Company’s Name and Logo
The name of the company is New Startup Company. This is a chain of stores that deals with two sets of consumer goods. There is a segment that deals with consumer goods and the segment that deals with fashion. This is a new name that is supposed to help in reestablishing the brand of the company. The company’s logo will also be changed.
Executive summary of the situation
The case presented in this paper focuses on a company that performed excellently in the past. However, the company no longer performs well in the present time. Several managerial problems or weaknesses are linked to the declining popularity of the company in the market.
The company has lost its stability and is about to be closed. There are declined sales, lower customer turn up and dead stocks. The management of the company has been focusing on how to deal with this unremunerative situation. It is pointed out that the main cause of poor performance of the company is lapses in management. This is seen in a number of business trends, which have been seen in the company for the past few years.
They include regular complaints from customers about the services that they receive from the company, complaints about high prices of goods and services and frequent employee strikes in the company. The company has also been accused of being inactive. This means that it has failed to promote its goods and popularize its services in the market besides shunning corporate social responsibility.
All these issues point to one thing; the failure of the company to embrace public relations in its practices. Therefore, a public relations oriented plan is crafted in this paper. It is aimed at revenging Smarktlinks. In the plan, business objectives, as well as public relations objectives are clearly stated and explained. The strategies of reviving business are outlined and incorporated into public relations programs.
Business Objectives
According to Gaulden & Brown (2007), business objectives are quite critical as they give any company a path to pursue its activities. In this case, business objectives will be structured in such a way that they will guide the management in solving the problems that have led to the collapse of the company.
The main business objective will be to rurn the company back to the performance path. This is the core objective of business improvement. This objective will be attained through the formulation of other minor objectives. Minor objectives help in setting out the operations and strategies which eventually results in the fulfillment of the main objective.
The first objective is to attract customers through the implementation of service quality strategies. This objective was developed based on research outcomes that denoted a high level of dissatisfaction among the customers of the company. Service quality improvement is a broad exercise which will necessitate changes in direct as well as indirect operations. The second business objective is to revert the profit making trend in the company.
The company operates at a loss because it loses its customers. A company can hardly sustain its operations when it is operating at a loss. Losses in a business are eliminated through a combination of efforts. When the efforts are well articulated, they eliminate the threats to the business and help the business to regain its stability and its profit making trend (Gaulden & Brown, 2007).
Creation of competency in the business is another objective for Smarhtlinks. This is the leading path towards the creation of competitive advantage. Competitive advantage is often the end product of the cumulative performance strategies that are applied by the company. It follows that competitive advantage is the final business objective that will be pursued by the company.
In fact, it comes automatic in the sense that when the activities leading to the attainment of the other mentioned objectives are pursued, competitiveness is automatically attained. Pursuing public relations objectives will also help in bringing about competitiveness (Dubois, 1993).
Public Relations Objectives
There is a need to develop comprehensive public relations objectives. These objectives are critical in reviving the image of the company (“Business: The ultimate resource”, 2003). The revitalization of the image of the company will be helpful in attracting customers and improving the performance of the company.
Public relations objectives in a company are often crafted after a deeper look into the demands of a business. Given that the company had been deteriorating, the objectives will focus on renewing the internal business environment which is comprised of the staff and management of the company.
The chief objective of the company is to restore the image of the company in the face of publics. This is further broken down into minor objectives. The first objective of public relations is to better the internal environment of the company. The objective also centers on renewing and bettering the external environment of the company.
The external environment of the company is comprised of customers who are termed as the most valuable assets of a company. This entails the rebuilding of the relationship between the company and its publics. Of key importance, is the relationship between the company and its customers (Morris & Goldsworthy, 2012).
The first objective under this category is to improve the internal environment of the company. The improvement of the relationship between management and staff of a company is often desired. Wrangles had been reported between the staff and management in the company.
Those internal conflicts were one of the cause of poor customer service in the company. The needs of employees are critical to the performance of any organization. Wrangles between employees and managers often resonate from the lack of fulfillment of the needs of employees by management of organizations.
This is explained in many texts that discus organizational behavior. The second objective, which concerns the molding of the internal environment of the company, is to improve learning in the organization. Creating an environment that encourages employees to be innovative is a bold step that will encourage creativity and improve the performance of the company (Stephenson, Mintzer & Stephenson, 2008). Concerning the improvement of the external environment of the company, there are two objectives to be pursued.
The first objective is to increase the rate of development and implementation of corporate social responsibility activities. Corporate social responsibility is a tool that links the company to its external publics. It is argued that most companies perform well in the market, not because of the nature of goods and services that are offered by them, but because of their active implementation of corporate activities.
