Think global, act local - make sense

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Think global, act local - make sense
www.synopsisonline.com
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Our clients
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This presentation

• Strategy - how the job of internal communication
  needs to shift
• Structure - connect the global with the tribal,
  and shift from competition to collaboration
• Skills and roles - how do internal communicators
  raise their game

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Challenges faced by global organisations

• Operating across different time zones
• Different regulations on what can and cannot be
  communicated
• The varying quality of local communication
  channels
• The need to translate information into local
  language and context
• Different degrees of loyalty to locations,
  countries, regions, functions
• The relationship between corporate centres and
  their operating units
• Variable quality of communicators
• Different definitions of internal communication

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Employees are being hit from all over
Integration
Offshoring
Best practice
Regulation
Rebranding
Global manufacturing
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Match fit defines the communication roles
Brand Profile
monolithic
3M
Rolls-Royce
hi-portfolio
Unilever
Kingfisher
lo-portfolio
Whitbread
Hanson
central co-ordination
decentralised
centralised
Business Structure
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Why shift?

• Get advantages of size while allowing local
  operations to respond to their markets
• Improve inefficient cost structures
• Avoid stretching investment too thinly over too
  many products
• Stop costly reinvention of too many similar
  wheels
• Gain consistency in manufacturing and marketing
• Reduce cost and incompatibility of different
  IT HR, Purchasing and Marketing

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Moving for value
One Ericsson - from disparate business units
operating in different countries
Heinz - from a federation of virtually autonomous
countries, to the creation of 8 global category
business units
One Vodafone - from a federation of differently
branded country operations to a single, unified
One Vodafone
One General Motors - from a federation of units
to a unified organisation - act as one company
Unilever - from decentralised local companies to
Unileverage - the advantages of size and
leverage while allowing companies to respond to
their markets.
One Whitbread - from a portfolio of individual
brands, including Marriott, TGI Fridays, Costa -
to an integrated brand managed group
Whitbread
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Rebalancing communication

• Purpose and direction what level of
  understanding of corporate direction is needed at
  different levels within the business units
• Information who needs what information (e.g. for
  strategy and direction, performance information),
  and how can they best get it, with what
  frequency, in what style, and via which
  distribution process
• Identification how much should people feel part
  of the wider whole, their business unit, location
  and team
• Collaboration how should communication encourage
  the exchange of best practice, and foster sharing
  learning and networking.

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Shifting how communicators work together
The strategy requires high quality
communicators to work like this
Brand Profile
monolithic
Integrate
Dictate
Co-operate
hi-portfolio
Negotiate
Network
Lead
lo-portfolio
Co-ordinate
Influence
Frame
central co-ordination
decentralised
centralised
A mixed bunch work like this
Business Structure
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Making the connections between strategy and the
individual

• Connecting what it means for the business with
  what it means for me
• Translating the big picture into local specifics
• Creating dual citizenship
• For a global business, this must be delivered by
  an integrated chain of communicators, working in
  partnership

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Communicating across the matrix
Business Unit Communication
Initiative Communication
Corporate Communication
Site Communication
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Communication competition
Strategy
Action
Group
Business
Local

• There are different groups of communicators who
• Filter content
• Have different agendas
• Produce different content
• Operate different channels

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How global and how local?

• Lots of different leaders
• Tribal
• Cellular
• Matrix
• Different cultures
• Different histories

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Identity and share of voice
ME
Me
My Team
My Manager
My Department
My Business
The Group
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More is less
BUs
Sectors
Initiatives

• Uncoordinated communication destroys coherence
  and credibility
• Competing communication creates cost and clutter
• Some internal communication destroys value,
  rather than adding it

Divisions
Countries
Group centre
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Air traffic control
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Reach and richness
Low reach/ High richness - face to face -
telephone - Videoconferencing
Corporate Centre
High reach/ low richness - Email - Business TV -
Intranet - Fax
Country Management team
Division Management team
Department
Team
Individual
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Raising the game
IC professionals need to work in these areas
IC professionals focus
Coach
Whats my problem?
Consultant
Ive got a problem
Technical advisor
Ive got a communication problem
Crafter and drafter
Can you put this into the right words
Distributor
Send this out
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Thinking global, acting local - and making sense

• Agreeing global and local rules of the game
• Managing the end to end pipeline
• Agreed communication standards and principles
• Common communication planning processes
• Common tools and sharing of best practice
• Measurement of outcomes
• Coordination, consistency, accountability

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Our priorities

• Less volume, more value
• Coherence
• Leadership
• Coaching

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www.synopsisonline.com/planning