All posts by : Prachi Jain

THE TOYOTA WAY : A Case Study

The success of any organization is attributed to the health of its stakeholders associated with it directly or indirectly. When an organization measures the quantum of its success, it studies the growth of its stakeholders- BUT there is one particular parameter that is still neglected by most of the major organizations- THE ENVIRONMENT.

Environmental health and environmental sustainability are some of the significant stakeholders in today’s global scenario. Companies have started brainstorming in this direction and think out of the box to include the environment as their significant stakeholder and to make it a “corporate culture.” Some companies focus on eliminating plastic bags, while others focus on a greener supply chain. There are multiple ways to measure the health of the newest stakeholder and let it prosper along with organizational prosperity.

When we think about environmental sustainability, AUTOMOBILE SECTOR is one of the few sectors that impact ecological health directly or indirectly. Automobiles have always been talked about in terms of pollution, CO2 emissions, etc.. yet it remains to be a vital part of human lives. Various steps have been taken from time to time by different automobile companies to cut down on pollution levels, but a large area remains unexplored.

Companies like BMW and TOYOTA MOTORS have taken significant steps to include the environment as a part of their business strategy and have scaled unprecedented heights……it remains to be seen how these companies fair in the decades to come.

Having mentioned the automobile sector, there is this one Company that has made environmental sustainability; it’s the way of working and call it “THE TOYOTA WAY.”

So what’s “The Toyota Way”??

Let’s explore…

ABOUT TOYOTA

In 2016, TOYOTA was named as the number 1 Green Brand… Ecofriendly not only in terms of products but also has planet friendly manufacturing practices.

The above success has been a result of adopting the environment and its care and protection as a part of business strategy. This has been a result of hard work that the Company has put in since in inception.

Headquartered in the city of Toyota in Aichi, Japan, Toyota Motor Corporation is a multinational automobile manufacturing company that has been ranked amongst the largest automakers in the world. A leader in automotive production, Toyota was founded as an automobile division of a large textile business house, Toyoda Automatic Loom Works, Japan, in 1933. Kiichiro Toyoda-founder of Toyota was a brilliant innovator of is time got his inspiration for stepping into automobiles from his business trips to Europe and the USA. These trips introduced him to the world of the automobile industry in the 1920s. In the year 1935, Toyota’s first cars A1 and G1 built, and within a couple of years, “Toyota Motor Corporation” came into being in the year 1937.

Acquiring the 40% market share in the domestic automobile car market and establishing its dominance in Japan, Toyota went international and started exploring the unexplored automobile markets in the late 1950s. Toyota began its global journey in the year 1957, where it introduced its Crown range to the US market. The US market proved to be a successful stint for the manufacturer, encouraging the manufacturer to step further and enter the European market in the year 1963. By the mid-1960s, Toyota has gained a high status that helped a great deal to challenge domestic car manufacturers. Having delivered its 10th million cars to a buyer in Germany in the year 2000, the car major achieved a humongous target of 200 million cars of production by the year 2012. Presently, with its production and distribution network spread worldwide, Toyota ensures providing its customers with best-manufactured cars and services, boosting its global sales curve.

TOYOTA AND HYBRID CARS

Hybrid cars and its history that are like an overnight sensation stretch back over 100 years. It may seem that Hybrid cars as a recent phenomenon, the technology has been around ever since the creation of an automobile.

The first Hybrid car was built by an engineer Ferdinand Porsche in the year 1889. Being such an old phenomenon, the hybrid technology could not gain momentum due to high prices and the inability of the car manufacturer with the rechargeable points. The concept became gone forgotten phenomenon until the 1960s-1970s when the United States reinstated the importance of cleaner air and also due to the oil crisis occurrence. It was during this time that Toyota Motors took the cues from the vast opportunity available in front of them and came up with TOYOTA PRIUS is 1997 in Japan. With the enormous emphasis on environmental awareness, PRIUS became a huge success overnight. With the overwhelming success of PRIUS in the Japanese market, TOYOTA launched the car in Australia, the United States, Europe, and Asia, and in the year 2000 and TOYOTA could witness some encouraging success trends in these continents.

The Company launched various versions of the car in the subsequent years with improved technology, design, and efficiency levels.

In the years to come, TOYOTA managed to carve a niche for itself where a considerable number of celebrities were endorsing this new age phenomenon and were called the “PRIUS PATRIOTS.” A compact and lighter in weight car that can deliver better fuel economy reduced emissions and low costs that were manufactured and researched to fulfill the overall mission of contributing towards the environment and protecting the environment from carbon emissions made the success of Toyota PRIUS a story to be narrated in the years to come.

However, Toyota’s success in the automobile sector has been unimaginable, its ability to make the use of an opportunity that was once forgotten has been a ladder that many still need to step on. The hybrid car has been a result of the Company’s hard work, its unique ability to convert its manufacturing processes greener and eco-friendly, and its dedication to delivering on its corporate social responsibility, which they proudly call as “The Toyota Way.”

So, what is this Toyota way and how it works deep within the organization that makes it a green company with a global vision of being the pioneer……..

Let’s discuss these in detail…

TOYOTA: CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY

Being the leading car manufacturing Company in the world, TOYOTA continuously aims at maintaining its position amongst its competitors, and continue to lead with the current pace, the Company follows Corporate Social Responsibility which it calls “Contribution towards Sustainable Development.”

