Question:
Discuss about the Pr Strategy And Crisis Communication Plan.
Public Relations (PR) is the department that helps organisations or companies to interact with the greater masses and the media. The PR department of any organization that enables companies to create and maintain a cordial relation with the customers and uphold a positive image and reputation in the industry. More often than not, the PR is the driving force for companies to retain a steady and loyal customer base. In a world where market competition is already fierce and is growing even more powerful every day, the companies need to set strategies that would help them to set themselves apart from the rest of the organisations and make the customers notice them even more (Grunig 2013). The PR can ensure that the companies can gather such a reputation in the industry that the customers will be willing to opt for their services willingly, by themselves. PR represents the services, products and operations of the entire organization to the public and media in the best way possible. A strong relationship with the consumers increase sales, which, in turn, boosts profit levels as well.
Woolworths Limited is one of the biggest retail supermarket chain in Australia. It operates throughout Australia and New Zealand and is the largest liquor retailer in Australia. The company also is the largest hotel company in the country. The company operates out of New South Wales. For a long time, the PR department of the company has been aiding the image of the company to illuminate in the industry and maintain a great customer relation. The PR of Woolworths enthusiastically back up on the company slogan “The Fresh Food people” and does everything it can to make sure that the organizational operations are in cohesion with the ideals of the company (Smith 2013).
The following g report would be looking into the PR of Woolworths in depth and would critically analyse if it is well equipped enough to handle if there are any sudden condition of crisis. The report would also then try to recommend and suggest methods and strategies which could help the company to have a PR that is even more effective and more focused upon the customer satisfaction level as well as a department that can take swift and prompt actions whenever there are any allegations against the services or products that are sold by the company.
Woolworths is a conglomerate of companies that have a number of businesses ranging through a variety of industries. Supermarket chain is the primary business of the company, with different names in Australia and New Zealand. Liquor retail is one of the biggest function of Woolworths and the company is the biggest retailer in the country. Hotels and pubs are also run by the company and the company performs in a prolific manner even in this sector. The Australian Leisure and Hospitality umbrella has a lot of hotels and resorts as well as pubs under its name and this wing of Woolworths has some of the most notable names in the industry under it (Hill & Day 2015).
The company started in 1924, in Sydney, Australia. The company was founded by five people – Percy Christmas, Stanley Chatterton, Cecil Scott, Waine, George Creed and Ernest Williams. The investment was provided by the chairman of Gowings, Preston Lanchester Gowing. The founders initially planned to name the company in a way that would use the already famous Woolworth chain which operated in the United States and the United Kingdom. Later, when finding out that the name Woolworths was available for registration in New south wales, the company was officially named Woolworths Limited. Even though the name of the company was similar to the supermarket chain of the United States or the Woolworths Group of the United Kingdom as well as the Woolworths Group of South Africa, the functions and operations were quite distinct that set the company apart from its peers (Mialon et al. 2016). The operations of Woolworths Limited were made to be innovative and a lot of planning and time was invested to make sure that the company would be creative in its operations. It was the first supermarket in the world that gave printed receipt to its customers. The company expanded to New Zealand in 1929, even though the first food store was not opened up till 1956, in Auckland. Woolworths began its supermarket operations in New Zealand from 1971.
The company grew rapidly. Despite the devastating effects of the Great Depression, Woolworths managed to keep on expanding even while all the economies of the world were experiencing unimaginable financial slump and by the 1920s, the company had 23 stores. Woolworths successfully opened stores in every metropolitan in Australia and despite the threat of the global economic meltdown, the company bought eight stores from Edments Ltd in 1936 (Grimmer 2017). During the Great War, the expansion and sales of the company was hindered, but as soon as it was over, rapid expansions were planned and the ideas were put into effect immediately. In 1955, Woolworths opened their 200th store. Up until this point, the company was mainly a variety chain. In 1955, the company opened its first food store and stepped into the food sector. Gradually, from there, the company began encompassing an array of industries and sectors and became the giant that it is today.
Woolworths Limited, Australia has always been credited with good customer services and great quality of the products that are sold. Since the advent of the modern shopping ideas and gradual increase in the importance of public relations, Woolworths have been quick to understand the importance and have kept on adapting according to the customers’ needs. The company understands that in order to stay ahead of the edge, the operations have to be fully focused on customer satisfaction (Black 2013). The company has a functionality that revolves around, and keeps, the customers first. This customer oriented service makes sure Woolworths stays on top and one of the best in world in terms of customer satisfaction.
There have been times when the operations of the company have been criticized and potential media catastrophes were faced, but the PR of Woolworths made sure that none of these could bring the company name down.
