Strategic Communication Case Study. Literature & Language Essay

Strategic Communication Case Study
Student’s Name
 Strategic Communication Case Study
Milestone One: Introduction
Research In Motion (RIM) was founded in 1984 by Mike Lazaridis and Doug Fregin and went on to become the leading mobile communication company by attracting numerous investors and incorporating other telecommunication companies (Bigus & Seijts, 2012). RIM success under the management of Mike and Jim as the lead CEOs marked a major milestone by unveiling Blackberry 5810 in the year 2002. The company enjoyed tones of success with a vast market share by releasing numerous blackberry series over time. The creativity of the RIM Company reached its saturation point in around 2006 and it started experiencing drastic market decline. RIM’s market share declined even further with the emergence of Apple Inc. in the mobile industry when they launched the iPhone in 2007 (Bigus & Seijts, 2012). RIM resisted adopting new changes to stay relevant in the industry and the situation even worsen. In 2011, an anonymous employee drafted a letter addressed to the co- CEOs outlining the necessary measures to be taken in order to salvage the company. From the employee letter, two key issues that arose as a result of poor communication are depicted; incompetence and poor leadership.
  RIM was unable to keep up the pace with the emergence of Apple Inc. in the mobile industry to an extent of releasing products that were below standard and often regarded as unfinished. The company had leniency in dealing with employees with poor track records and there was no accountability for the work done. The company also had inefficient engagement amongst the employees and the senior management. The marketing team had a poor strategy whereby they criticized their competitors rather than focusing on their products to identify their flaws and strengths. Furthermore, their product design did not focus on simplicity, with their dedicated focus on partner requests rather than the end-user. These factors portrayed an aspect of incompetence from the RIM Company as a whole. 
The anonymous employee letter also revealed several scenes where the leadership of the company seemed to be compromised. The idea of having two CEOs proved to be ineffective. The employees could not air out their concerns to the top management without having to worry about their job security. Moreover, the idea of criticizing the competitors as a marketing strategy for products is ill-advised. A reputable company ought to define effective communication strategies, within or without to avert the consequences that may arise.
Different communication channels could be used differently with different groups of audiences to realize effectiveness in conveying the message (Emeralds work, n.d.). In the case of RIM, lunchtime meetings and team building events could be used to get the overall feeling of the employees and also inform the employees on the repercussions of failing to adhere to the company's goals and objectives. Meetings could also be used as avenues to brainstorm on better design techniques that are customer-centered to regain the consumer market. Questionnaires and customer feedback forms could also be used to have a clear insight into the customer experience. These measures would not only improve on performance but also aide a great deal in ensuring the company remains competitive. Poor leadership as observed from the letter emanated from the CEO and to address this issue, frequent CEO briefings addressing ordinary employees would be very ideal to ensure that there is a cordial relationship between the top management and the ordinary employees.   Milestone Two: Internal Communication
The primary target audience for internal communication is the employees. However, since the employees have varying roles, their messages vary as well and there is a need to categorize them accordingly. For the case of Research in Motion (RIM), with regards to the prevailing problem, the team leaders, development teams, design teams, marketing teams, and the employees, in general, are the key audiences of internal communication. Communication channels for internal communication can be classified into different categories but there are two broad categories; physical and mechanical communication channels (Oltarzhevskyi, 2019). For physical communication, face to face, lunchtime meetings, and CEO briefings are necessary to address the problem. For mechanical communication channels, emails, memos on the noticeboard are the most appropriate channels. The use of emails and memos are effective for official communication compared to other digital media such as text messages that are somehow informal. Face to face communication is effective where instant feedbacks are necessary and it also conveys additional messages through other non-verbal cues. 
To address incompetence issues, an internal memo with the following message is posted on the noticeboards and also disseminated to the employees via email; “Our company aims to be the leading, competitive, innovative and result-oriented global tech firm. It is the responsibility of every employee to put in maximum efforts to ensure that the goals and objectives are met. It has come to our attention that some employees do not put the necessary effort to ensure that our products are quality, delivered on time, and are customer-oriented. Every employee is therefore encouraged to actively participate in collaborative teamwork and attend all the trainings relevant to their roles. The team members working on specific projects are also encouraged to hold regular meetings to discuss their progress as a team. In this regard, excellent performers will be rewarded accordingly while severe consequences will be inflicted on any employee who fails to attend to their roles and responsibilities. For any further clarification, feel free to forward your concern via your team leaders.”In order to realize success in an organization, training, and collaboration is very essential (Noe & Kodwani, 2018). Incompetence in an organization my arise due to a lack of employee training and development. The idea of employee personal needs and development is addressed by encouraging employees to take part in teamwork and relevant trainings via the message above. Rewarding excellent performance and the need for team leaders to hold regular meetings to discuss the progress ensures the sustainability of the changes necessary to realize success in the organization. Silver et al., (2016) proposed four mechanisms in which change can be sustained; improvement huddles, standard work, process control boards, and performance boards (par. 1). In the message above, the aspect of improvement huddles has been put into consideration, where the team leaders are advised to hold regular meetings to check on their progress and perhaps address arising issues. 
The use of emails to disseminate the message above can be ineffective and may cause delays since there is no single time everybody is online at the same time. Furthermore, emails are less intuitive compared to other channels of communication such as face to face meetings, video conferences, and even phone calls (Klünder et al., 2016). Besides, body gestures and facial expressions are of significance in conveying a message and these aspects of communications are not captured when emails and memos are used as the primary communication channels. Email as a primary communication channel for the above message is the most probable cause of social conflict which in turn may hinder the information flow. 
Milestone Three: External Communication
Introduction
  Organizations exist within a society made up of different entities. There exist other business organizations, consumers, and other potential customers, the media, business partners, government enterprises, and for a regional organization or global organization, the circle becomes even wider and complex. External communication functions to share information between the organization and these external entities to achieve a stated goal. Just as is in internal communication, different mediums of communication can be employed for external communication; emails, memos, reports, newsletters, press releases, and conferences (Oltarzhevskyi, 2019). External communication can be used to serve different functions; news dissemination, branding, and even increase the market base.
Communication Mediums
For the case of Research in Motion (RIM), several communication channels would be effective for external communication purposes. This is because of the diversity in nature of the external audiences. To adequately address the underlying problems facing RIM (incompetence and poor leadership), a press release pertaining to product launches, prices, shipping period, and the features of the products would be a good start. The use of press releases for information dissemination has the potential to reach out to a large number of external audiences when the big number of press contacts are involved and using social media platforms to disseminate the information (Sadler et al., 2018). Also, emails and newsletters to subscribed consumers and partners would be a very useful approach. Actively informing the consumer on new develo...