Since in today’s system, consumers are increasingly becoming aware of the environment and environmental protection activities. Today, a consumer wants to associate itself with the brands that are eco-friendly and aims at making ecological control as a part of its business strategy. It is this thought that made Toyota not only work hard towards maintaining its green system around its manufacturing units and but also do a lot of research and development in areas that help minimize the pollution by its cars and its manufacturing processes. Thus, the concept of sustainable development made Toyota strategize its policies at every level so that the environment can be protected at the maximum possible level.

Hybrid cars made Toyota a front runner in achieving its objective of the sustainable environment, and this has been one of the most successful Corporate Social Responsibility initiatives by the Company. The launch of Prius in 1997 in Japan revolutionized car manufacturing in the world. It is viewed as the most fuel-efficient and environment-friendly car by consumers across the globe. This high level of reputation has to lead the Company to attain high levels of production and profitability. The Company holds the record of selling the most number of Hybrid cars in the world and stands unbeatable till date with 67% of the market share in its kitty and accounting for nearly 14% revenues coming from an initiative that is an environmental pro and at the same time extremely profitable.

THE INITIATIVES

The launch of Toyota PRIUS has brought a significant amount of success for the Company and was labeled as the flag bearer of alternate energies car. But, the Company has been subjected to criticism for its usage of batteries in these hybrid cars. These batteries contained in the nickel-metal hydride (Prius Outdoes Hummer in Environmental Damage 2007) that was particularly harmful at the assembly line itself. The use of particular metal uses to cause damage to the environment. To minimize the impact of the same, the company R&D a species of flower called “Merchant” in 2009. This plant species is the offset from the CO2 that is released during the assembly operations of the Prius car itself. These flowers were derived from the “Cheery Sage” and “Gardenia,” which helps to absorb nitrogen oxide to reduce the heat from the atmosphere. These two flowers are particularly helpful in performing specific functions of absorbing the harmful gases (Cherry Sage) and also by reducing the temperatures of the surroundings by creating water vapor in the air (Gardenia). The invention helped the Company to focus on the production of the car since it could find a greener way to reduce the emissions at its assembly line process.

To further make a sustainable environment a part of its business strategy and adopt the concept at the lowest level itself…..the Company used the idea of reducing, reuse, and recycle at its manufacturing levels. In achieving this, the Company involves both its consumers and dealers and ensures that it uses the recyclable products that further can be reused multiple times. This can be explained like:

It is a well-known fact that cars are manufactured from plastics, and these plastics don’t get recycled easily. To solve this significant problem….the Company created a unique plastic called “Super Olefin Polymer” to manufacture the bumper and other parts. This plastic can be recycled many times and can be used for making various parts of the car.

Further, to add to its commitment to all its stakeholders in creating a greener society and achieving sustainable development for the Company, it involved both its consumers and dealers in reusing these recyclable plastics. For this, the Company heavily promoted a green strategy: in this, each battery has a phone number that ensures that the battery goes back to the Company itself. To further ensure that this practice is followed strictly, it started paying its dealers $200 for each returned battery.

A clean and green environment is achieved when every aspect is taken care of by any manufacturing unit. One such issue is waste management…. and in this regard, the Company created a waste collection system ensuring all the used parts of the cars are being collected from various parts of the countries and are being sent back for the recycling process. This particular process has been hugely successful in the European markets.

At the manufacturing level itself…, the water is recycled and reused after it is once used for washing purposes (since the water used on the cars is of premium quality and is away from any dirt and pollutants). For this, large water treatment plants are installed at the units and water after washing the car is re-treated and is used across all these manufacturing units. This helps in the usage of water at the maximum level and conserving it at the same time.

Toyota’s initiatives extend to the level of its supply chain management, where it ensures that suppliers are adopting the greenways of producing their products and also encouraging their vendors to take greener ways to procure/provide raw materials thus, guaranteeing a tier-2 clean environment reality and making it a success.

Other than these initiatives, there are numerous ways in which the Company ensures its involvement in social welfare activities like planting trees and conserving them, blood donations, traffic management, girl child development, etc. etc. These initiatives not only involve society at large but also builds up to an image of an organization that believes in environmental preservation (in all forms). We shall discuss how Toyota has managed to communicate about its eco-friendly Company in the coming paragraph…

An important point to be taken into account is that the Company makes an attempt to involve not only its employees in these initiatives but their other stakeholders like customers, dealers, etc. thus, creating an overall impact on the entire eco-system.

THE CORPORATE COMMUNICATIONS

The hybrid technology gave a head-start to the Company across the globe. Toyota had the edge over its competitors in terms of technology, production, and assembly lines. The Company cemented its success on the global platform with the communication strategy that it adopted, keeping in mind the audience and the economies of the counties. Adding to this, the Company wisely used the concept of image, identity, culture, and vision in its corporate communication strategy to achieve its global vision. TOYOTA wanted to be perceived as a “caring citizen” or, in other words, as a “globally responsible” company that is focused on developing a better society through its products and services. Also, it possessed an in-depth Information technology focus that helped the organization in monitoring a safer and healthier environment.

Keeping in mind its global vision of a cleaner and greener environment, Toyota launched “PRIUS” in 1997. Toyota has a unique strategy in mind for communicating its car, and instead of the same, the Company adopted different policies for both internal and external stakeholders. For its employees, the Company took a mix of old and new strategies. Communication mediums like bulletins and seminars were adopted that could help its employees understand what companies aim to achieve at, it, on the other hand, passed a new communication tool of screening movies- this was used to educate its employees about the initiatives that it had taken already and also the ones that it plans to initiate in the future. At a broader level… the Company participated in various environmental projects that got initiated either by the government or some NGO’s already associated with the cause. This helped them much in establishing themselves as a socially dynamic organization and communicated positively to society at large.

