Management Communication - Essay Example

The paper 'Management Communication' is a wonderful example of a Management Essay. The current business environment is increasingly becoming challenging. Businesses are faced by challenges ranging from unstable markets environment, fluctuating interest rates to unpredictable weather among many other internal and external business environment factors. With these many challenges, businesses are presented with the dilemma of striking a balance through the challenges and still operate profitably. Crises are not only disruptive to business but very expensive. A study by Burson-Marsteller, business process analysts, states that crises average cost to a company is 549,000USD. ( ) Small wonder then that, any looming crisis will keep business decision-makers awake all night. But here’s the irony, whereas most of the business decision-makers hinge their belief of helping a company out a crisis through a well-developed crisis and communication plan, only 51% of organizations do have the plan. (www.burson-marsteller.com)This is a major indictment to communicators, as it suggests that they are not doing their job in ‘selling’ the need for the plan.

The picture is not all sour: companies such as Qantas judiciously dealt with one major logistical headache by using their in-house communication team. According to a recent survey, in-house teams are majorly responsible for crisis handling planning. (www.burson-marsteller.com)

In the course of crisis-situations, internal company activities are important, i.e. establishment of a crisis team, monitoring of crisis issues, and the preparation of press statements to engage with the media, online communication. This paper will discussQantas’scrisis management process while at the same time inadvertently highlighting the pertinent issues about the influence communications plan and the team had internal management and planning during the difficult – and costly period of crisis.

In this paper the operating environment, the challenges, and the ways through which, Qantas, an Airline operating both domestic and long-haul flights, navigated through the ash cloud crisis emanating from a Chilean volcano. The ash clouds disrupted its flights causing major loss of business. I will further analyze the communication and crisis plans developed by the airline, its effects, and the loopholes thereof.

The ash cloud from a Chilean volcano in late 2011 resulted in an unprecedented crisis in the sensitive aviation industry; all the flight routes through the area were canceled, passengers were delayed for hours on end, the business was generally hit badly.

As a stop-gap measure, Qantas developed a crisis management plan and a communication plan to mitigate the crisis. The development of the crisis communication plan started with conducting a strategic analysis of the organization and the prevailing circumstance/crisis; they had to understand the nature of the business and the crisis. Strategic issues to be communicated were then identified through a communication/crisis analysis. After this, the plan was drawn delineating the paths to follow. At this stage guidelines for communication personnel training and development were outlined together with criteria for performance appraisal.

The communication plan must have a monitoring schedule and should be benchmarked. It can be changed when necessary. The policies must also comply fully with the laws, ethics, and regulations. (Ayres, et al. 1994)

In managing this dynamic role of communicating, the policy developed must seamlessly guide the communication team in the course of their duty. The communication plan must integrate and flow with the organization’s visions, goals, and values. (McLean, 2003)The communicators in carrying out their duties are faced with various challenges such as controlling costs, technological changes, the unpredictable audience, and a shifting and dynamic media. They have to strike a balancing act in order to manage the customers’ information demands optimally. They themselves must strike a working code since as Pearson&Nelson (2000) points out; it is not unusual to have team members from different backgrounds who show very different work habits from what others may be accustomed to (p. 42).