The European Communication Monitor 2012 – what it indicates for strategic communication management
This year’s results of Europe’s largest survey among communication professionals confirm the transformation of public relations in practice.
The 2,185 qualified respondents from 42 countries in Europe who completed the questionnaire see a shift away from classical media relations and platform-based internal communication towards relationship management with a broader range of stakeholder groups. Accordingly, enabling and supporting leadership to align internal and external stakeholders with the goals of the organization has become more important. The traditional focus of corporate communicators moves from operational communication to planning, orchestrating and controlling stakeholder management activities across the organization. (p 42)
The vast majority of the survey participants see two roadblocks for achieving these goals: 84% complained about the lack of understanding for their function among senior managers. 75% of them identify as the main reason the failure of communicators to demonstrate their contribution to achieving organizational goals. (p 36)
This is reflected in the answers to the question which three issues will be most important for public relations and communication management within the next three years: For the third year in a row, the top two challenges are “Coping with the digital evolution and the social web” (46%) and “Linking business strategy and communication” (44%). The two gaps ranking third (34%) are directly related to the roadblocks mentioned above: “Strengthening the role of the communications function in supporting top-management decision making” and “Matching the need to address more audiences and channels with limited resources”. (p. 54)
This goes along with the self-assessment of management skills: Even heads of communication regard as their weaknesses within their skill-set: controlling, managing financial resources, and establishing structures and processes. (95)
Accordingly, the authors of the survey report conclude: “As professional communicators are moving from mostly operational to more managerial, educational and reflective levels, building competencies and skills is the next big challenge both for individuals and organisations.” (76)
Looking at the feedback that the 1,075 respondents from public or private companies provided make this trend even more clearly visible: For corporate communicators, the strategic alignment of their activities is the biggest challenge (46%); this was already the case in 2008 and 2009. Digitalization and user-generated content are seen as the second most important future issue. Enabling and supporting senior management remains on third place (34%), whereas budget restraints are slightly less important (33%). (p. 55)
Two factors explain these differences: Respondents from governmental organizations (16%) regard budgeting as the second important issue (41%). NGO communicators (13%) see their biggest challenge in supporting their top-management (48%). (p. 55)
Bottom-line: Communication executives need to develop their management skills. This is the only way to establish public relations as a management function.
Source: Zerfass, A., Verčič, D., Verhoeven, P., Moreno, A., & Tench, R. (2012). European Communication Monitor 2012. Challenges and Competencies for Strategic Communication. Results of an Empirical Survey in 42 Countries. Brussels: EACD/EUPRERA. www.communicationmonitor.eu provides access to the full chart report and a video summary. Quotes in this blog post refer to the printed version.
Strategie braucht Kommunikation 