Another vital tool that Toyota used as a communication medium was called “Formula1,” where both the internal and the external stakeholders were present. The main intention was to make everyone give a common platform where they can exchange ideas and talk and watch the business strategy unfolding.

The above were some of the macro-level initiatives that Toyota had undertaken to communicate its vision to its stakeholders. There have been specific micro-level communication initiatives as well that were adopted. These partly were region-specific, i.e., the respective country’s political, social, economic view, and slightly were global strategies. I will discuss the region-specific communication mix in the paragraphs to come; as a part of a comprehensive communication strategy, the Company used a new communication tool called “themed messages.”

Themed messages were considered powerful tools because these messages helped the Company to position itself ahead of its competitors in terms of the message communicated. Another advantage that Toyota envisioned was the competitors were unable to copy the advertising strategy. Clearly, a smart move to stay ahead. Toyota used two different themed messages to communicate about their strategic moves. First was the preemptive message, which emphasized its global vision of the Company is an environmentally friendly company. The second was the symbolic message: “the car leaf logo.” The idea was to demonstrate the Company’s efforts to reduce the impact of its products and services on the environment.

As mentioned in the previous paragraph,…..the preemptive communication message suggested superiority amongst the competitors and ensured that they could not copy it. This effort mainly made them “leader in Green Manufacturing.” The characteristic style of communication helped in creating brand association through image-making, thus, ensuring that the consumers could associate themselves with a brand that equals to clean and green environment and also emphatic towards society.

All these were the efforts to structure the communication strategy in one direction. However, the Company revamped its corporate communication efforts from time to time. It combined its advertising and public relations department into one integrated group. Also, it decentralized its communication department. It now functions according to geographically separated subsidiaries and is directly linked to the company HQ. These made it easier to communicate as per the regions, yet keeping the global image intact.

Till now, I have talked about how climate change has influenced the functioning of any organization. Instead of the same, I studied how a car manufacturer took advantage of an unexplored opportunity and became a world leader with its efforts and various structural changes. I wanted to know how these efforts influenced its sales numbers. So, I am taking the launch of PRIUS in the UK market and how it’s a success story in an already very competitive market.

THE UK MARKET

The UK car market was almost owned by foreign-dominated players. The market has matured and has reached a new peak in terms of value and volume of cars sold. The market was dominated by foreign players and a single car dealership. To enter such a market, the Company hired “Oakly & Oakley” to prepare a communication plan for 3 years. It also assigned a budget of £9 million for the same.

The strategy was to differentiate between individual consumers and corporate customers. Despite the success in the Japanese and the US market, the Company wanted to carefully enter the European market. To maximize its reach, the Company segregated the target audience into two broad groups. The first one was of the consumers (or the individual buyers); the other segment was those of the customers (companies that bought for rentals or fleets). The customers or, in other words, the B2B part was a little lucrative because of intense competition, and thus, the focus on the private car segment (or the B2C segment) became a center of attention.

Being the first of its kind in the car segment, Prius was placed as a family small or middle segment car and had very little competition with Honda Insight, which was positioned as a sports car. Having analyzed the customer base, the Company worked on its marketing and communication strategy to design the campaign that can attract the maximum number of the consumer base. The details are as follows:

Demographic details: Educated well-informed adults that fall in the age bracket of 30-50 years. These adults can be married with responsibilities holding occupations in medium or higher managerial levels. However, the ethnicity of these individuals was not much important; these decision-makers so possess higher disposable income.

Psychographic details: With the given demographics, the population was divided into three categories:

• The Early Adopters: those who are keen on the latest technologies. The communication medium chosen for such were a group of people was the car magazines, trade press, weird, sky TV, BBC Three, and Discovery Chanel. These are heavy internet users with high-level cinema-goer and little radio understanding.
• Environmental Friendly: These are people that environmentally conscious and understand the impact of mechanization. These are a set of people who are socially aware but are more hesitant to try any new technology. The media channels used for such group Quality Daily Newspapers, National Geographic Channels. These are internet users and watch channels like BBC one/two etc.
• The Value-Conscious: this is a set of people that are looking for an ideal combination of high fuel economy and low maintenance. These are occasional internet users watch channels like BBC One/Two, Hunter, etc.

The three groups have been exposed to almost similar kind of outdoor activities and mostly need one or two motivational factors to make a purchase.

Geographic details: the target buyer more likely is to come from the urban parts of the country where problems like pollution and congestion were dominating already.

Understanding the basics of the target audience, Prius was heavily promoted in the UK market. It was advertised and assisted with the key theme of “fuel economy.” This ensured that a powerful message was sent to the audience aimed at stirring the sentiments of the viewers. Television ads were created where the theme was about a car that sleek, cool, hi-tech, smart cars that, at the same time, are environment friendly and affordable (Arens 2002). Newspaper advertisements were created where along with the super cool and sleek car performance, efficiency, and safety were the essential elements that were created (Fletch & Harper 2009). In addition to this, email advertising was also created as it was cost-effective and also was full of graphics and vibrant color slogans. (Belch, 2001).

Toyota Prius was a revolutionary product with unique features and a new technology that was unknown to the UK market. Therefore, an ingenious market communication campaign was designed to develop high levels of perception and awareness about hybrid technology. Fuel economy and efficiency, along with smart design, were central in the marketing campaign. Sales offers were provided to consumers to boost sales. A multifaceted and multidirectional strategy was designed, and advertising, direct marketing, and public relations were decided as the crucial tools for communication. Advertisements were run on television, radio, and newspapers (leading newspapers like Guardian & Telegraph were selected). Free briefs were conducted to create awareness. Educational seminars were also heavily promoted to educate the audience about hybrid technology. Test drives were made a part of the marketing campaign, and testimonies were made public to enlist the benefits. Direct marketing was also done through emails that were collected at the market analysis stage, and emails sent to individual customers so that they can understand the technology and its benefits.

