Articles
How Effective Is Your Communication Plan?
Imej Jiwa Communications is an Investor & Public Relations Consultancy firm founded in 2012 by Mr. Stanley Khoo. The firm provides its clients with personalised, value-added services which covers investor relations & communications, public relations, event management, advertising and outdoor media. Although a very new entrant into this niche industry, the founder, Mr. Stanley Khoo has a very solid and extensive experience in this area. A chartered accountant, ex-investment banker and previously a Director of Investor Relations in another firm, Stanley has developed a wide corporate network in Malaysia. He brings with him invaluable experience from his project portfolio, which includes working with Public Listed and Private Companies operating in different industries that include property developers and construction companies, hospitality, oil and gas, high tech companies, industrial products and services, telecommunications and many more. He was also involved in some of the largest Initial Public Offerings (IPO) exercises in Malaysia during his time in the investment banks. With his personal expertise, and a very driven and credible team, Imej Jiwa Communications strives to provide their clients the better service and to always exceed expectations.
Most companies, if not all, have in place their respective visions and beautifully worded strategic growth plans to impress investors. Nevertheless, ask a handful of these investors as to what those plans are and mean, chances are we will be countered with contradicting interpretations of those plans or worse, just a shrug of the shoulders.
To ensure plans and messages not only reach the intended audiences but also the latter interprets such messages correctly, there is this vital need of an effective communications plan in place.
The main purpose of a communications plan is to ensure that the targeted audience, comprising the stakeholders in a business settings, is kept up to date with selected latest information such as updates on projects and goals. Within the limited space here, we will look at how the effectiveness of most communications plans can be blunted by two factors. One is the less than desired medium of dissemination and the other being inaccurate information or information overload.
On how best to communicate with stakeholders, logically the primary source of information would undoubtedly be the company’s website, direct from the horse’s mouth so to speak. However, in this far from perfect investors’ domain, it would be next to impossible for one single primary source to accommodate the thousands if not millions of queries, for the sake of disseminating clear and accurate information.
Official sites may be information seekers’ first choice but what happens when one requires clarifications to what has been displayed in the website? We all have our own share of the experience of emailing a company with queries. We get an automated response with the usual public relations phrases how much your message means to them and they will respond within 48 hours. Alas that is the one and only time you might hear from them. Even a physical call to the company can raise one’s blood pressure where these calls are unattended or subjected to minutes of automated greetings and mandatory pressing of numerous numbers just to get connected to the correct department only for the call not to be answered.
Given the lack of an effective two-way communications, investors will predictably fall back on secondary sources of information which are not the official channels. This then give rise to the second problem of information obtained from different sources being inaccurate and messages driven across not in sync. Mass availability of unsubstantiated and inaccurate information is mushrooming as more information is delivered through numerous sources. The wider the net of information dissemination is cast, the higher is the degree of distortion and variant in interpretations of these messages.
The main gist lies with ensuring all these different sources are on the same page. Most would have heard of the different ways in which simple English words like ‘flour’ is pronounced. If we cannot even come to a common understanding on how to pronounce one simple word, let alone having numerous sources sharing a common understanding of a company’s vision and mission prior to disseminating such information.
A not-so-well-informed investor may over rely on self-declared investment gurus for advice and information which may be bias towards certain companies. Making investment decisions
based on inaccurate information and treating them like the gospel truth might have enormous consequences where to an extreme, it can lead to panic followed by collapse of conglomerates. Back in the 1960s and 1970s, rumours of banks unable to entertain withdrawal requests occasionally rear its ugly head which led to people rushing to withdraw their hard-earned savings from the ‘victimised’ bank. No one bank is able to entertain such request if all depositors were to withdraw their funds simultaneously and immediate.
Misinterpretation of information can also arise from the lack of understanding of a subject matter, in the business settings, investment related terminologies. Short of implying knowledge is shallow, learning process never ceases. Investment related companies should perhaps take a further leap by regularly conducting seminars to educate investors as some form of CSR. This furthermore works in the company’s favour as mis-valuation of the said company may not be favourable to the latter in more ways than one.
Thus, food for thoughts to end this article. Can an effective communications plan be in place where crisp clear information is efficiently delivered to the right audience with the upmost accuracy without distortion? How does one ensure that the various external channels which are disseminating information about one’s company is accurate?