Communications and the Transforming Enterprise: Building a Future-Ready Function

2020 accelerated a trend that has been growing in influence for some time: the rise of business ecosystems, in which value is created through ever-evolving combinations of orchestrators, partners and participants. For companies striving to adapt to this new environment, a strong communications function can be a powerful advantage. In most organizations, however, the true potential of the function remains misunderstood and underleveraged. 

Business ecosystems are complex webs of interconnected partnerships. To succeed in such an environment, businesses must be adept at navigating fluid combinations of relationships and issues. They must understand how each participant is collaborating, consuming and/or competing at any given time, and how to manage emerging risks and opportunities. This requires a holistic and multidisciplinary perspective. No organization can compete, much less meaningfully transform, without it.

Communications teams are well placed to provide such a 360° view. Inherently agile, they operate at speed, are engaged across every aspect of an enterprise, and understand how the enterprise is seen from multiple vantage points: inside out, and outside in. 

When combined, these perspectives—real-time, portfolio, from the outside and within—yield intelligence that enables communicators to be valuable contributors to an organization’s decision-making process. This is a notable departure from the traditional role played by communicators who have historically acted as conveyors of decisions that were already made. 

Rather than serving as a circulatory system within and outside an organization, the modern communications function must serve as a neurological system: one that senses, interprets and connects intelligence with action. 

How does a communications team operationalize this idea? At Prudential, as part of a companywide transformation effort, we worked with some of the best thinkers in the industry, including United Minds and The River Group, to develop a first-of-its-kind model designed to unlock the true potential of the company’s communications resources. The model is based on four pillars, reflecting insights that are foundational to successful implementation:

1.    An organizational design based on outcomes, not legacy structures, audiences or skillsets. 

Most communications teams organize their resources to mirror the reporting lines of the businesses and corporate functions that they support. This results in unnecessary head count and too little fungibility to meet new opportunities and shifting needs. It can also compromise the function’s ability to convey thematic stories at an enterprise scale. 

Instead, to be more adaptive and efficient, communications leaders must reorient their organizational design to center not on internal structures but rather on the outcomes that matter most to their organization. Then, these outcomes must be supported with specific communications capabilities. For example, how could an emphasis on “business growth” or “transformation” serve your company better than, say, “external” or “internal” communications? How might you integrate a dedicated operations or technology team into your design? 

The benefits of creating outcomes-based communications teams at Prudential include a more integrated growth narrative and a stronger enterprise-wide storytelling capability.

2.    Rigorous prioritization criteria that concentrate resources on outcomes, not activity.

The currency of a communicator is time and attention. Unless guided by clear and strategic prioritization, it can be easily diluted by competing demands.

At Prudential, we developed a prioritization framework with the support of the company’s executive leadership team to determine the right level and mix of resourcing support required for the company. We refined prioritization by outcomes, initiatives, businesses/functions, and executives, respectively—and identified potential resourcing overlap to concentrate efforts more thoughtfully. 

The delineation between outcomes and initiatives was a critical insight: it allowed us to see how communications work for business outcomes and companywide initiatives would often overlap. For example, companywide transformation initiatives drove business outcomes, so we did not need to double resourcing on the business outcomes front. But successful transformation does require cultural change, so our communications resources were directed to that end. 

In addition, a multidimensional topic like technology (which encompasses outcome, initiative, function, and executives) benefits from a disciplined look at the prioritization categories and prevents under-resourcing. 

To ensure that these efforts are always driving the right agenda, the framework will be reviewed periodically with leadership. 

3.    Communications analytics and insights that help leaders and communicators ask better questions and make smarter decisions. 

Prudential’s industry-leading Communications analytics team has a mandate to shape communications strategy and inform execution. The roles of “measurement” and “analytics” should not be confused: looking in the rearview mirror is less important than trying to inform the best path forward, and trying to prove value is not as important as demonstrating it through data-driven intelligence and insight. 

Therefore, the team’s charter is to deploy analytics capabilities to help Prudential navigate its ecosystem of issues and stakeholders, helping our company relate to the world in more compelling, relevant and timely ways. 

The team’s capabilities address four categories of intelligence to inform enterprise business and Communications decisions: 

1.    Editorial Content Intelligence: analysis of agenda-setting news 

2.    Voice of the Stakeholder Intelligence: qualitative and quantitative analysis of stakeholder activity in social media 

3.    Platform Analytics & Intelligence: qualitative and quantitative analysis to optimize stakeholder engagement and enterprise social networking

4.    Integrated Analytics & Market Intelligence: quantitative research and media analysis to evaluate communications and advance reputation outcomes

Only a team that possesses the type of lateral, holistic view that Communications enjoys can provide this unique type of decision support—and most importantly, improve the questions we are asking. Being able to answer the question, “What should we do?” is more powerful than, “How did we do?”

4.    Tailored learning and development programs that help communicators hone their lateral integration skills, and help leaders become better communicators. 

The Prudential Communications team benefits from a bespoke learning curriculum created to teach a new range of skills communicators need to thrive in a fluid, ecosystem-oriented environment. This includes lateral thinking skills, agile ways of working and tech-forward know-how. For example, an ecosystems course anchored numerous modules for learning, supported by creative use of the virtual education platforms now ubiquitous in our remote work.

The communications acumen of our partners is equally critical, as it ensures not only better business outcomes, but also richer, more creative engagement and partnership with the Communications team. 

o, our team designed a new program to help company executives become more effective communicators, presenters and storytellers across a range of forums and formats, both virtual and in person. This is also making internal collaboration more sophisticated and fruitful. 

Ultimately, the future of communications is inexorably linked to the future of work. In this context, the success of transformation efforts at any organization will, to a significant degree, depend on the ability of communicators to reimagine their own roles and functions, reskill their teams, and reframe how their capabilities are viewed and leveraged by leadership. 

Thankfully for business leaders, Communications leaders are not lacking in the vision, courage, or will to make this happen. The future of communications is within our reach. 

*This post was co-authored by Alan Sexton, Chief Communications Officer, Prudential Financial, Inc.