Strategic Communications - A tool towards better customer engagement and loss reduction

The high risks in the complex, unpredictable and highly political process of water sector reforms are unavoidable given the "essential goods" perception of water. However, what the utility operators need to understand is that investing time and money in "strategic communications" early in the engagement of water reforms and that it leads to a much smoother operations and success of the project. A World Bank report (2006) suggests that an understanding of public perceptions leads to better adoption of strategic communications help in improving the efficiency of the public utility.

The key challenges arising due to lack of strategic communications can be listed as:

1. Social conflict due to lack of information or misinformation or a communications vacuum that creates uncertainty
2. Power struggles leading to project delays 
3. Consumer Opposition due to (justified or unjustified) fears about tariff, service levels and affordability
4. Customer dissatisfaction when hyped expectations are not met, or are not right sized at appropriate time

The idea behind this post is to try and identify areas where communication tools can support reform 

process and mitigate risks. 

The three principles which can be applied to use communications as a strategic tool towards better utility management are discussed here:

1. Principle #1: Know-Your-Customer: Instead of making assumptions about what the customers want or how they would react, it is advisable to undertake a Communication-Based-Assessment (CBA) to gauge the support for utility reforms within the stakeholders. (See pManifold's unique COPS Case Study). The CBA uses a mixture of conventional and unconventional data collection methodologies (including socio-economic parameters, Willingness-To-Pay, opinion polls, etc.) and establish baselines for stakeholders' perceptions, interests and priorities.
2. Principle #2: Creating Awareness about the Need for Utility Reform: Once the CBA has captured the perspectives of customers and stakeholders, the Utility Management may determine what about the reforms need to be communicated, through which messenger to communicate the same and how to garner political support with other political groups and agencies. The Utility Operator should:
• create awareness regarding the "state of the utility" in terms of challenges and opportunities for reforms and what it means to the customers
• communicate the effects/challenges that lie ahead, if reforms are not implemented. At the same time, if not communicated correctly, the Utility might risk being looked upon as non-transparent
• make the stakeholders understand their rights and responsibilities in the reforms process
3. Principle #3: Building Support and System for Change: Once the reforms are enacted, the communications does not stop there. The Utility should continuously use communications as a tool to build a culture of transparency and openness

The Utility, to leverage the strength of strategic communications as a tool, should make use of the following best practices:

1. The communications strategy should integrally be linked with the organizational strategy & goals and be in line with the utility operations
2. The Operator should take sufficient effort to make the information available and accessible to all the stakeholders. Establishing web portal and maintaining it constantly is critical to promote transparency.
3. Correctly identify the most trusted messengers or champions through early use of CBA
4. The Utility Operator should right size the expectations of customers as well as other stakeholders in order to mitigate the non-financial risks. Only when the beneficiaries believe that the project has met the set expectations, the Utility Operator can claim that the project has realized its full value
5. More often that not, in our typical environment, project delays occur. And when they do occur, the Utility Operator should be taking care to communicate the reasons behind the delay. This creates an environment of openness and credibility.
6. Whatever positive results are achieved by the Operator, the results should be communicated to the customers and other beneficiaries
7. Empowering the media is one of the best methods to spread word about the good work the Utility is carrying out. The media also serves as a tool to educate the consumers.
8. Collaborate with local governmental and non-governmental agencies to drive the Information-Communications-Education (ICE) campaigns to build a positive image for itself
9. Utility should invest in creating and maintaining an in-house professional communications capacity to avoid the inefficiencies in the governmental / state agencies' communications program

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*Source: Communication for Water Sector Reform: Obstacles and Opportunities, (2012), The World Bank

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Attracting and retaining the top-third graduates for careers in teaching

I interact with a number of engineering and management education institutions on a regular basis. One thing I notice always is the faculty at these institutions. Where we mostly talk about improving the "teaching", really no one talks about hiring the best teachers for various reasons.

The research by McKinsey on the "Talent Gap: Attracting and retaining the top-third graduates for careers in teaching" identifies this as an opportunity to improve the academic delivery and also as a measure that has strong correlation to the economic performance of the country. The report makes an interesting remark stating that "Top performing nations recruit 100% of their new teachers from the top third. In the U.S., its 23% and 14% in high poverty schools". The report also talks about the many other factors on which graduates decide their occupation other than monetary considerations.

Of course I didn't come across a similar opportunity study done for India, but I guess it is a fair opportunity for tier 2/3 institutions in India as well to attempt and create an ecosystem which is amicable for hiring teachers from top third of the graduates.

Aren't there ways and means to leverage this in the Indian context?

Are emerging cities listening to the call of Europe?

Yesterday, I attended a Science and Technology Awareness Raising and Information Campaign in India organized at Nagpur. They are visiting almost 22 cities in India including tier 2/3 cities for promoting European Union's (EU) research focus and support system.

Lot of interesting things were shared including a memory stick containing detailed information on the research funding and opportunities provided by member states especially for Indians.

Two important things that stood out:

1. There are funding opportunities available for individual researchers and SMEs under the European Union's 7th Research Framework Program. Especially in Information and Communication Technologies (ICT), the research investment that has been made has been the maximum amounting to over 9 billion euros. The special support for funding research projects for SMEs is also an interesting endeavor to encourage application oriented research.
2. There is a proper support system in the form of European Business and Technology Center (EBTC), which promotes innovative technologies and converts research into commercial ventures. Although their focus is on cleantech, however a lot of ICT get's involved here too. EBTC can help connect innovative, local businesses with European counterparts for collaborative programs.

The EU delegation campaign was an informative one, at Hotel Pride, Wardha road, Nagpur, with a delicious lunch that followed. However, only 20 odd people comprising of entrepreneurs, academicians and researchers attended the conference. The EU is opening up to India, but are we from emerging cities listening to the call?

http://growit.in/expert-talk/opportunities/271-are-emerging-cities-listening-to-the-call-of-europe.html>