Strategic Decisions – Definition and Characteristics
Strategic decisions are the decisions that are concerned with whole environment in which the firm operates, the entire resources and the people who form the company and the interface between the two. Characteristics/Features of Strategic Decisions Strategic decisions have major resource propositions for an organization. These decisions may be concerned with possessing new resources, organizing […]
The future of relationship marketing
Introduction Relationship marketing is a modern concept. This concept focuses on developing, maintaining and retaining long term relationship with customers for the benefit of the organization. Relationship marketing is a strategic concept which needs to be accepted throughout the organization and key to the future financial success. In the last couple of decades with the […]
E Marketing and Customer Relationship Management – Two sides of the same coin
Whenever one talks of E marketing strategy or plan, they normally include online selling, online promotions and advertising. However this could be a very narrow view or definition as applied to E marketing. Planning for Customer Relationship Management is as important as paying attention to online selling efforts. Let us look at understanding some of […]
Introduction to Media – A Brief History
We often hear the term fourth estate being applied to the media. The term refers to the four pillars of democracy and the media is the fourth pillar and an important one at that. Ever since many countries adopted democratic norms of governance, a vibrant and a free media were thought to be the necessary […]
Data Analysis and Compilation
After gathering the information from desk and field research the raw data must be compiled so that the taxonomic analysis can be performed and data can be broken up into respective parts and segments. This can be achieved in the following manner: Keeping on revisiting and focusing on the ultimate objective of the research and […]
Corporate philanthropy is the act of donating money to social causes. In these times, when corporate social responsibility is the buzzword what with governments specifying the terms under law, corporate philanthropy is no longer the earlier scenario where employees pool together money with matching contribution from the organization and then they decide to donate it to charitable and social causes. On the other hand, corporate philanthropy in recent years has taken on a dimension that is equal in scale and scope to a separate organization by itself.
Further, corporate philanthropy is not limited to interactions between the corporate communications teams and individual NGO’s but instead, it operates on a vastly larger scale.
Direct Marketing is the act of reaching out to the people by sending mailers and promotional messages with the intent of persuading them for a specific purpose. Typically, direct marketing is handled by the corporate communications teams since they have the expertise and the bandwidth to send mass mailers and promotional materials directly to the target audience.
However, in recent years, because of the sheer volume of material that is being sent out as well as the large numbers of people in the target market, separate departments have been setup to handle this activity.
Further, there is coordination between corporate communications team and the direct marketing team to ensure that the message is lucid, clear, and catchy.
We have discussed how more and more business leaders are giving away a large portion of their wealth to philanthropy. Wealthy businesspersons like Warren Buffett, Bill Gates, NR Narayana Murthy, and Azim Premji, have been in the news recently because of their humungous contributions to social causes.
In this context, the debate over whether corporate philanthropy must be part of the functions of the corporate communications teams or whether it must be separate and a specific department setup for it has arisen.
The bottom line for this debate and the conclusive answer is that if the organization is large, then there can be a foundation that caters to the specific purpose of philanthropic activities.
The examples of the Infosys Foundation and the Azim Premji Foundation are among the well-known cases where separate foundations have been setup. On the other hand, if corporate philanthropy is done on a smaller and individual scale where the corporates reach out to initiatives rather than causes, then the function can be part of the corporate communications function.
Though corporate philanthropy and direct marketing are as different as chalk and cheese, nonetheless the commonality between the two has to do with corporate communications handling both these activities. This is because essentially both entail reaching out to the external world and since this is the function of corporate communications, it is included in their list of activities. Finally, with increasing complexity as well as large numbers of activities being part of these two functions, many organizations either are outsourcing these activities or are setting up exclusive departments to handle them.
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Introduction to Corporate Communication: Need and its Importance
February 12, 2025
