Corporate Communication of the British Petroleum Company - Research Paper Example

INTRODUCTION FARMA Limited has emerged as one of the largest pharmaceutical company that has its operations in more than 40 countries and products available worldwide. It was started in early 2000 by a group of medical researchers from Princeton University. It is one of those companies that gained tremendous success in just a few years. FARMA Limited combines the best values of entrepreneurship, business ethics, and strict acquiescence with current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP). It has its own branded generic medicines besides which it also promotes products from distinguished research-based pharmaceutical companies. Since its creation, FARMA Ltd. has primarily endorsed research based pharmaceutical products. The company’s strict adherence to quality and research and compliance with global standards has resulted in ISO 14001 and ISO 9001:2000 certification awards. It is one of those few pharmaceutical companies who have developed their brand loyalty through innovative advertising strategies along with its strong marketing base. The ground-breaking strategies have helped its products to be positioned in their respective curative areas. FARMA Ltd. has achieved this prestigious status through creative marketing strategies, promoting team work, human resource development and high-tech production facilities. The continuous research and collaboration with prominent research based global companies exhibit FARMA’s commitment to manufacture high quality health products. MISSION STATEMENT The company aims to discover, develop and successfully market innovative health products to prevent and cure diseases, to alleviate suffering and to enhance the quality of life. It aspires to create an environment for its workforce who allows them to experiment with their creativity and perform innovative research. The mission is to improve the quality of human life to accomplish more, feel healthy and live longer. (Mission) Quality is the most valued element in the company. They ensure high quality research to develop and discover the medicine to enhance the human life. The mission statement of FARMA Ltd. is defined as follows: “Our mission is to manufacture research-intensive products to ease suffering and enhance the quality of life.” (Mission Statement) VISSION STATEMENT FARMA Ltd.’s vision statement defines it future strategic intent and goals: “Our vision is to become the most reputable and undisputable leader in the pharmaceutical industry, providing the people with high quality health products to improve the quality of human life.” FARMA Ltd. is striving hard to achieve its business goals, in order to become global leader in the pharmaceutical industry. The main challenges that need to be looked upon by the company, that the industry is facing include: To invest and rely on more research and development in the discovery of new medicines with minimal health side effects. To provide easy access to new medicines to patients at affordable price and convenient locations. To reach out to the consumers beyond traditional healthcare profession. (Kanji) CORPORATE CULTURE AT FARMA The cultural paradigm amidst FARMA Ltd. operates in a combination of various factors that generally merge to formulate a net aggregated culture of an organization. The organizational culture within the organization can be defined as "the specific collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization and that control the way they interact with each other and with stakeholders outside the organization." (Hill and Jones) (Corporate Culture) At FARMA Ltd., organizational culture is basically how employees work collectively to achieve a task. It essentially involves a common set of work ethics which is known to everyone and according to which employees’ behavior is molded. These behaviors are based on the organizational structure, shared value systems within the organization which guides our conduct and perceptions, symbols and events that happen within an organization and different processes of how different goals are achieved. In 3000 B.C., a Chinese military general, Sun Tzu, pointed out that culture is an important aspect of organizational strategy. The two main elements of his strategy are the created and shared beliefs, values that hold an organization together, and the corporate nature of the organization. The shared core values at FARMA are mainly integrity, prosperity, innovation and people. Employees at FARMA Ltd. are encouraged to strive for excellence and be creative with their research. It promotes individuals to work in a group and create a culture that is beneficial for company’s growth. (Corporate Culture) The organizational culture at FARMA Ltd. is depicted in variety of ways. Though strict organizational hierarchy is observed, the overall culture is not at all bureaucratic. Employees are encouraged to work with each other in cooperation and collaboration, rather than competition. FARMA Ltd. empowers its workforce and encourages independent decisions, allowing employees to come up with creative ideas to achieve different tasks. Being in a pharmaceutical industry, FARMA Ltd. also needs to ensure the quality of its research and medicine therefore, certain level of hierarchical dependence is witnessed in decision making. Since work revolves around medicine, the work is extremely sensitive, and there are certain guidelines which have to be adhered to, and approval for any new idea/product must be taken from an appropriate source. . For example, for approval for the launch of a new product or idea has to be approved by the Managing Director and