Communications Excellence: Optimizing Group Structure & Operations

Internal communications is a small but important group that delivers information to an organiztion's employees on issues such as corporate initiatives and benefits. As the conduit between a company and its workforce, internal communications keeps employees informed about issues that impact corporate success.

At many organizations, these two communication groups are separate, but both play crucial roles in educating employees and employees on corporate goals and objectives.

Best Practices, LLC conducted dual research projects to uncover current trends in external and internal communications with respect to their structural models, staffing and investment levels.

Also, this study presents different organizational models for communications groups as well as current trends in staffing and budgets for these groups.

These research studies provide trends and insights around structure and resources that communications leaders can use to compare their current structure and resources with that of leading companies.

Industries Profiled:
Medical Device; Telecommunications; Health Care; Pharmaceutical; Diagnostic; Manufacturing; Utilities; Computer Hardware; Computer Software; Chemical; Insurance; Biotech; Transportation


Companies Profiled:
Medtronic; Maxcom; Eisai; Fluke; ConvaTec; MAPI; MSD; CraftBilt; Astellas; ABC Laboratories; Xanodyne Pharmaceuticals; National Grid; Merck; Ipca Laboratories; Amdocs; Veeda Clinical Research; GlaxoSmithKline; Intas; Grace; MetLife; Lilly; Baxter International; EMD Serono; Boehringer Ingelheim; AstraZeneca; Abbott; Medrad; Amgen; MDS Pharma Services; Alcon; Sanofi-aventis; Vertex Pharmaceuticals; Emirates Group

Study Snapshot

Participants in this benchmarking research included 32 Communications executives and managers at 28 leading companies from bio-pharmaceutical, healthcare and other industry segments.

Research participants included Vice President, Senior Directors, Directors, Managers and Specialists. More than 56% of benchmark partners were vice presidents and directors, 33% were managers and 10% were specialists –all of whom worked directly or indirectly in Communications functions.

Benchmark partners reflect functional experience that interacts directly or indirectly with the Internal and External Communications functions. As Communications resides in different places across different companies, various functions from Marketing, Communications, and Medical Affairs participated in this study.

Sample Key Findings

External Communication groups are most often designed to cover the entire enterprise or business unit. More than half of benchmark partners structure their communication groups to focus on the entire corporation or support their specific business units. As many as a third of companies focus their external communication groups by therapeutic area, multiple customers, products or projects.

• Across industries, Internal Communications leaders clearly think the most effective approach for serving internal customers is to assign staff 100% to either customers and/or an issue/topic. Co-locating staff with customers is least favored.

• Communications leaders with small and mid-sized organizations said they favored combining at least some functions of internal and external communications, mainly to optimize the resources they did have.

• Across industries, Internal and External Communications groups interact on a frequent basis. Communications leaders believe that frequent interactions increase unity between the two groups to ensure they are maximizing staffing potential and sharing information.

• Executive Summary: Benchmark Insights and Research Group
• External Communications Group Structures: Key Trends & Drivers of Sub-group Evolution
• Internal Communications Group Structures: Key Trends & Drivers of Sub-group Evolution
• Internal and External Communications Group Models and Structures
• External Communications Group Resource Benchmarks: Key Staffing and Investment Trends
• Internal Communications Group Resource Benchmarks: Key Staffing and Investment Trends
• External Communications Group Services: Trends In Service Levels & Key Priorities
• Internal Communications Service Levels: Trends In Activities That Inform the Enterprise-pg. Building Bridges: Working with Colleagues
• Working Effectively in The Integrated Pharmaceutical Network: Forging Accountability and Clear Roles Among External Partners
• Communicating the Value of Communications In a Global Bio-Pharma Company
• Contact Information