Also, a specific website was dedicated to Toyota Prius to update the customers about the prices, seminars, and the marketing campaign.

With such a sophisticated yet direct marketing campaign, Prius sales zoomed and reached unprecedented levels of success. However, certain initial hick-ups happened with Toyota, and it had to recall all of its cars. Still, within 3 months, Toyota could resolve the issue and create an advertising campaign that focused on assuring the new, improved solutions. This helped in sales that were record high with 7,895 units in 2004 in comparison to 779 units in 2003.

There are many examples of such unprecedented success stories where companies made the environment a part of their business strategy and communicated the same to the highest and lowest levels of its stakeholders. I chose Toyota, as the automobile sector has always been subjected to criticism in terms of environmental pollution. But, the way the Company incorporated the environment as a significant stakeholder and devised a business strategy to fulfill its responsibility towards the same is commendable.

Climate change is generating a host of new strategic challenges and opportunities for business organizations. It has lead to a shift in competitive and regulatory environments both directly and indirectly; through the world wide political efforts to constrain the carbon emissions and directly through bio-physical impacts such as extreme weather conditions.

Companies, are under more pressure to act and react on the global danger of climate change and are required to do a lot more than earlier times. Global organizations are at a threshold where they are expected to minimize their negative impact on climate change and treat the phenomenon as the business problem rather than the corporate social responsibility. Having said so, it is extremely important to understand that there is no one common way to curb this issue. Every industry and every organization has to devise a special set of efforts that can fit in and can help in achieving the results.

Devising a unique set of strategies is not the only solution and the companies have to also develop a communication mechanism where it can educate and communicate all the stakeholders about the strategies that they are adopting and how does that impact them in a positive way. Both these aspects (of devising out strategies and developing a communication mechanism) depend largely on the resources available to sustain the value chain. It is also crucial that the companies remain vulnerable towards their human resources infrastructures and other supply chains.

Another important point to be taken into account is, if the businesses understand their impact of climate change then why there is no supporting research found in major journals and business columns? Also, why is that the companies not devising long term strategies that can put them in the forefront of curbing the threat? Why is there is no corporate communications mechanisms where the company is communicating to all its stakeholders and world at large about the efforts it is undertaking?

Serious questions….. In following paragraphs, I will try to reason with facts and opinions on these issues.

I feel following may be the driving forces behind the above key questions

• The variability in the climate like floods/extreme heat/ volcanoes etc., have been fairly regional. These adversities affect a relatively small part of the region (country/countries) and thus, it becomes difficult to measure and comprehend the impact of the same at the global level. An organization that has made its presence felt at the global level finds it difficult as to how should it devise out its strategy at the central level and implement at the global level considering that the supply chains vary as per the regions.
• The occurrence of the adversities and the extent of destruction from the same will always be different from those that have already occurred in the past. In other words, there is no pretext to follow regarding the climatic adversity since all have been different from those that have occurred in past. However, lessons can be learnt from all the occurrences in the past but, the response of the governments and the organizations needs to be different. There are two major reasons for such kind of responses:

1. Change in the Earth’s temperature: This is one of the major reasons wherein between the two calamities, the temperature on Earth could have changed and thus, the actions that were suitable and appropriate for the first time may not hold good the next time. Reaction to any calamity depends largely on the temperature around us.
2. Change in Human Behavior: This is also an important factor where there is a shift in human response between the two calamities leading to more devastating or may be less serious natural disaster.

• Another important factor is the already existing business models that serve as the basis for running a business. These business models are based on basic assumption that the social and economic environment will flourish regardless of change in climate or may be change in the political scenarios. Being biased about the organizational science and the fear of understanding the negative impacts of climate change on the new policies, new strategies, new organizational systems, new communication strategies leads to virtually no or very less mention in the top journals.

There could be a variety of other factors as well but according to me these are some of the relevant ones that largely affects the organizational inability to adopt a policy that makes it competitive and socially responsible at the global level at the same time.

The business implications of climate change could be much worse than it is expected or it is much milder than what we are anticipating. The climate will continue to warm and as already discussed, it is important that we start taking this as a business strategy. However, adopting Climate Change as the long term structural change, the companies site huge uncertainties (cost-benefit analysis for short and medium term) for making a policy structures both at the national and at the international levels and also, preparing a mechanism for communicating the same in a unified manner to all the stakeholders that ultimately leads to achieving the MISSION & VISION.

Understanding this argument from organizations point of view, it becomes imperative that every organization whether large or small/ national or global begin to take or start the process of decision making that consider various levels of uncertainties in their businesses, that are in line with the long term trajectory of climate change policies and also, are robust and flexible enough to withstand the inevitable changes in their business processes.

I have always focused on establishing the phenomenon of climate change as the business strategy and also to create reforms where companies can communicate its initiatives and practices to all its stakeholders in a unified way. To establish climate change as a business strategy and to adopt a robust communication system that covers the length and breath of any organization is very challenging and requires alternations and modifications at the various levels.

