Background of the Research and Company

Discuss about the Organizational Performance OF Qantas Airways.

Public relations play the most significant role in maintaining business sustainability. Most of the businesses utilize the corporate communication strategy to improve the public relation process. According to Christensen and Cornelissen (2013), the maintenance of the effective public relation is the key to business success. Different organizations adopt the unique strategies to enhance the public relation process that eventually improves the organizational performance. Corporate communication is a process of encompassing the different communication activities undertaken by an organization both inside and outside of the company. On the other hand, the public relation process deals with the identification and establishment of the effective relationships with the internal and external stakeholders (Eberle, Berens & Li, 2013). The implementation of the effective communication media inside and outside of the company helps in building up the transparency in a cohesive way. The organizational performance depends on such clearance of the goals and objectives (Kim, 2014). Moreover, it ensures growth for the future prospects as well. The project would thus focus on the issues with public relation management of Qantas Airways that affects the business performance.

Qantas is considered as the flag bearer of Australian airline industry. The company has sustained the reputational value as a low cost carrier and the provider of the effective airline services to the passengers. Alan Joyce, the CEO of Qantas Airlines felt the necessity of improve the value added services for securing the competitive edge and participate in the global competition (Qantas.com, 2017). It required reducing the costs for participating in the competition with the low cost carriers as well as the new entrants in the market. The senior management team of Qantas is concentrating on delivering the high quality experiences to the travelers. Moreover, the management is looking forward to promote the stakeholder communication policies to improve the communicational transparency. The major focus of the company is increase the reliability of both the internal and external stakeholders for the business progresses. This airline brand provides services to the regional, international, and domestic markets. Over 30,000 people are associated with the company to provide the best airline experiences to the regional, domestic, and international travelers. Currently, the increasing competition in the business market is posing challenges for the future sustainability of the company. Therefore, the management is looking forward to improve several important areas for maintaining the competitive value.

In today’s world, the unique approaches used for the business promotions are essential for every organization. In usual cases, social media is used as the major media of communication. Moreover, it is essential for every business is to develop the effective public relations to improve the organizational performance and secure the competitive edge. It is true that Qantas Airline has the greater reputational value. The company uses the traditional media for promoting the business. The advancements of the business strategies are expecting more from the business marketers to ensure the greater impact on the customers (Nijkrake, Gosselt & Gutteling, 2015). However, it is noticed that Qantas Airways has been facing the considerable issues with their PR strategies. One of the airlines is grounded due to which it affected the customers’ perception about the brand and quality of the airline parts. The major issue was not with the move, but with the method of handling the situation (Bbscommunications.com.au, 2017). The inefficiency was mostly visible in communicating the problems with the internal and the external stakeholders. The company was quite inefficient in conveying the messages during the crisis scenario. The company is a significant part of the national psyche. Therefore, it is the responsibility of the company to maintain the effective relationships with the shareholders for securing the business future (Austin, Fisher Liu & Jin, 2012). Ineffective maintenance of the honest and open communications was the major issue behind such discrepancy. It is thus noticed that the major concern of the company is with the maintenance public relations. The ineffective communication process is the concern for the job sustainability of the people from different department. It can be predicted that the company may face the considerable issues with the public relation management. The further study would thus focus on developing the effective business communication and public relation for improving the organizational performance and sustaining the competitive position.

Problem Identification

Apparently, it is notable that the public communication and corporate communication share many commonalities in nature. These elements or strategies are generally used for making profits in business and improve the organizational position in a competitive market. Mazzei (2014) explained that the effective public relations and communicational process within an organization can improve the performance parameter in a significant way. Supporting this view, Wright and Hinson (2017) implied that the public relation is the key driver to the organizational reputation. Every organization focuses on developing the performance parameter by concentrating on several components that have the interrelations with each other. In order to present a critical analysis of these elements, it is essential to explore the conceptual ideas about these elements. The further section of the study would focus on understanding the necessity of maintaining the public relations and corporate communications for resolving the issues faced by Qantas Airways.

According to Van Ruler (2015), the corporate reputation determines state of the organization within an industry. It also implies a specific characteristic for managing the brand image. Corporate communication plays the important role in developing the organizational performance level. Koch, Obermaier and Riesmeyer (2017) pointed out that corporate communication serves several purposes and external audience of the organization. It is essential to communicate with the media for engaging the media and public relations. On the contrary, the corporate communication even contributes to secure the internal management relations as well. The internal corporate communication can be developed both in formal and informal way. It is the responsibility of the senior management to arrange the meeting and gather the employee to communicate the mission of the organization (Toth, 2013). Clarifying the business objectives and goals would be helpful for the employees to schedule their work functionalities in a sequential way.

