The corporate communications function of Microsoft - Essay Example

Communicational Strategy Analysis Executive Summary Microsoft is one of the largest and most well known information technology companies in the world. Its internal and external communicational strategies have been analysed to uncover how the company has been able to generate value for itself and also for its stakeholders. The study has revealed that the organizational communication plays a vital role in the success of a company. The internal communication comprises of the interaction among the employees and staff and the external communication includes the communication with the customers and notable external stakeholders like the investors. The company has improved its internal communication by incorporating advanced telecommunication technologies to virtually bring the employees together who are separated by national borders. It has been found that the communicational strategies incorporated by the company have helped to develop team work, productivity and efficiency. The external communicational strategies of the company include its marketing communications and promotional campaigns. Microsoft has developed its advertisements to highlight the brand image of the company and to create customer awareness about its products. It has leveraged its financial prowess to develop robust promotional campaigns. Finally, it has been concluded that the company has successfully designed its communicational process to increase its value generation and it has been recommended that in order to further improve them, it should adopt an integrated marketing strategy and adopt content localization. Table of Contents Introduction 4 Overview of the organization 4 Evaluation of the communication process 5 Internal 5 External 7 SWOT Analysis 8 Recommendation 9 Conclusion 10 Reference List 11 Introduction The organizational communication of a firm can be considered as one of its determining factors that can helps in seamless running of its operations. The organizational communication encompasses the flow and exchange of information with both the external and internal stakeholders (Blakeman, 2014). This as a result allows creating seamless transmission of message from one entity to another, thereby leading to communication of instructions, feedback, creating a corporate image, etc. The idea of organizational communication can also be used as a tool to create an integrated network of closely associated stakeholders (Anderson and Narus, 2007). The internal communication determines how well the employees are interconnected and coordinated, whereas the external communication helps dictates how the organization interacts with the customers and shareholders. This paper discusses about the organizational communication of Microsoft in theoretical perspective. It covers both the internal and external communications conducted by the company and its implication on the company. Overview of the organization Microsoft is one of the biggest information technology companies that operates globally and runs multiple business units across different domains of technology. It is associated with development and marketing of software, applications, offering services and hardware devices (Marketline, 2015; Statista, 2015). Microsoft is known worldwide owing to its versatile operating system for personal computers and other professionally used applications like MS Office, Skype, etc. The company has established its offices in more than a hundred nations. Microsoft operates through two primary business segments, which are Device and Consumer (D&C) and Commercial. The mission statement of Microsoft is based on practical implications of the constantly changing world of technology. According to the reports of McAllister (2015) the current CEO of Microsoft Satya Nadella has stated that the organization is looking forward to empower every individual and business entity and help them to achieve more. It has been further stated that Microsoft seeks to move forward with the changing trend in the consumption and behavioural pattern of the customers. The CEO has further stated that the company will move in to a “mobile-first, cloud-first” environment, thereby bringing drastic transformation in the organization to improve their competitive advantage (Microsoft, 2015). In terms of future visions, Microsoft has stated that the company is looking forward to create value generation for the stakeholders by leveraging the diverse workforce at its disposal. It has been stated that Microsoft is gradually moving towards a customer centric approach, and is willing to offer value proposition which is oriented towards creating business intelligence (Microsoft, 2010). Evaluation of the communication process The communication process of the company is focused in creating an unobstructed flow of information, so that the transfer of information between the stakeholders can help the organization to mission and vision goals. According to the reports of Hower (2014) Microsoft believes in empowering of the employees by generating value for them. The employees can easily gain access to organizational data, coordinate their activities with each other, leveraging the fast transmission of data and feedback across the hierarchy. On the other hand the external communication made to the stakeholders is also strategically designed to deliver the desired result. The brand and corporate image of the company is essential to attract the customers and the investors. Internal The internal communication of an organization is essential to ensure that the employees, supervisors and the higher authority are well connected to each other. This connectedness should allow them to conduct exchange or transfer of information in a short period of time thereby helping them to achieve the deliverables within a short period of time (Anderson and Vincze, 2008). The managers and higher authority can guide the employees regarding day to day activities and at the same time the employees can also communicate with their supervisors and send them feedback about their progress or any queries. Microsoft is known to have an efficient organizational workflow. A major portion of it is contributed to the presence