My primary motive is to study the impact of climate change on organizations and on the strategies that are adopted or might be adopted in the future businesses to develop a strong corporate communication network. It is again and again said that adopting climate change as a business strategy and developing a communication system is a very difficult task; so I want to understand why these two are so difficult or looks to be an uphill task. Let’s understand why adopting as a business strategy is difficult:

• It is important for any organization to broaden their horizons in terms of time zones (short term, medium term or long term) and have to create policies and strategies that it can follow for a fairly long period of time. The impacts of climate change are pretty long term and so it is important that organizations need to assess their corporate risks and the strategy processes more than medium or short term time frame.This is difficult since the strategies are generally adopted keeping in mind the consumer attitudes, political scenarios, legal regulations, advertising and publicity campaigns etc. Taking all this into account and analysis for the climate change, it is necessary that organizations draft policies and strategies that hold value for a fairly long period of time.

• The capital investments that the organizations make also plays a significant role while adopting a new strategy. Any organization that intends to grow its business needs to invest and the investment can be in the form of upgradation in the product line or upgrading the equipment or investing in a new project or investing in fixed assets etc. etc. As a strategic part, if the climate change and its impact is not considered in these decisions, it will prove to be expensive affair for any organization in the long run.
• Another important aspect is to develop corporate information system i.e., to have a set of people that has the knowledge and expertise about the climate change. To integrate climate change into the business strategy, it is important to emphasize how much time and effort is being investing any new technology or new technologies that are environmental friendly and at the same time are profitable for the business. This would mean that adopting a new technology or a new methodology into the system; the respective organization not only understands its financial implications of its decision but also takes into account the operational implications of the same so that they can achieve the targeted results.
• The success or failure strongly depends on how strategically and impactful an organization communicates its initiatives to all its stakeholders. This means developing a strong corporate communications holds the key since the world today is all about communicating as what we are doing and how we are doing at the same time.

Whether we communicate internally through company portal or company magazines or we communicate externally through trade journals, company website, conferences or seminars (now webinars) or through social media or through various agencies that are related to the field of business….the key is to communicate and state the polices strategies and initiatives in great details with the public at large.

Keeping all these in mind while formulating a business strategy takes a lot of time, effort and knowledge at the same time so that the business strategies helps in attaining the desired goals.

Communicating climate change is increasingly getting complicated and when the communication is about adopting the same as a business strategy, it becomes even more troublesome. The companies across the industries recognize the dual threat and opportunity climate change creates and communicating the same (both internally & externally) with the same plan of action remains an uphill task to achieve. Companies that excel on integrating sustainability and social impact into their businesses, however, fails when it comes to communicating about their work in that respective field.

Achieving the two aspects of integrating climate change as business strategy and maintaining the robust corporate communication set up not only makes the company competitively stand out but also makes it as a force multiplier for achieving sustainability goals. Having discussed as to why it is a difficult task to make climate change a business strategy in the previous paragraphs… let’s now understand why having a strong corporate communication mechanism is an aweful difficult task as well. Difficult yet achievable…

• The no “one-size-fits-all” approach makes it necessary for the organization while communicating about the strategies and its benefits. It is necessary that the companies must take into account as to whom are they targeting: the end consumer, the employees, the stakeholders, the government or legal systems or the experts that work in the respective field on the daily basis. To further make the corporate communications effective, it is imperative that the medium/ channel with which it is communicated is chosen wisely. This enables the message being communicated effectively and the response of the audience is receptive.
• Climate change is a very hazy concept and to communicate effectively with the right of audience, it is necessary that companies communicate the impact/ (s) of actions/ inactions with the help of live examples. For example: the negative impact that floods/ droughts bring to farmers or the fishermen is well known and it then becomes necessary for the company to explain the steps it is taking as an initiative to minimize the effects on the farmers or the fishermen. These live examples can be in the form of short stories that are explained either with the help of pictures or some advertisement that has graphics and words both. This will help in getting the audience involved in the initiatives and stand with the company in the mission of minimizing the effect of climate change. Let’s take an example: TIMBERLAND (famous footwear brand) asked its consumers to put their best foot forward (tagline for the initiative) for the outdoors that they explore. The brand encourages the users to visit the cities (via trek) that it is making “green” (with the reduced carbon emissions) and encouraging renewable source of energies and also supporting nature-driven solutions for climate mitigation. This way company has made its efforts tangible and has also involved its end users in their efforts to sustain climate.
• It is necessary to have a two-way dialogue as far as the adopting climate change strategy and its impact is concerned. The dialogue between the two parties helps in a healthy discussions, thus, incorporating ideas and suggesting and making the entire network authentic and more responsive.
• An important aspect for an authentic corporate communication set up is relying and communicating with science-based facts only for a strong and a powerful message. For an organization that is already working towards environmental sustainability and want to or is already communicating to all its stakeholders; backing its marketing claims and sustainability related decisions or policies with real and relevant impact on figures must be a standard practice. This ensures a huge level of transparency and credibility amongst its target audience. An example to this is:“WE WORK” (an American commercial real-estate company) made a decision of cutting down on the consumption of meat completely on all its corporate events. The company received a lot of flak from its members and its staff regarding the decision. However, the company was considered a stand out in the environmental sustainability when it explained to everyone that the decision is based on the scientific research that observed the impact on the environment gets reduced drastically (by more than 445 million pounds of CO2) when the same is done collectively. Further, the company also explained the positive impact on saving of gallons of water in preparing of meat and lastly saving a large number of animal life.
• A leader walks the talk and it works…. Any target audience gets convinced when the message is conveyed to them by the leader of the organization. A leader who initiates the change when speaks up, it becomes reliable, relevant, transparent and believable. Hence, it is extremely necessary for the leader to speak about the initiatives that its organization takes and leads with an example to achieve all that it intends to.

