of Public Relations in Cuba. Bachelor Thesis. University of Havana. Havana Manucci, Marcelo (2005). Corporate stories. Communication, strategy and future in organizations. Digital document. Format pdf._________ (s / f) A future for strategy. Digital document. Pdf format. Available at www.estrategika.com.ar (consulted in October 2011) Martina, Aldo (s / f). Customer relationship management (CRM). Available at http://www.monografias.com/trabajos29/gestion-relacion-cliente/gestion-relacion-cliente.shtml (accessed February 2012). Martínez, Emigdio (2005). Tools for customer relationship management. Available at http: //www.degerencia.com / article / tools_para_la_gestion_de_las_relaciones_con_los_clientes (consulted in February 2012). Muriel, María Luisa and Gilda Rota (1980). Institutional Communication: Social Approach to Human Relations. First edition. Andina Editor. Quito.Rivero, Magda (2010) Theoretical-methodological bases for the evaluation of the communication system in Cuban companies and Organizations of the Central State Administration (OACE). Optional thesis to the degree of Doctor of Communication Sciences. Faculty of Communication. University of Havana. La Habana._________ (2000) Business Public Relations Brochure. Institute of Foreign Trade. Teaching materials. PDF format Torres, Diego (2009). Strategic business actions. Dialogue with stakeholders. In Telos Magazine, No. 79 Vendrell, Ignasi (s / f). Relationship management.The natural evolution of Public Relations. Digital document. Ppt format.
Footnotes
- Bonilla, Carlos (1988). Communication: basic function of Public Relations. Editorial Trillas, SA de CV México, DF An interview with the researcher on March 29, 2012 Ibídem.