The PR of the company has a number of strategies that all are focused upon upholding the company name in the industry and maintain a strong bond with its customers. The PR is highly active on social media that enabled the customers to directly express their opinions and complaints against the services or the products of the company online and this helps Woolworths to take prompt actions and resolve any issue that may arise (Bailey & Bailey 2016). The PR has set five priorities that would ensure the customer first policy of the company:
The PR believes that everything is achievable is an organization has a retail team that always adheres to the customers. The suppliers are also to be given importance as they make sure the operations of the organisation runs smoothly without any glitch. The Support Office team gets daily feedbacks from the customers, which helps Woolworths to improve upon their customer services on a daily basis. The PR department prompts Woolworths to take some very few strategies that would ensure greater customer satisfaction and keep the company reputation positive in the industry (Phillipov 2016). Reducing costs can be achieved by improving processing and operations and using optimal efficiency.
The PR has three key ways to adapt to the changing requirements of the industry:
Woolworths understands that technology is the future of shopping and everything that is to come from hereon, will be pivoted around it (Gill 2014). Mobile phones have changed the very essence of shopping: customers can not only shop from their phones any time they want to, but also from anywhere in the world. This means that the online operations of the company has to be on alert always. Developing websites, apps and virtual stores that would complement the physical stores are only few of the ways that would help to maintain a customer base.
The PR has announced strategies that are to be achieved by 2020. These twenty strategies are all based on the People, Planet and Prosperity framework that was introduced by Woolworths in 2015 (O’Byrne & Daymon 2014). The strategies have been dubbed Corporate Strategies, even though Woolworths assures that these strategies go beyond just being corporate and would tread on the domain of public relations and would even further strengthen the bonds with the customers. All the stakeholders have been considered while making these strategies.
People – The company aims to have a work force that would consist more women in executive positions. Woolworths also intends to get rid of wage gap among the male and female employees at all levels of the organization. Indigenous people are to be made a part of the work force of the company (Lewis & Huber 2015).
Planet – Reducing food waste rapidly and decisively. The PR has also announced that Woolworths will bring down the carbon emission 10 percent below the 2015 level by 2020 in order to contribute to the fight against global warming.
Prosperity – PR believes that suppliers are to be given high priority and aims to place the company in the top quartile of the surveys that are conducted by the suppliers (Grimmer 2017). Public relations of Woolworths firmly believe in the idea of growing together with the community. This led the company to promise to invest some portion of its earnings to community partnerships.
Despite having numerous PR strategies as well as focusing entire operation centering around the customers and suppliers, Woolworths still faces adverse conditions from time to time.
There have been times when the social media came to explosion points when customers put up posts and pictures regarding the products that are sold by Woolworths. The PR was quick to respond and handled the situation, which could have brought media disaster, with perfect strategies that reversed the whole condition in Woolworth’s favor. The PR is very much aware that there are some customers who would always try to extort the services of the company and try to exploit the company’s reputation (Stanton 2016). The PR always keeps a look out on social media to handle any situation like this that may occur.
The biggest blow to the operations of Woolworths in recent times came when the company decided to downsize on their employee strength following a slump in the sales. The expressed their grievances saying that they were not notified by the company directly, rather they got to know about the news from TV (Bajracharya & Hastings 2015). When Woolworths decided on cutting down jobs, the PR had to convey the message to the employees. Instead the PR failed to live up to the expectations and responsibilities, which caused massive and extended allegations of treating the employees in a poor manner, despite claiming to give them priority in the operations of the organization (Akbar & Ahsan 2014). With this decision of the management, the PR was bestowed with a number of responsibilities: the media was to be briefed so that they know what is going on or the reason behind the decision, help the employees so that they can withstand the blow in an easier way. The media controls the mass opinion, so if the media wishes to, or is misinformed, the whole public opinion regarding the company reputation would suffer, causing sales and profit to plummet (Stacks 2016). Coming up with such a strategy that would keep a balance among every stakeholder of the organization is a complex and brainstorming task, and, unfortunately, the PR did not quite match up to the expectations. In situations like these, the PR should talk to the employees first and explain the whole scenario to them. They have the right to hear about this directly from the PR and not from any external source. The communication of each department has to be in perfect synchronisation, so that no information is left out and every bit of it is freely flowed throughout the entire organization. It is vital to explain the conditions to the employees so that no misplaced expectations are held and subsequent disappointments occur (Feigin 2016).