of a robust internal communication system that binds thousands of employees of the company across several nations. This helps the company to leverage the work force of the employees in a holistic manner. According to the report of SMU (2012), the organizational structure of Microsoft is of Matrix type. This type of organization is a combination of vertical and flat organizational structures. The presence of hierarchy is associated with the presence of interconnection among the employees of each hierarchy. This as a result makes it important to focus on both upward-downward and horizontal communication within the organization. Microsoft, being one of the most well established technology giants, has used communication and networking technology to bring the people together, in a more intuitive and efficient way. The traditional ways of communication includes daily emails, newsletters, etc. These method of communication has although proved to be quite effective in interacting across and within the hierarchies, but the presence of clutter has clouded the importance of the information and its retention among the employees. According to Conrad and Poole, (2011), the communicational noise can act as a hindrance to seamless transfer of information. There are three types of communicational noise, which are psychological noise, physical noise and semantic noise. The psychological noise is associated with distractions experienced by the receiver caused from distress or tiredness, which can make an individual to be disengaged (Shockley-Zalabak, 2011). Secondly, the physical noise is associated with the environment in which the communication is being made. Physical noise often distorts the message while it is being sent from the sender to the recipient. Finally, the semantic noise is responsible for the technical fault of the sender, and is perceived in a different way by the recipient, thereby changing the underlying information. The problem faced by Microsoft regarding the use of traditional medium like emails and newsletters, is that it created too much clutter which can be associated with the physical noise. It has been stated that on an average a Microsoft employee goes through around 200 emails on a daily basis. This as a result creates huge clutter of information and makes it difficult for them to recall each one of them or prioritise the orders received over mails. Furthermore, the newsletters are also considered to be an effective way of internal communication, where information rich mails are sent to the respective employees. An average of 20 newsletters is revived each month (SMU, 2012). These medium of internal communication can provide enriched information to the employees and staffs. However, it also makes it difficult for them to process the information. According to the communication model proposed by Shannon and Weaver (2015), the process of communication consists of at least two entities: the sender and the receiver, and two key activities: encoding and decoding. The sender sends a message by encoding it in a particular way, which is then communicated through a channel to reach the receiver, who then encodes the message and perceives the message. A third activity also involved, which is the feedback, which ensures the sender that the message has been properly perceived by the receiver. However, any communication process tries to make it easier for both the sender and receiver to exchange information, thereby saving time and avoiding errors of miscommunication. Microsoft has implemented a more intuitive communicational process where the traditional medium like emails has been supplemented by the incorporation if video conferencing and video podcasting. The employees are communicated through small clips of video messages, which are forwarded to the respective employees. This process has helped the company to reduce the amount of clutter and have also made the process of encoding and decoding much easier. Furthermore, the company has also decided to implement the concept of digital signage within the workplace. According to the report of Tosolini (2012) the idea of digital signage is based on retention and recall of a particular message or information by appealing to the visual sense of the audience. It is widely used in marketing commodities and running promotional campaigns. In order to make it more effective for the internal communication to easily reach out to a large number of employees in a short period of time, Microsoft has decided to incorporate digital signage within the office premises. It offered a highly efficient way to showcase the activities of the organization to the employees (Tosolini, 2012). It is mostly used to convey information like day to day goals of the teams, significant achievements and other relevant general messages to the staffs. It acts as a better way of communication than traditional power point presentations and conferences. Not only does it save on individual time but it also helps to motivate the employees. It has been stated that this communicational strategy has helped the company to improve on its team work and gain on individual output. External The external communication of the company is focused of creating brand awareness, brand recall and developing a strong corporate image. It consists of creating advertisements and promotional campaigns that can help to attract the customers and the investors. According to the report of Warren (2015), the company has invested significant amount of capital in designing commercial ads for the customers to create a strong awareness of their product and how it can generate value for them. The company not only focuses on the creating awareness of the new products but it also takes initiatives to develop their brand as a whole (Kelly, Lawlor and ODonohoe, 2010). The advertisements developed by the company also focus on corporate branding, which creates a positive attitude among the customer towards the brand. The increase in the competitiveness in the global business environment has made it imperative for the firm to create a strong brand image in the industry. The product advertisements of the company are based on the way the products and services can bring changes to the lives of the