A new reality is before us. The world is not what we used to know. It’s never going to go back to the old and stable times, when communication was predictable, when the issues on the table were clear. Now more than ever, the audiences have increased and become even more nuanced. The segments are no longer crystal-clear. There’s an intersectionality of issues that organizations today must deal with.
The public is demanding for more conscious enterprises. The investors are demanding for more cost-efficient organizations. There’s a myriad of stakeholders. There are the employees, there’s the suppliers, the customers, the government, to mention but a few. Instantaneous communication is the new normal, not the exception to the rule. Businesses have now realized that there will always be a fire, and it will always come from the least likely of places. The audiences now demand that businesses take a stand on social issues. From climate change to social justice issues, the business’ voice is expected to be heard. Businesses can no longer comfortably stay silent or stand on the fence, the audiences and the new world won’t allow it.
Every generation is demanding for a different way of communication. The internal audience are also tasking the businesses they work for, to communicate differently. It’s clear that businesses will now need to communicate before they ever need to communicate. Yet this too, can have downsides.
Businesses must thus retreat to their core, to be constantly reminded of ‘who they are’, the ‘core values’ that they stand for. And it’s not enough anymore to just list these values, businesses must be seen in active pursuit of these values.
Today, it could be the customer that posts a photo of their milkshake calling out Café Javas for something wrong in the milkshake. Yet in such a situation, we saw a brand being defended by the most loyal of its audiences. We see the Parliament of Uganda being tasked to account for the ludicrous money transfers to the different members of the commission. What is the purpose of business? More than ever before, there’s the nudge that business must perform on the profit front, on the people front and on the planet front. That means businesses must be rethinking their ways of work. And they are expected to act fast and communicate actively about their new directions.