On the weekends I work for "Eat n Park" restaurant. "Eat n Park" has been a Pennsylvania, and especially Pittsburgh, based company for many years. A well known item that the company sells is their trademark smiley face cookie. Last year the company developed a contract with the Pittsburgh Steelers football team to produce smiley face cookies using the Steelers' colors with the Steelers' name and logo on the package label. As the football season progressed, the chances of the Steelers playing in the Super Bowl increased. The company knew that the combination of a well known product combined with the increasing excitement and support of the Steelers would greatly increase cookie sales.
The company invested money in widespread advertising. Advertising included television, radio, and signage in all restaurants. Not only were the Steelers' cookies available in all restaurants, but the opening of a company owned cookie factory allowed for online and telephone orders for home delivery of cookies. The company guaranteed that orders would be delivered within two days.
The company expected high sales. District managers were told to have enough cookies. District managers told the store managers to have enough cookies. Store managers told shift managers to have enough cookies. This was the extent of the communication. But what was enough? While the company saw this huge advertising campaign as a wonderful business strategy, they failed to develop any kind of communication strategy.
While the company has an overall set of goals, individual restaurants tend to follow their own agenda based on the stores sales and goals. Within the individual restaurants, communication between managers who work separate shifts is lacking. When the cookie sales far exceeded expectations, all levels of the communication network were stressed and ill prepared. At no point were actual numbers of cookies discussed. Restaurants had not been made aware of the extra staff and product that would be needed to produce such a large amount of cookies. Bakers, in addition to their other responsibilities, were overworked trying to keep up with the needed production.
Another factor that had not been communicated was the short impact of time. Each time the Steelers won a game, sales increased. However, this only gave each restaurant a few days to order supplies and prepare. Since work schedules for employees had already been posted, there was no chance for additional help in the bakery.
When the district manager came in, he started yelling at everyone that he said he wanted 70 dozen cookies on the shelf at all times. We had all been taken by surprise, we knew nothing about this. He had called some of the managers earlier that day and told him what he expected. The manager left at the end of his shift without ever passing on the message.
The amount of sales from the cookie factory were grossly underestimated. They were unable to follow through with their "guaranteed delivery". The company had received many complaints and had damaged their reputation.
I believe if the company had developed a strategic communication plan, many of the problems could have been avoided. If the company had decided to properly plan for the anticipated sales by informing all members of the restaurants and the cookie factory by sending out a memo and having store managers post it, all members involved would have been informed. A form of message stating the need for more scheduled personnel and more product ordered could have avoided much of the stress, shortage, and ill will by all constituencies.
I found a site that discusses bridging the link between verbal forms of strategic communication and setting an example as part of strategic communication.
http://lynch.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/08/31/mullens_strategic_communication
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I think a good example of strategic communication was done by the Government when they were switching television signals from analog to digital. Since everyone with a television had the potential to be affected, they used all the resources readily assessable to that constituency. That included television commercials, radio commercials, news broadcasts, and advertisements in print such as magazines and newspapers. They even had multiple websites as well as phone numbers which contained any sort of information to answer questions that a person may have. Since there was also a deadline, they made people aware months ahead of time in order to allow them to be prepared for what was coming. During the time of the digital transition, there was not a one day from early morning to late at night that you could not watch or find information about what the government was planning to do.
ReplyDeleteHere’s an example of one of the many commercials that was released:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XnpU1a7AQA&feature=related
By communicating strategically, I thought about an interesting situation I have experienced in France. The process of implanting the Euro in France, the communication was really impressive, and done on several years. The government had to target which steps had to be put into action, define a realistic schedule, where to start, with who to start communicating to, how long, which tools could be useful to make the whole process be effective.
ReplyDeleteThe first step was a work with Europe, which countries would respect the conditions to enter in the Eurozone, and what rules do they have to follow. This process started in 1990, Europe communicated to the banks, creating central banks for the Eurozone.
In Mai 1998, the interesting process started, the change rate was fixed for the 11 countries which adopted the Euro, and the communication process was launch to inform first the companies, and also the population. The companies could already decide to trade in euro beginning 1999, and had until 2001 to adapt to this new currency. But the population had to wait until December 2001 to get this new currency. It was really interesting, advertisement on tv, radio, articles in the newspaper, free phone numbers to call for information, documentation in the mail box, …. I remember that we were really curious about this new currency, and impatient to get some. And the day arrived, after years of information and communication from the government; we could get our first Euros, the 12/15/2001, in some nice little plastic bags. The dates chosen were really clever from the government, because few days later was Christmas, and these little bags became THE gift for Christmas, especially for children.
Even if the Euro was not an advantage for the daily population, because everything became more expensive, the French government did its communication strategy and information so well, that we were ready for it, and knew that on a longer time, it will be a strong advantage for us to have a common currency.