the Medical director. Without their signature, such a venture cannot go through. An organizational culture can be greatly evaluated on the basis of conduct in case of error and mistakes by the employees. At FARMA Ltd., it was seen how tolerant seniors were towards their subordinates and how they explained, evaluated and reprimand the mistakes privately with the employee and not in front of other employees. Employees are given due respect and appreciation for their hard work and behavior. TYPE OF CULTURE NORMATIVE BELIEF ORGANIZATIONAL CHARACTERISTICS CONSTRUCTIVE ACHIEVEMENT The employees set realistic and challenging goals for themselves. They are also encouraged to work on tasks other than what their own specific job requires CONSTRUCTIVE SELF-ACTUALIZING There is a lot of learning, developing and personal growth experienced on an individual level, on an everyday basis. CONSTRUCTIVE HUMANISIC-ENCOURAGING All the employees are supportive of each other. There is cooperation rather than competition. There is a lot of idea and information sharing between different departments. Hardly any employee feels threatened by the success of a colleague. CONSTRUCTIVE AFFILIATIVE There is hardly any friction between co-workers. Everyone is encouraged to be open. Shifting blame or conspiring against a fellow worker is not accepted at all. Thus, a friendly and open environment prevails. PASSIVE-DEFENSIVE CONVENTIONAL Because of the nature of the industry, employees have to follow certain rules and guidelines. They must go through fixed channels and get approval from the appropriate person before going ahead with any new ideas. AGGRESSIVE DEFEINSIVE PERFECTIONIST Some managers are perfectionists, and leave no room for mistakes from the employees. From the given table, we can easily conclude that the overall culture at FARMA Ltd. is very constructive which allows its employees to learn, experiment and develop themselves while working within the organization. It also focuses on business ethics to make the employees realize the responsibility of being in a pharmaceutical industry and the sensitivity of the research they conduct. STRATEGIC COMMUNICATION Strategic Communication is the planning and communicating long-term strategic goals. It aims to view the company in long-term. Within an organization, it may also be referred to policy-making and communication guidance and direction to the employees to achieve long-term goals of an organization. At FARMA Ltd., strategic communication works as two levels: internal strategic communication and external strategic communication. Internal strategic communication is often within the organization and it refers to the communication that flows from top executives to lower level workforce. It’s basically the communication flow to achieve goals and objectives decided at the managerial level. There are different ways of communication within the company which includes group e-mails, face to face meetings, telephone calls, etc. External strategic communication is often the most essential one to the company because it delivers a perception to the consumers. It is a systematic planning and understanding of how critical information flows, media communications are handled and how brand image is created in the long run. It is a platform through which an appropriate company message is sent to the target audience at the suitable time to have a desirable impact. At FARMA Ltd., the marketing and communication department is the most creative one which has the highest degree of decision-making independence. Therefore, this media communication is often well thought and creatively decided to create an impact on the audience. While planning the strategic communication, it is of primary importance to align it with overall company’s strategy to augment brand positioning of the company. It also creates coherence in the delivery of message leading to well aware and loyal consumers. FARMA Ltd. ensures that its customers are frequently educated about the on-going research and new health products being brought by the company in the market. (Bockstette) CORPORATE IDENTITY Corporate identity is the visible brand presence in the market. It is the brand persona of the company by which it allows its customers to distinguish itself in the market. It should be designed in such a way that it describes the company and facilitates the achievement of business goals. The two essential aspects to corporate identity are the logo and slogans which becomes the brand identity. (Knapp, Evans and Cullen) LOGO AND SLOGAN CORPORATE IMAGE Corporate image is how the audience perceives the company and its products. Corporations work really hard to create a positive corporate image in the eyes of its target market to enhance its sales. Corporate image, commonly referred as brand image, has a significant impact on the company’s revenue. It is a visual impact that the brand has on the minds of the consumers, and therefore, it is usually designed to be attractive to the people. It aims to enhance brand equity, create loyal customers, and improve company’s sales. Corporate image is not only created by the company, instead news media, public relations, journalists, consumers, and employees play an important role in building brand image. Customer touch points are essential interaction hub between the consumer and the company through which the brand image develops. Corporate image is often enhanced by different events organized by the company for the social welfare and which is covered by the media. Nowadays, media plays an important role in building a company’s image in the minds of the people as it is medium which communicates the message to the masses. It