The media and journalists are also to be notified of the situation and so that no false information is put forward to the public. It also makes sure that information is not misinterpreted. The PR has to be careful in order to sound right when making a public statement regarding a vital and controversial issue. At times like these, the PR is often the only hope for companies to shed a speck of light on an otherwise bleak situation (Guth & Marsh 2016). Woolworths stumbled over in almost all of these aspects: the employees were not notified directly, the media was not handled in a clear and explanatory fashion. Even the inter-departmental communications were not coordinated properly (Jones 2014). This caused massive confusion, that led Woolworths to suffer massive deterioration in its industry reputation and customer satisfaction levels were also affected.
As the public relations manager of Woolworths, some recommendations can be suggested to the management of the company, so that similar conditions in the future can be tackled properly. The competition from other companies in the sector are continuously surmounting and Woolworths has to adopt every strategy that will ensure their place at the top of the industry. The first thing that Woolworths needs to do is to ensure the departments are all properly coordinated and information is shared with everyone. The employees have to be given idea about any and every decision that the management considers to take that will in any way affect the employees. The best way to do this to include the employees in the decision making process. This way, the employees would feel more important and more valued to the organization, which will prompt them to work better themselves. If the employees are taken care of by the company, they will take care of the customers. This will leave the management to focus their energy and time on other crucial aspects of the organizational operations, like expansion and increasing sales margin. The PR has to be close contact with the media so that every step of the company can be given a positive light and the mass opinion on the reputation of Woolworths is not tampered with.
Conclusion
It is quite evident from the above discussion, that Woolworths is having trouble dealing with the pressure that they are facing in recent times. The ever growing competition, the constantly changing customer needs are all proving themselves to be a heavy burden for the company to bear with. The company has been seen to take some wrong steps that have affected the reputation in a very negative way recently, but yet, the company is trying its best to turn the whole situation in their favor by using efficient media management and triumphantly advertising the positive things of the company strategies. The positive side of the operations have harnessed the backing up from the suppliers of the company, which has helped Woolworths to thwart some of the competition. If the recommendations are properly executed and taken care of, the organization can surely regain its lost position in the industry.
References
Akbar, S., & Ahsan, K. (2014). Analysis of corporate social disclosure practices of Australian retail firms. International Journal of Managerial and Financial Accounting, 6(4), 375-396.
Bailey, M., & Bailey, M. (2016). Marketing to the Big Middle: establishing Australian discount department stores. Journal of Historical Research in Marketing, 8(3), 416-433.
Bajracharya, B., & Hastings, P. (2015). Public-private partnership in emergency and disaster management: Examples from the Queensland floods 2010-2011. Australian Journal of Emergency Management, 30(4), 30.
Black, S. (2013). Practice of public relations. Routledge.
Feigin, L. M. (2016). The effects of protests and boycotts on a brand and its reputation: a case study on Woolworths and boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) (Doctoral dissertation, The IIE).
Gill, M. (Ed.). (2014). The handbook of security. Palgrave Macmillan.
Grimmer, E. L. (2017). Checkout Crisis Management.
Grimmer, L. (2017). Is it so hard to say sorry? Revisiting image restoration theory in the context of Australian supermarkets. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 18, 17-32.
Grunig, J. E. (Ed.). (2013). Excellence in public relations and communication management. Routledge.
Guth, D. W., & Marsh, C. (2016). Public relations: A values-driven approach. Pearson.
Hill, A., & Day, P. (2015). National food incident response. Food Australia, 67(1), 28.
Jones, G. V. (2014). WEDNESDAY 12 NOVEMBER 2014. How the Australian table grape industry looks to the rest of the world, 106.
Lewis, T., & Huber, A. (2015). A revolution in an eggcup? Supermarket wars, celebrity chefs and ethical consumption. Food, Culture & Society, 18(2), 289-307.
Mialon, M., Swinburn, B., Allender, S., & Sacks, G. (2016). Systematic examination of publicly-available information reveals the diverse and extensive corporate political activity of the food industry in Australia. BMC public health, 16(1), 283.
O’Byrne, S., & Daymon, C. (2014). Irresponsible engagement and the citizen investor. Journal of Public Relations Research, 26(5), 455-473.
Phillipov, M. (2016). ‘Helping Australia Grow’: supermarkets, television cooking shows, and the strategic manufacture of consumer trust. Agriculture and human values, 33(3), 587-596.
Smith, R. D. (2013). Strategic planning for public relations. Routledge.
Stacks, D. W. (2016). Primer of public relations research. Guilford Publications.
Stanton, R. (2016). Corporate Strategic Communication: A General Social and Economic Theory. Palgrave Macmillan.
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