Hereby the link of an interesting video, explaining why and how the Euro was implemented in Europe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxlEHdV-kgk
I have been working at a McDonald’s restaurant for a few years when I was in undergrad. There I have worked both as regular worker when I was first hired and then moved to a swing manager position. I pretty much have had the same experience as Christine when new products were introduced. The internal communication in the restaurant consisted in a ‘campaign book’ in which the dates of the implementation of new products were going to take place and for how long. Then a week or so before it would really happen large posters were put on in the workers room so that people would see it and become familiar with the new burgers. On the poster there was a description of the new burgers, and also a description of the process to make them, including the ingredients etc... I remember we would be really thrilled about them because they were usually premium burgers and thus they would be far better than the usual !
ReplyDeleteThen as a manager I had to make sure that everybody knew how to make those new burgers and train the kitchen employees.
I have to say that this communication was really well done at every level, and whether it was internal or external. Of course it led to a tremendous increase of the selling of the promotional burgers and we had to adjust to that in the restaurant and to me this is a good example of how to communicate strategically.
Those new burgers were usually backed up with a few TV commercials and/or mailing, here is an example of the new 2009 « So Grilled » chicken sandwich.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXrAqSMMIOY
I have had similar experiences in communication with my workplace as the previous posts. I was a manager for Blockbuster for six years. The major difference that I have seen with my company is that their major form of communication with customers is reliant on the employees in store. They do not frequently use mass advertising rather signage and employee interaction is preferred. The major challenge with this type of communication is that the company must develop excellent communication skills for all employees to ensure a consistent and informative message. If this is done properly it is a very cost effective form of communication, but it has its risks. Another way that the company is substituting mass advertising is the extensive use of e-mail communications. The Blockbuster e-mail system is used in many different capacities the help the customers to have a much more enjoyable experience. Including advertise the company uses e-mail to communicate due dates, movie suggestions, promotions, and coupons. In addition to cost benefits this system of communication allows the company personalize and customize its communications. In all this style of communication provides a very efficient and cost effective way to communicate with our customers.
ReplyDeleteOne interesting work experience I have been involved with using communication was during an independent film that I assistant directed two years ago. This film was shot in Mt. Pleasant PA, and had only $1,000 production budget and a $2,000 post production budget.
ReplyDeleteDuring my time working on the film, communication was key. There was always a lot going on at every moment, 16 hours a day, sometimes more. There was the director, assistant director, production manager, actors, and production assistants. Between everyone and everything going on, we all had to keep a good line of open communication. If something happened with the director it had to be relayed through the rest of everyone on the set.
It was important that everyone knew where we were in the script as well as any updates on the script or changes that needed to be made. At one point during the shoot, I was sent out to shoot a few scenes with the actors. The director had changed the script and had told a production assistant to pass along the changes to me and the actors. Somewhere along the line I was not informed of the changes and filmed the wrong things. The director was upset yelled at the production assistant. I had to go back and re-film the few scenes. It was a mistake that was never made again for the rest of the filming.
It just goes to show at how important it is to communicate and communicated effectively so problems do not occur.
Matthew Beucker
Reliable and effective communication is vital factor in the success of any organization. Organization flexibility to internal and external change in an organization depends on efficient communication. Therefore organizations have to maintain consistent communication culture.
ReplyDeleteMy Real Life Example
I would like to give an experience of changing bank cultures in INDIA which changed my point of view over time.
I used to have bank A/C linked with STATE BANK OF INDIA, but lately when more of private sectors bank coming into play with easy and communication effective strategies which includes having the dedicated customer relation associate, which made me to think of transferring my Accounts to these new private sector banks.
I really think that this direct communication strategy is an effective tool to gain business. The same should be done to the new business in order to have a competitive advantage over other businesses.
http://www.elwayresearch.com/communication.html
I was working as the inventory manager for a warehouse for almost two years. When I started, the stock was arranged haphazardly at best. In an effort to reduce error and increase efficiency, I began the long process of organizing the warehouse stock in manner that made products easy to find, and was more economical in how much space we used. Some workers had been working there for years before and were not overly accepting of change in the methods that had been used before me. So I devised a strategy to introduce them to the new way of organizing the stock. Over the course of a month, as I began to move things around, and take away products not being sold anymore, I would choose a different coworker to help me each day. This way overtime, each of them could physically see where the products were being moved to, and also as they could come to understand the grander scheme behind why I was changing the layout of the warehouse.
ReplyDeleteThis is a simplistic approach to communicating with a strategy and specific goal in mind. However, it was extremely effective. After the organization was completed, there were no errors made for 5 months, the time it took to find products reduced by half, and it made training new employees easier because everyone was now on the same page and understood concept of the warehouse layout.
In my company we use outlook express in order to communicate changing business policies and/or daily happenings. I find this to be an extremely useful source of communication. I can search for whoever I am looking for by name anywhere in the world. If I need to talk to a remarketing manager, my district manager, or the ceo of the company I have the capability. We have a very open line of communication as I email my district manager regularly throughout the workday. We also use outlook to post daily sales figures and earnings reports. Every employee in the company has an email account and it is an invaluable tool for communicating.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie6/using/oe/default.mspx