On the other hand, the advertising, news media, and PR media are selected for performing the external corporate communication with the business shareholders. Ruck and Welch (2012) suggested that every company needs to keep the focus on the engaging the media professionals and public by communicating in an effective way. For instance, if any organization requires liaising with the government, it is essential to establish the effective communication with the government relation experts. Another most necessary terminology of corporate communication is crisis communication. According to Schaltegger,S., Lüdeke-Freund and Hansen (2012), crisis communication is considered as the facet of corporate communication, which helps in drawing the special attention. The high-profile companies may face one uncertain situation that can alter their current positioning or affect the business reputation in the market. It could a situational crisis, product failure, mass layoffs, or any accidental hazards. In such cases, it is important for the company to pay attention towards the method of handling the situation. A structured crisis communication plan is essential in such matter.

Critical Analysis of the Issues

It is to be indicated that the public relations help in boosting up the credibility of an organization. In usual cases, public relations communicate through numerous trusted intermediaries. It focuses on certain audiences that are suitable for the business development. Schmeltz (2012) identified that the public relations are developed to focus on the different business opportunities that would be helpful enough in building the competitive edge. Maintaining effective public relations helps in increasing reliability among the business shareholders. Therefore, it is considered as one of the most helpful components for improving the organizational performance. Qantas Airways has been facing the issues with the PR when the company was at their crisis moment (Macnamara & Zerfass, 2012). If the company had communicated with the public during the crisis moment, the issues would not have affected the brand reputation. However, the further section of the study would provide some of the helpful implications to improve the public relations and business communications.

The identified issues indicate that during the crisis situations, Qantas Airways did not maintain the effective communication strategies with the associated stakeholders. As a result, the company faced trouble in retaining reputed position in a competitive scenario. The theoretical background and the critical analysis of the issues determine that the company requires understanding the importance of the effective corporate communications and maintenance of the public relations. The following recommendations would help the company to improve the internal and external communication process and maintain the effective public relations.

The senior management and the board of directors require arranging meeting with the business associates weekly, monthly, or annually. In this meeting session, the goals and objectives of the company would be communicated. The associated people can also present their concerns about their job. In fact, the senior management can even convey the updated information about the products or services of Qantas Airlines. The method is quite effective for establishing the communication transparency.

The company requires actively promoting the brand image through social media sites. In today’s world, the social media platform has become the most effective medium of communicating with the external consumers and other stakeholders. Sharing views and updated information as well as communicating through online mediums would be effective for the company to gain the trust of the target audience. Moreover, it would be helpful in managing the proper communication with the outside world for the betterment of the business process.

Necessity of Corporate Communication

The company requires paying attention towards the maintenance of the effective interpersonal relationships with both the internal and external stakeholders. Building the effective relationships with the people would help in managing the organizational reputation in a crisis situation. Especially, during the crisis scenario, maintaining the continuous communication process and effective relationship would generate the reliability among the shareholders.

Concentrating on the issues with the corporate communication and public relations, the future study is planned further:

Activities	Implementation of plan	Involved People	Duration
Recognizing the underlying problems	The entire study and the discussion help in identifying the underlying problem. The critical analysis of the issues presents the in-depth analysis of the context-based subject matter. Recognizing this subject matter, the further study would be structured	Researcher	1 day
Collection of the secondary sources and research scholar papers	In order to conduct the clear and detailed analysis, the study focuses on gathering the information from the secondary sources. Collecting the analysis of the scholars would present the conceptual analysis of the research areas.	Researcher	2 days
Use of the appropriate methodologies	The use of the relevant methodological structures and tools is quite helpful in collecting the necessary data for the study.		1 day
Ensuring appropriate data collection technique	Managing the proper process and techniques for collecting the secondary data is necessary for this study. It would provide the focus on the subject matter more widely and present the fruitful results.	Researcher	3 days

References

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Bbscommunications.com.au, 2017. [online] Available at: <https://bbscommunications.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/The-case-for-PR-at-Qantas-November-2011.pdf> [Accessed 24 Oct. 2017].

Christensen, L. T., & Cornelissen, J. (2013). Bridging corporate and organizational communication: Review, development and a look to the future. In Organisationskommunikation und Public Relations (pp. 43-72). Springer Fachmedien Wiesbaden.

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