To my understanding, these are some of the factors that makes it easier for any organization to develop a sound corporate communication set up and adopt climate change as a business strategy. Also, at any given point in time, it is extremely important for any organization to be vulnerable enough and acknowledge the areas where there it lacks and sees the scope of improvement. To be able to discuss and communicate that are needed to fix the shortcomings with equal ease (as the success stories) will help win the trust of the society at large and environmental sustainability can become a reality.

Our climate is changing!!!!!

Climate Change is simply, the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family.

Climate change is a global, man-made and complex threat, putting millions of lives and ecosystems at threat. With a rapid rate at which the Earth is warming up, it is necessary that a collective global approach is adopted to tackle this threat.Further, a fundamental transformation in our societies is required in the field of energy, nutrition and resources.

Climate Change: Meaning

In simple words: it is a global phenomena of climate transformation that can be characterized by the changes which can be observed and felt in our day-to-day lives. These changes are a result of numerous natural factors and a variety of human factors that are now disturbing the overall ecosystem of the planet, thus, putting the future existence of mankind under threat. This is a general understanding about the Climate Change, there is a more technical definition that sums up the phenomenon in a more appropriate manner. According to NASA: “Climate Change is a broad range of global phenomena created predominantly by burning of fossil fuels which add heat trapping gases to Earth’s atmosphere. These phenomenon includes the increased temperature trends described by global warming, but also encompass changes such as sea-level rise; ice-mass loss in Greenland, Antarctica, the Arctic and mountain glaciers worldwide; shifts in flower/plant blooming; and extreme weather events.”

It is always mentioned in all our conversations, articles, write-ups, essays etc that the change in climate has been occurring since centuries and has been a result of a variety of factors. Lets take a closer look as to what all affects the change in the climate and since when and how the concept of climate change caught the attention of various scientists, other agencies and the corporate that it became an area of brainstorming.

To know as to when the study of the change in the climate started and how it caught the attention of the people at various stages, it is first necessary to know what are the reasons behind the change in the climate since ages.

Causes: a look closer

Climate change is a paradoxical subject. With the changing environment and the global warming on the rise, the political and public response to this global threat is relatively weak. One of the major factors that influence the rapid change in the environment is the burning of fossil fuels namely coal, gas, oil etc by the humans. This has been continuing for several centuries now and results in emission of the “Green house gasses” that trap the heat in the Earth’s atmosphere resulting in a phenomenon called “The Green House Effect”.

However, apart from the Human factors (shall discuss later again), there are many other factors that influence the threat of Climate Change. Understanding them would make the picture a lot more clear. These are:

a. Sun: its strength

One of the factors that influences the hotter or the colder Earth is the energy that is released from the Sun. Since, the energy output of the Sun is not constant and varies every time, there is a variation in the Earth’s atmosphere.

b. Natural Causes

Apart from Sun there are a number of other natural factors that influence the Climate Change on the planet. These are beyond the human control. Lets understand them:

• Continental Drift: Our planet appears very different what is used to be a million of years ago. It used to be a huge land mass where everything was joint and connected. Nothing had drifted apart. The one huge landmass had the vegetation and flowers that used to grow in the similar kind of environment. This landmass, over the centuries have splited and have become the present day continents and have impacted the climate dramatically (everything from the oceans to the winds have changed ever since then.).
• Volcanoes: Volcanoes also play a significant role in the change of the climate. When a volcano erupts, it throws out large volumes of various gases, water vapour , dust and ash with it. These stay in the atmosphere for a relatively long period of time.Though the volcano lasts for a couple of days, the effects are adverse and stay for long, thus, changing the overall climate along with it. This can be substantiated with an example:The year of 1816 is often referred to as “the year without summer”; several weather related disruptions occurred in New England and in western Europe along with the killing summer frosts in the United States and Canada. The strange happenings were attributed to a major eruption of Tambore Volcano in Indonesia in 1815. The above example clearly testifies the effect of volcanoes on climate, thus, changing the balance overall for a very long period of time.
• Earth’s Tilt: Earth is tilted away from the sun. Its orbit is somewhat elliptical, which means that the distance between the Earth and the Sun varies over the course of a year. If there is any change in the tilt, it leads to change in the climatic conditions making it severe or devastating.
• Ocean Currents: Oceans make an important component of the climatic system. They cover about 71% of the Earth and absorb about twice the Sun’s radiation as compared to the atmosphere or the land surface. The ocean currants have been known for changing the directions (slow or fast) leading to the climate change to a large extent. An example that is believed to be the most suited for this is the end of the last Ice Age (due to ocean currants) about 14000 years ago.

c. Human Causes

As mentioned earlier, climate change and the human activities are directly connected. Deforestation, burning of fossil fuels etc make a direct impact on the climate and leads to the changes from time to time. Burning of fossil fuels has been a major activity since the age of “Industrial Revolution”. The gases that are released with the burning of fuels stay in the atmosphere and leads to a warmer climate system and can bring change to such an extent that would be irreparable and irreversible.

Climate Change and Global Warming: History and Introduction

Earth’s climate has changed throughout history. There have been several cycles of global advance and retreat that has lead to the abrupt end of the last ice age several centuries ago marking the beginning of the modern climate era. However, these changes attribute to a mix of variables in the natural causes (as discussed earlier) over a period of time.

Climate of the planet has been getting warmer with each passing century and it is getting warmer at an alarming rate. The ability of the green house gases to trap the heat and transfer the same to the atmosphere has been demonstrated since the 19th century. It is, however, notable that the current changes in the climate and the global warming effects has been a result of human activities.