The second objective is to foster the sense of customer responsibility in the company. Customer centered approaches are desired in different types of business. The main aim of customer centered services is to pull customers towards the company. This in turn, helps the company to understand its customers and consequently offer them appealing services (Stephenson, Mintzer & Stephenson, 2008).
Strategies
Without proper strategies, the company can hardly meet its objectives. Strategies help a company respond to urgent issues. Both long-term and short-term goals are accompanied by strategies. Failure to develop and enforce favorable strategies hinders a company from meeting its goals and objectives (Eigenhuis & Dijk, 2007). For the company, the developed strategies will help realize objectives that are embedded in set goals.
The two sets of objectives, business and public relations, have to work in close relation so as to revive the company. As the person mandated to oversee the revival of the company, I will ensure that there is a strong sense of coordination of activities so as to avoid collusion and confusion which is likely to bring more complications to the company. Each stage of improvement will be marked and will act as a learning point for the company and a bridge for meeting other objectives (Swann, 2010).
The objectives will be addressed according to their urgency. The reconstruction of the internal environment of the company is a critical step in reviving the firm. It will be given the first priority as far as the implementation of the objectives is concerned. A company often grows from internally. Building and encouraging climate in the organization will motivate and encourage employees to work for the betterment of the company.
A stakeholder meeting will be summoned up and all issues that have brought friction between the management and employees will be deliberated upon and sorted out. A solution to the friction will be reached through consensus. This will be followed by the introduction of performance management in the company.
Performance management introduction is meant to raise the level of performance of the company employees by inducing best human resource practices (Swann, 2010).
After the activities geared towards improving the internal environment are implemented, the company will embark on business oriented practices. These practices are supported by the internal environment of the company; mainly staff and the existing operational procedures and practices in the company.
Business practices entail raising of finances to stoke the company. The company has two segments of operation. Reviving all these segments at once will be quite challenging for the company because it does not have sufficient funds to do so. Therefore, it will be logical to start with one segment; in this case, the segment comprising of consumables.
As this segment picks up with the backup of the widely practiced corporate activities, the company will raise money to be used in opening another segment; the fashion segment. Business growth is at most times a logical process that pegs on progressive achievements (Hutchins, 2008).
The targeted point of growth of the company is the period when the two segments of business in the company are run side by side and generate profits for the company. This will ensure stability and the regaining of competitiveness of the company. Strategic changes will be introduced at different stages of the business developmnet depending on the demands which will arise as the business progresses.
According to Sekhar (n.d.), monitoring and evaluation aid in identifying the performance of a business at a given stage. Areas of strength, as well as areas of weakness, are easily identified through monitoring and evaluation outcomes (Brennan & International Institute of Business Analysis, 2009). Through this, the company management will be able to introduce adjustments to the identified areas of weakness.
Failures in business often emanate from the failure of management to keep assessing the progress of the programs that are already running. Weakness may result from inconsistencies which are hard to detect. Such inconsistencies can only be identified through a thorough audit of the company.
Auditing checks into all the details of business performance to determine whether they are efficient or inefficient (Arter, 2003; Ferrell, Fraedrich & Ferrell, 2013). Therefore, both internal and external auditing will be applied in the company in order to help maintain the required track of growth.
Public Relations Programs
According to Stacks (2011), public relations programs are composed of a series of activities that aim at strengthening the relationship between a company and its publics. For a business company, the most critical publics are the customers. Strengthening the relationship between a company and its customers is one sure way of increasing sales for the company (Heath, 2005). Several public relations programs will be run by the company.
There are two main objectives of these programs. The first objective is to increase the awareness of the customers about the company and its products and services. This is a marketing inclined objective. The second objective is to raise the sense of corporate social responsibility in the company.
Corporate social responsibility serves as a promoting tool for the company in the market. Engagement of companies in corporate social activities has multiple benefits for a company. It enhances marketing and advertisement functions and helps interact with its customer. Research shows that companies that embrace corporate social responsibility, end up spending less money on advertising and marketing functions (Weiner, 2006). CSR activities serve these functions. Two main public relations programs will be run by the company.
Promotion of media relations is the nature of public relations functions that will be run by the company. Media relations programs are often extensive. They help communicate with a wide audience from which the customers are derived. Different kinds of media, for instance, the print and the audio-visual, as well as the social media, will be used in passing messages to the publics (Johnston, 2013).
The media will be critical in communicating the company’s brands to the customers. The other reason for the embrace of media relations is that media plays a strategic role in crisis communication. Though the media, the company will quickly pass messages to the publics.
The second form of public relations programs that will be conducted by the firm is the development of internal communication channels. Internal communication channels are critical in establishing the corporate identity of an organization. Proper communication channels will be developed in order to define the flow of information in the company. A proper structure of communication is helpful in the flow of information. It will increase the flow of transactions and speed up decision making even in times of crises (Heath, 2005).
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