Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Editor's Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction – Leading within and across the functions
- Section I The Business Imperatives
- Section II The CXOs: Within the Functions
- 5 The Chief Marketing Officer – Creating, delivering and communicating value to customers
- 6 The Chief Sales Officer – Sell, sell, sell!
- 7 The Chief Supply Chain Officer – Designing and managing lean and agile supply chains
- 8 The Chief Manufacturing Officer – Process execution, improvement and design
- 9 The Chief Financial Officer – A capital position
- 10 The Chief Technology Officer – Corporate navigator, agent of change and entrepreneur
- 11 The Chief Information Officer – Achieving credibility, relevance and business impact
- 12 The Chief Human Resources Officer – Delivering people who can deliver
- 13 The Corporate Governance Officer – From company secretary to manager of governance processes
- 14 The Chief Communications Officer – Leading strategic communications
- 15 The SBU President – Perhaps the best job for the CEO-in-training
- 16 CXOs and the Line – Serving the internal customer
- Section III The CEO and the Leadership Team – Pulling it all together
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
14 - The Chief Communications Officer – Leading strategic communications
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 19 August 2009
By
Edited by
Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Contributors
- Editor's Acknowledgments
- 1 Introduction – Leading within and across the functions
- Section I The Business Imperatives
- Section II The CXOs: Within the Functions
- 5 The Chief Marketing Officer – Creating, delivering and communicating value to customers
- 6 The Chief Sales Officer – Sell, sell, sell!
- 7 The Chief Supply Chain Officer – Designing and managing lean and agile supply chains
- 8 The Chief Manufacturing Officer – Process execution, improvement and design
- 9 The Chief Financial Officer – A capital position
- 10 The Chief Technology Officer – Corporate navigator, agent of change and entrepreneur
- 11 The Chief Information Officer – Achieving credibility, relevance and business impact
- 12 The Chief Human Resources Officer – Delivering people who can deliver
- 13 The Corporate Governance Officer – From company secretary to manager of governance processes
- 14 The Chief Communications Officer – Leading strategic communications
- 15 The SBU President – Perhaps the best job for the CEO-in-training
- 16 CXOs and the Line – Serving the internal customer
- Section III The CEO and the Leadership Team – Pulling it all together
- Conclusion
- Index
- References
Summary
In this chapter, the author describes the roles of the CCO: what they do, how they do it, and the choices they face. The CCO is responsible for strategic communications, the process by which a company aligns its communication with the company's strategy to enhance its strategic positioning and thereby better serve its customers.
The CCO's job is to orchestrate all the instruments in the company's communication battery (written and spoken media, symbols, and behaviour of members) to build competitive advantage for the firm. The technical heart of the job is managing an integrated communication system and being the in-house communications expert, but business skills such as project management, analysis and conceptualization also matter. Functional mastery, an understanding of strategy and change, and influence skills are vital for success.
The role of the chief communications officer
The profile of corporate communications has risen over the last decade. The spread of new technology and the speed of business change have made corporate communications a front-line position. The ‘communications people’ need to be able to react quickly to the latest crisis or opportunity. Gone are the days when time was a commodity. There is little time to prepare the latest CEO speech, the CFO's financial report or the latest corporate press release. The company's employees, shareholders, the media, governments and, most important, the customers are more impatient than ever – they want to hear the latest official company response to the company news of the moment, whatever it may be, whether financial results, a merger or acquisition, new product release, safety recall, competitors' actions, executive misconduct.
Information
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Leading in the Top TeamThe CXO Challenge, pp. 275 - 307Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
References
and , ‘Is corporate communications a strategic function?’, Management Decision, 38 (2000), pp. 99–106CrossRefGoogle Scholar
, and , ‘Public relations practitioner role enactment at the senior management level within UK companies’, Journal of Public Relations Research, 12 (2000), pp. 298–9CrossRefGoogle Scholar
and , ‘The communication advantage: A constituency-focused approach to formulating and implementing strategy’, in , and (eds.), The Expressive Organization (Oxford: Oxford Books, 2001)Google Scholar
, ‘Communicating change: Four cases of quality programs’, Journal of Business Communication, 37 (2000), pp. 128–55CrossRefGoogle Scholar
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