August 20, 2002
Public relations, communications, and CI.
by Ron Penoyer
Public relations, communications, and CI.
Ron Penoyer, Competitive Intelligence, Fleishman-Hillard, Inc.penoyerr@fleishman.com
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Summary:Public relations and corporate communications professionals can use competitive intelligence to enhance the effectiveness of their communications activities and ensure the positive impact of those activities on the financial performance of the firm. Ron Penoyer provides a general understanding of the current use of CI in the public relations profession, reviews a recent survey on CI among PR practitioners, and discusses how CI can support their need for rapid access to accurate competitive information on a daily basis.
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Competitive intelligence (CI) improves the ability of public relations and corporate communications to enhance an organization’s value to its stakeholders through better informed communications activities (based on facts), and better informed decision making about those activities. Communicators in nearly any business or organization make use of CI to produce information on, and analysis of, a virtually limitless range of issues, such as:
- A competitor’s positioning, actions, messaging, and strategies.
- Trends and developments in an industry or field.
- Strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats facing an organization.
Part of this process includes identifying and evaluating the views, needs, and concerns of various constituencies (customers, investors, employees, and others) as they affect and determine the organization’s success.
Competitive positioning and reputation management.
One area in which PR professionals are leveraging the value CI brings to communications is competitive positioning and reputation management. For example, a major enterprise software developer realized its goal of becoming the leader in collaborative commerce software was unreachable unless it carefully examined both the current issues and trends in the industry and the strategy, positioning, and messaging of its major competitors in the field.
To succeed, the company launched a multifaceted communications program that included CI research and analysis, using both primary and secondary sources (ranging from expert interviews to news and literature surveys). Currently, the CI analyses are helping to guide the company in successfully shaping its short- and long-term strategies in the marketplace, including product development issues, messaging, event planning, customer relations, and other areas.
Virtually any company can use these types of analyses in a wide variety of circumstances. A second example of CI’s value in reputation management involves a merchant energy company that was dissatisfied with its stock price. The company realized its key corporate messages were being misunderstood by securities analysts who evaluated the company and strongly influenced its stock performance. After making a detailed CI audit and evaluation of the company’s communications with analysts and the nature and success of its competitors’ messaging to the same audience, the company made critical changes in its analyst relations program that corrected analysts’ perceptions about the company’s strategic plans.
Survey of CI in PR
A recent national poll conducted by Fleishman-Hillard, Inc. and Fuld & Company in March-April 2002 indicates that business communicators are mindful of the value and potential of CI. This survey of communications executives at 53 large U.S. and multinational companies shows that 75 percent “strongly agree” that “business today requires corporate public relations practitioners to understand business strategy as well as the principles of effective communications.” A similar majority (70 percent) agree that having access to competitive intelligence in the past would have made their communications campaigns more effective.
Problem areas
Survey respondents also pointed to specific areas in which their company has experienced difficulties in obtaining competitive intelligence. Those areas include:
- Assessing a competitor’s strategic goals beyond what appears in the annual report (40 percent).
- Analyzing market factors that influence a company’s pricing strategy (19 percent).
- Predicting how rivals may react to an intended public announcement (17 percent).
- Determining critical issues driving a firm’s stock price and overall value (9 percent).
These findings emphasize that business communicators need an effective means of obtaining, analyzing, and evaluating strategic intelligence about competitors and the industry in which they operate. This intelligence, in turn, helps PR professionals make their own effective communications plans and take action.
Internal CI function
The Fleishman-Hillard/Fuld survey discovered that a substantial percentage of the companies surveyed maintain a CI function using an in-house capability of some kind (68 percent), an outside source (4 percent), or both (15 percent). As a whole, four out of five companies surveyed make use of some kind of competitive intelligence capability (internal or external). Only 13 percent of responding companies have neither internal nor external CI resources (or do not know what type of CI function exists in their company).
Future of CI in PR
PR practitioners recognize the value of CI in enhancing the effectiveness of communications activities and, more important, ensuring the positive impact of those activities on the financial performance of the firm. CI is useful as a flexible underpinning for the tools communicators use every day, and CI invests those tools with the intelligence required to assure their success. By transforming “information” into strategic intelligence, CI has become the driving force behind improved awareness and understanding of critical competitive issues, resulting in enhanced communications programs and clear competitive advantages for communicators.
As technology improvements have forced faster competitive response time in all industries, PR professionals responsible for telling or updating an organization’s “story” need rapid access to accurate competitive information on a daily basis. Continuously finding faster and more effective ways to retrieve and analyze information about new external events, competitive actions, and stakeholder perspectives will remain critical in making the case for why an organization’s stakeholders should buy from, invest in, and work for a company or organization rather than its competitors. That is the future role of CI in public relations.
Background:
Ron Penoyer is senior vice president in competitive intelligence in the Knowledge Solutions group of Fleishman-Hillard. Inc., St. Louis, Missouri. Prior to joining FH in 1988, Ron managed financial communications for a major Midwest bank holding company (merged with Bank of America) and for Ralston Purina Company. He was also a senior research analyst on major public policy issues at Washington University’s Weidenbaum Center on the Economy, Government and Public Policy. Ron provides a wide range of major corporations with competitive positioning and related analyses to improve the planning and implementation of communications programs. Headquartered in St. Louis, Fleishman-Hillard is one of the world’s leading public relations firms, operating throughout North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, Australia, and South Africa through its 83 owned offices. FH was one of the first major international public relations firms to establish a dedicated CI function to serve its clients and account teams worldwide. The company formed a CI joint venture relationship with Fuld & Co. in 2001 to serve clients of both firms.
Copyright 2002 Society of Competitive Intelligence Professionals
SCIP.online, volume 1 number 15, September 3, 2002.
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