It, therefore, becomes necessary to understand since when, the humans started noticing these changes in their environment and since when we as a family, started taking a stock of the changes that became visible due to the destruction caused by us (the human family).

The history of the scientific discovery of climate change began in early 19th century with some minimal changes that were noticeable by the scientists. By the end of the 19th century, there were first evidences available of the emission of green house gases and further, were the arguments that these gases can alter the climate. In the 1930’s Thomas Edison (pioneer in electrical technologies), voiced his concerns over the climate change the immediate need for the renewable energy. However by the time it was late 20th century (late nineties) the effect of global warming became visible and increasingly convincing.

It is during this period of late nineties, with the levels of pollution and global warming reaching to the unprecedented levels, the United Nations formed “Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)” in 1988 with the objective that it will provide regular assessments of the scientific basis of climate change, its impacts and will suggest future risks and options for mitigation and adaption.

With the formation of IPCC in 1988, baby steps were taken in the direction of controlling the global warming the reducing the effects of green house gases emissions. A lot in the same direction was required and at a much larger level, at a global level. With the thought, the US government formed a treaty named UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC) which was opened for signatures by the various countries at the June 1992 UN Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) which is also known as- The Rio Earth Summit and the finally The UNFCC came into force on 21st March 1994.

The objective has been to meet regularly to take a stock of developments in the field of climate change and also to devise new measures to control the same at a much larger level. The aim has been to bring all the stakeholders…the governments, scientists, environmentalists, diplomats, industrialists…. all under one platform that there can be collective brain storming on the subject and collective decision can be taken.

The first conference of the UN Climate Change was in held in Berlin in 1995 and the body has met every year ever since then. The objective has always been to bring joint measures for improvement of global warming and change in ecosystem by bringing in various initiatives from time to time. Weather it was “the Kyoto Protocol” that was adopted in 1997 with the aim of reducing the green house gas emissions by all the industrialized countries by 6-8% between the first budget period of climate change i.e., from the period between the year 2008-to the year 2012 OR “The Paris Agreement” in the year 2015 where the declaration was issued to govern the measures taken to reduce the pollution and global warming levels. This declaration came into force in November 2016 OR the agreements that had been in place in all the rest of the years about the controlling measures.

The aim of all the conferences has been to adopt and execute ways and means for a collective effort in reducing the global emission of green house gases so that the planet is a better place to live in the centuries to come.

Having a brief understanding as to how the climate changes became visible and what are the various factors that are responsible for the same, it is very evident that a lot of work is to be done in this area and also, a lot of reforms are required to be brought in so that the industries can participate in reducing these emissions. BUT with this thought comes a very obvious question that what is expected out of industries?? What role can industries can play in reducing carbon emissions and start working with various forms of renewable energies?? How have these industries across the globe dealt with this issue of climate change?? How over a period of time have they changed there policies (organizational and communication) so that they can fulfill both there global and corporate social responsibility?? How have these industries (new and existing since long) strategized over all these centuries to communicate and sustain this global threat???

Interesting questions: LETS STUDY!!!!!!!!!!!

The difference between management and leadership is COMMUNICATIONS” -Winsten Churchill

Communications: a fundamental to the existence of the humans and the organizations. It is an act of explaining the meaning a piece of information both by the verbal and the non verbal methods. To be able to be effective in communications it is necessary that the organizations must adopt a variety of tools and a clear vision that helps its people to design and strategize its policies and communicate them to the various stakeholders.

Corporate Communications is an evolving area within the ever increasing puzzle of global growth. Corporate Communications as an important element of the organizational structure does not possess a very ancient legacy. The concept came into being in late 19th century or in early 20th century following the pace of industrial revolution. However, the aim in the earlier century was to improve towards the image and positioning of the brands and the organizations itself; its larger role was that of maintaining the Public Relations.

The role that largely was restricted towards maintaining the political scenario, started to take a shift and it became more focused towards the organisations and more importantly towards its individuals with the invention of “GLOBALIZATION”. At this time, the organizations started to venture in different parts of the world requiring a more sophisticated communication strategy keeping in mind the culture, values, beliefs, rules etc of the respective countries. This has to be collaborated with the overall VISION of the company so that the aim is not compromised upon.

The onset of the 21st century brought with it the revolution called “The Internet” and the information was digitized. Everything in this new century is available on the internet. Communication, which till now was a one way process (from top to bottom), became the “Conversation” by the end of the second decade of the century. The stakeholders that were only receiving information till now became the “audience” and started participating in the communication process. In today’s age, the biggest challenge a company faces is to maintain transparency, provide information at the regular basis so that it can keep its audience engaged and retain the brand recall in their minds. The even bigger challenge is to decide how much information is relevant and what is the medium that is most suited to communicate a particular kind of information i.e., to decide about the channel.

The digitization has made the information availability much easier and much faster and the arrival of social media has made the companies think out of the box and find out new tools to communicate with today’s customers. Relevance has become the corporate communications center of gravity and being digital has become the new way of life. The various social and digital platforms makes consumer “the king” and thus, ensures that the companies monitor the information constantly and strategize in a pro-active manner to sustain the ever evolving world.

Digitization, strong media presence and the real-times issues rich environment makes the communication process an uphill task for the organizations. The growth of the social media and plethora of information available has brought with it mistrust (due to fake news) amongst the consumers. The organisations have to muster the art of communicating the social responsibilities (that it undertakes) so that it can remain relevant and authentic and are able to retain the customers (both internal and external) ensuring the global sustainability.