is one of the most reliable sources of information for the masses and the information on television is often trusted by the masses. Brand image is often not the actual state of the company, but only the public perception that it portrays in front of the target audience. FARMA Ltd. Has a corporate image of trust and reliability as it has high quality and well-researched health products. People tend to trust their lives with FARMA’s products because they know that FARMA is working hard to improve the quality of human life. (Corporate identity) MEDIA RELATIONS Media has become one of the biggest platforms to deliver a message to the large target audience. It is one of the most effective ways of communicating new ideas, new products, new policies, and new researches. Nowadays, companies usually have a considerable amount of budget only for advertising and marketing. Media Relations involves working different media platforms to make people aware about company’s mission, vision, policies, practices and products. In order to make this possible, it is important that companies remain in constant touch with the journalist and news media to ensure that the positive information about the company is consistently being delivered to the audience. Through media relations, companies aim to maximize media coverage without having to spend extra amount on advertising. Media relations are an important aspect for companies who want to ensure their market presence by hosting multiple events, sponsoring individuals and organizations, and partnering in different ventures. FARMA Ltd makes its media presence through sponsoring various events, individuals, and hosting recent HIV AIDS drive and Cancer Awareness Programs. (Jane) INTERNAL COMMUNICATION Internal communication is the most important aspect of an organization because it determines how tasks are achieved within the organization. As already discussed, FARMA Limited has a constructive culture which provides equal opportunities to all employees to share their ideas and opinions. It is a division of effective business communication which promotes communication among employees and employers. There are several ways of internal communications and these traditional ways has evolved over a period of years. At times, it is one-to-one or one-to-many meetings where the employer is the main speaker and he addresses his employees about an important issue and other times, it’s just a simple email floated throughout the company’s employees to inform them about any key concern. At FARMA Ltd, various different modes of communication are employed internally which includes one-on-one meetings, staff/team meetings, emails, voice mails, video broadcasts, intranets, audio files (usually downloadable audio, but increasingly sent out via RSS technology [podcasts]), staff-to-staff newsletters, corporate newsletters, Annual Reports, Quarterly Reports, and Road shows. All these ways of communicating is effective in different situations and circumstances. (Hopkins) CRISIS COMMUNICATION Crisis communication plan is a necessity in this world of uncertainty and instability. For marketing manager and public relations head, developing a crisis communication plan is of primary importance. Marketing department at FARMA Limited has developed its crisis communication plan on the basis of following elements: Anticipate crisis: Managers at FARMA keeps into account overall activity of the company and predicts what events may hit the company. For example, a patent of a medicine expires in the near future which generates considerable revenue for the company. Therefore, FARMA’s managers will make a plan as to how to maintain their sales in the market for the medicine. Crisis communication team: At the time of a crisis, it is important that a team of experienced and smart individuals is made who handles the crisis and implements the plan to minimize the loss. The team should ensure the implementation of the crisis plan. Manage media relation: At times of a crisis, it is important your customers don’t get to know about your loss and therefore, media must be handled smartly and favorably. Communicate beforehand: It is important that the employees are made aware of the crisis beforehand so that they can help overcome it and avoid it. Companies must be proactive in their communication and not wait for the last minute move. Prioritize and aware your audience: Internal and external communication must be done but it should be decided to what information be sent to external audience and what is relevant to internal workforce. (Lake) WORKS CITED Bockstette, Carsten. "Jihadist Terrorist Use of Strategic Communication Management Techniques." December 2008. George C. Marshall Center for European Security Studies. http://www.marshallcenter.org/mcpublicweb/MCDocs/files/College/F_ResearchProgram/occPapers/occ-paper_20-en.pdf. 25 November 2010. "Corporate Culture." Sergey Group Ltd. 25 November 2010 . Corporate identity. 1 October 2010. 25 November 2010 . Hill, Charles W. L. and Gareth R. Jones. Strategic Management. Houghton Mifflin, 2001. Hopkins, Lee. What is internal communication? 6 July 2006. 25 November 2010 . Jane, Johnston. Media Relations: Issues and Strategies. Sidney: Allen & Unwin Academic, 2008. Kanji, Sajida. "Analysis Of Mission And Vision Statement." 14 October 2010. OPParpers.com. 23 November 2010 . Knapp, Pat Matson, Judith Evans and Cheryl Dangel Cullen. Designing Corporate Identity: graphic design as a business strategy. Rockport Publishers, 2001. Lake, Laura. Develop Your Crisis Communication Plan. 25 November 2010 . "Mission." Novartis. 23 November 2010 . "Mission Statement." GlaxoSmithKline. 23 November 2010 . Read More