Hill+Knowlton Strategies

There has been a lot of discussion recently about the “value” of internal communications. It’s an interesting debate. Some have come at it from a financial perspective. Why not build a model that demonstrates ROI? It’s a compelling argument. But even the great Angela Sinickas I think would have to concede that any ROI model is only as good as its inputs. The old adage remains true: rubbish in, rubbish out.

So I think we are going to have to look beyond ROI when we talk about value. My contribution to this debate is fairly straightforward (as you might expect).

Our value is as problem solvers.

We need to be the people our clients or stakeholders; budget holders or decision makers come to when they have really difficult business problems to solve. And that will probably take us a wee bit outside our comfort zone.

But I would argue we’re well placed. Many of us have come from the creative industries – PR, Marketing, Advertising, etc. We are well used to being asked to apply creative techniques to solve thorny issues.

So why not expand our horizons?

Don’t get me wrong I’m not talking about ideation sessions, or thought showers. None of that guff. I’m talking about solid, sensible, pragmatic techniques which help you think about new ways to solve problems.

Surely there’s value in that?

P.S. – those of you who attended our “out of the box” session last week will know exactly where I’m coming from. Hopefully you will now have received the outputs from the session. Those of you not able to attend but who would like to see the outputs drop me a line and I’ll send them onto you.