This is one small world where every activity and every industry is interconnected.Global presence is the need of the hour and expanding one’s business activities is a part of the mission of any organization.In this global digitally connected world, the companies need to constantly monitor what happens in other parts of the world so that they can strategize effectively in view of maximizing its reach to the global audience. The strong internet presence and the information in the real time poses an immense amount of threat for the companies to sustain and retain its base. So, what happens when this global, digital one world gets a “Pandemic”? How are the organizations dealing with the “first ever pandemic” of the new age world?

It seems in today’s time, every thing is revolving around this one phenomenon called “Covid-19, The Pandemic”. The world is under a lockdown….every economy is struggling to revive itself and get unaffected with this deadly phenomenon and so are the organizations across the globe. Communicating in this age of uncertainty and fear has become a topic to brainstorm upon. Communication at this hour requires unprecedented empathy and strong leadership to bring back the trust,lower the anxiety and sustain in the global platform. The organizations are devising ways and means to communicate with their internal and external stakeholders. The task has become a lot more difficult and complex than what it already has been in an environment that was flooded with opportunities or in a more appropriate way….pre covid world.

In this new world, I would call it a “Covid-19 world”; the companies are making the contingency plans with some new and some old phenomenons. However, the old phenomenon like maintaining a direct base with the customers and communicating clearly the company strategy during the time of crises still hold importance; there are new concepts like creating a crises management teams (that can take a stalk of the situation overall and can tell how adversely or positively the company is affected) and communicate regularly with its customers (both internal and external) and state the facts (how-so-ever good or bad) at the regular intervals on the various mediums ….are a few such that have gained the attention of the leaders across the globe.

An emphatic, clear and precise communication strategy can help win the trust and the loyalty of the various stakeholders associated with the company. Transparency helps to build the brand value at the time of crises and helps in establishing a clear vision as to how the company will (or focus) to emerge after the fallout.

This Covid-19 world has now changed in many ways….ways we live now, buy our groceries, defining our new luxuries, defining our new new. World in this covid-19 has changed and will continue to change. It has changed the way we used to work and will keep on reinventing itself further. We, now have to learn to adapt to the new work cultures, new ways to communicate and new ways to devise our strategies to accomplish our vision. This world is entirely different from the world where the concept of “Corporate Communication” came into being. This world is all about living in an environment that is all about social distancing and a world that is working to restructure itself from the scratch. In the earlier strategies, it was all about staying connected to the audience directly (eliminating all mediums for in between) and communicating the policy directly, through the conferences, press meets etc. With the concept of social distancing, it is now about video conferencing and communicating every single aspect of the organisation digitally.

With so much changing so rapidly around us, will we be able to hold on to the strong communication ethics that we have established and developed over all these decades?? OR are we entering an era where an entire new constitution with regards to communicating within the world is required?????????

TIME TO THINK

EARTH,the only planet in the solar system that can harbor life, is exposed

to various species, flora and fauna. Amongst all these, the most fascinating species is that of mankind (The HUMAN BEING).

The reason that makes the mankind so interesting is its ability to think and comprehend. The human brain is a power house that can make unthinkable as attainable and unachievable as withing the reach of every person possible.

It is this power of the human brain that has led the planet undergo various changes in its ecosystem from time to time.A lot of such changes are positive but most of them have been hazardous. We, the humans have played with the mother EARTH in every given way over the centuries. From the stone age, we, have evolved to the current digital and the satellite age. This power to think and make our lives comfortable and luxurious, we have experimented from time to time on various creatures/objects/chemicals in our laboratories and attained the results. Some of these results have been positive for both the mankind and the planet but a have been disastrous.

One such experiment that has proved to be fatal has been the current emergency that has engulfed the world. We call it “CORONA VIRUS” or the COVID-19. It has been labelled as the “pandemic”

This pandemic has brought the world to a standstill. We are all locked inside our houses and have been barred from any movement or activity outside our houses. There’s transport, no factories are functioning. Everything has just stopped or everything has just become quiet. We, have been caught up with a fear, “the fear of survival”.

Since, the human activity has halted or closed completely; mother nature has geared up and is doing the needful. EARTH is on the path of recovery and it is slowly achieving all that was once considered “Unattainable” or “Unimaginable”.

But as it is said: “EXPECT THE UNEXPECTED WHEN ITS ABOUT NATURE”

There’s a recovery mode and I would like to term it as “THE MAKEOVER”. The planet is in a makeover phase and it has been blossoming glamorously. Its looks fresh and ready to take on the mankind for the centuries to come.

It breathes fresh every second of the day and runs fresh water every second where even a tiny fish is visible clearly. The species that have disappeared from their natural habitats have returned back and the ozone layer that was depleting fast is now recovering slowly due to less pollution across the globe.

Of the many examples of the recovering nature, I want to point out two examples from two different parts of the world. The first one is from Punjab, India where a snow capped mountain range called ‘The Dhauladhar’ is visible from 160 kms in Jalandhar (Punjab) that has not been seen by the locals for over three decades. It was a sight to behold and something that would have happened once in the lifetime of the locals. The magic happened due to less pollution.

The second example is from Italy, where the water has been cleaner than ever. In those clean water the fishes are back, the dolphins dances and the swans adorns the canals in way that can catch anyone’s imagination. Truly a spectacle it must be.

These are only two examples and am sure there must 100 of such examples. Such examples only teach us only one lesson- i.e., to compassionate towards the planet. It teaches that the nature blossoms like a flower if become a compassionate species. We take care of our planet and let it bloom to its maximum so that we can enjoy the gifts that it has to offer for the centuries to come. “AMEN”

PRACHI