people. According to Baker (2007), the purchase decision of the customers is composed of several stages including recognition of needs, information search, alternative evaluation and purchase, which is followed by post purchase behaviour. The advertisements are designed in such a manner that the purchase decision is made easier and shorter (Parente and Strausbaugh-Hutchinson, 2014). As mentioned by Thorson and Moore (2013), the differentiation of a product can be judged by the unique value proposition offered by the company. The value of the product is usually measured by subtracting the cost from the benefits. Microsoft focuses on sending a message to the customer about what the company stands for and what it can deliver to them that will make a big positive difference in their lives. Microsoft also holds press conferences and business events to communicate with the investors and potential shareholders. Even though the company is one of the biggest multinational brand in the world, but its financial condition is still dependent on the shareholders and major investors. Thus, creating a good working relationship with them is imperative to ensure financial stability. The company also offers software services to business customers. In order to promote those software products the company holds launch events and invites prominent stakeholders, customers and media. In this manner the company is able to create a strong awareness of its products among the target customers. SWOT Analysis Strength: The strong brand image of Microsoft acts as a compelling factor to attract the stakeholders. The company can also leverage its financial prowess to invest in development of promotional campaigns that helps to attract a large number of customers. As far as internal communication is concerned the company also invests in incorporation of advanced technology to ensure that the employees can have a seamless flow of information and data among them. It has also helped the company to increase its working efficiency. Thus, it can be stated that the incorporation of innovative approach of internal and external communication can help the company to ensure seamless sustenance of its business operations. Weakness: The large size of the company can pose to be an issue in the internal communication. Even though the company has incorporated advanced technologies to improve internal communication, but it may still lack face to face communication which can still be a major determining factor of employee motivation. Opportunities: The company holds significant opportunities to improve its communication strategies. It can invest on more advanced technologies and can implement it improving communicational strategy of the company. The advancement of telecommunication technology and the rapid global adoption of high speed internet services can also be utilized by the company to improve its communication with employees separated by national borders. Threats: Microsoft faces significant threats in certain sectors from its rivals, particularly in the mobile devices sector. The competitors like Google and Apple has created a strong differentiation in terms of brand image and marketing communication. Therefore, it can pose as a strong impact on the sales volume of the company. Recommendation This section covers possible recommendation for the company on how it can improve its communicational strategies. It can be recommended that the company can make certain changes in its external communication to further improve its brand image and increase its competitive advantage. As mentioned by (Gummesson, 2009), a strong image can be considered as an asset for the company. Microsoft should focus on developing an integrated marketing communication strategy (Duncan and Everett, 2008). The increase in the overall competiveness in the business environment makes it essential that Microsoft should strengthen its promotional campaigns in order to create a strong competitive advantage. It should give more focus on the digital marketing strategies, as a large number of young and working consumers spend a significant amount of time browsing the internet (Internetlive Stats, 2015). This as a result can help the company to increase the brand recall among the consumers. Microsoft should also focus on developing its communicational strategies by adapting them based on the different target markets. The television commercials aired by Microsoft in all the target nations are standardized in nature (YouTube, 2015). The company can consider creating localized advertisement content for different countries and airing them respectively. This as a result can help the company to create a stronger impact on the audience, thereby creating a better recall. Conclusion The paper has set forward to discuss about the importance of the organizational communication conducted with both the internal and external stakeholders. The communicational strategies of Microsoft have been thoroughly discussed to find out how the company has been able to achieve higher productivity and strengthen their brand and corporate image. The internal communication process of Microsoft has been enhanced by leveraging the technological advancements in telecommunications. The employees and staff communicate with each other through video podcasts, video conferences, digital signage, etc, apart from the traditional medium like email and newsletters. The company has ensured that the process of information or message transfer among the employees is fast and seamless and is not hindered by any communicational noise. The external communication consists of the interaction with the external stakeholders, such as the customers, investors, prominent shareholders, media, etc. The company has designed its marketing communication in such a way so that it can create a strong brand recall among the consumers. The advertisements are being designed to clearly communicate the value proposition of the products and services and how it can improve the daily lives of the consumers. Thus, it can be emphasized that the communicational strategies of Microsoft has been designed to generate value for both the internal and external stakeholders. 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