Difficulties PR face in a MNC

This blog post was done on 30 August.

After having worked for approximately three weeks, I’ve noticed many differences between an agency and MNC, mainly in the way of operation and value of PR deemed by the stakeholders.

Given that in an agency context, clients pay to hire PR-related services, the value placed on PR is higher as compared to that of a MNC. Also, top down budget constrains restricts the resources provided for the department, resulting in the lessened ability to churn out good media or PR results.

Also due to the complexity of the business lines available in the company, the Marcomms department needs to cater to the needs of these various business lines individually, which can be very taxing as most of the engineering trained colleagues are unable to fully comprehend what PR is about and the value that it provides.

The company is at a stage whereby baby steps are taken to build up on everything and anything that is PR based. Having interned at companies with more established communications departments, I noticed that the system used for media monitoring in my internship was not as ideal as it should be. The media clippings done were not archived properly and even though media monitoring were done for the major business lines, much of the information was not shared out of the department; unless there has been a mention of the company in the article itself. Trends and growth of the various markets are tracked as well, but not shared.

I find that media research and monitoring is an important foundation in educating non-communications trained people about the value of PR. Therefore I suggested a system of media monitoring to be done, and also including more relevant topics into the daily media monitoring. This helped the media monitoring database to become much neater; I also helped to clean up the previous newspaper clippings to increase accessibility and readability.

Another problem was the fact that the company lacked spokes people for each business line, making media contact very hard for the company even though there are plenty of new and exciting projects for media pitches to be done.

Producing communication materials such as brochures are tough as well given that space is limited, but most business lines want to squeeze in as many projects as possible; and being able to cater to the needs of the organization is a daunting task. Handling the requests requires much patience and tact for the business lines to not end up feeling neglected or unhappy.

Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives are also inching forward for the company, with tie-ups with other external agencies to help out the less unfortunate, employee initiatives for the environment also develops into CSR, such as a beach cleanup done by volunteers. The CSR done is mostly by small groups due to the nature of the company being very fragmented, and that most of the engineers are required to visit the sites or clients.

Difficulties in the company are foundation in knowledge of the value of PR is weak, too many business lines are required to be “serviced” by the department, each having differing needs. Lack of spokesperson has hindered the growth and management of media relations in the company. The things learnt in during the course of my internship is very different from what I’ve experienced previously, this is more about changing the mindsets of internal stakeholders rather than communication with external stakeholders such as the media.