Hottest communication topics are...improving quality & customer satisfaction.

By and large, communicators feel they spend their time communicating issues that deserve emphasis. What their employers feel needs to be communicated, they do, too.

Improving quality and customer satisfaction head the list of topics communicators spend most of their time on, followed by increasing profitability and containing costs. (See chart). Some 205 communicators were polled recently at the IABC international conference in Vancouver, B.C.

Issues that some communicators feel should be emphasized more are: increasing profitability (I I percent), creating a satisfying environment for employees (7 percent) and protecting the environment (7 percent).

Issues some communicators feel need less emphasis are: improving quality (1 I percent) and being a good community citizen (7 percent). One issue communicators may not have come to grips with is convincing management of the importance of PR in the rapidly expanding international marketplace. While 93 percent of communication professionals feel that globalization will increase the importance of the communication function, only 11 percent said international competition or expanding to international markets (10 percent) represent the most important communication topics for their organizations.

So, while international expansion appears to be perceived as a great opportunity, it is receiving appropriate attention from only about one in 10 communicators in their day-to-day duties. This is even more surprising considering that almost 30 percent of those questioned are fluent in more than one language: 15 percent in French, 10 percent in Spanish and 4 percent in German.

What communicators are spending their time on depends somewhat upon where they work. For example, communicators in corporate communication departments-as opposed to consultants- feel emphasis should be on communicating about bottom-line profits (59 vs. 48 percent) and containing costs (38 percent vs. 27 percent).

On the other hand, communicators from consulting firms feel emphasis should be on improving quality (64 percent vs. 51 percent), creating a satisfying environment for employees (36 percent vs. 27 percent) and increasing employee morale (21 percent vs. 9 percent).

Internal and External Communications See Things Differnetly

Internal communicators' opinions differ from those doing external communication. Those working the external audience believe their organizations should spend more time communicating about protecting the environment (29 percent vs. 16 percent) and being good community citizens (20 percent vs. 8 percent).

Those in internal communication think emphasis should go on improving quality (55 percent vs. 44 percent of external communicators) and increaseing customer satisfaction (52 percent vs. 43 percent).

The area of greatest confusion (and perhaps missed opportunity) for communicators lies with globalization and what to do about it.

The survey suggests that professional communicators believe globalization will bring new challenges for the profession. They think public relations will increase in complexity; few appear to believe the same communication strategies will be equally effective in all countries.

Only a quarter of the respondents (27 percent) believe that an organization's communication objectives should be the same in all of the countries it operates. Most of those surveyed (92 percent) think that cultural differences will force organizations to change their communication strategies for audiences in different countries. A strong majority (85 percent) thinks multinational organizations should modify their publications for employees in foreign countries.

Our analysis also suggests:

Those who communicate with audiences in different countries are more inclined than those who do not (41 percent vs. 29 percent) to strongly believe that organizations should have different communication objectives for different countries.

Similarly, respondents who now communicate internationally are slightly more inclined than those who do not to strongly agree (81 percent vs. 73 percent) that cultural differences will force organizations to modify their communication strategies for international audiences.

Those who communicate most with external audiences are more apt than those who primarily communicate with internal audiences to strongly agree (85 percent vs. 70 percent) that organizations will need to alter their communication strategies for publics in different countries. About half (52 percent) of the respondents now work with audiences in different countries. Communication professionals, however, do not think it is easy to design and implement international communication strategies.

The results indicate:

Respondents who work in the United States are more apt than those working in Canada (53 percent vs. 45 percent) to communicate with audiences in more than one country.

A 71 percent majority believes it is difficult for public relations professionals to communicate effectively with audiences in different countries. Twothirds of the respondents (68 percent) think that to work effectively with audiences in different countries, communicators will need to know more than one language.

I Public relations professionals also believe that to communicate effectively with foreign audiences, it is essential to learn more about their cultures. A 64 percent majority agrees that it is difficult for someone to effectively implement communication strategies in a foreign country unless they have spent a great deal of time there.

In fact, the results suggest that public relations professionals think cultural differences have a greater influence than linguistic differences. Most respondents (85 percent) agree that culture has a greater impact than language on the effectiveness of an organization's communication with international audiences.

Other key findings include:

Respondents who work in Canada are more apt than those who work in the United States (35 percent vs. 25 percent) to know more than one language.

Respondents who are fluent in a foreign language are more apt than those who are not to strongly agree (28 percent vs. 18 percent) that it's difficult to communicate with international audiences.

I Similarly, those who know a foreign language are more apt than those who do not (82 percent vs. 63 percent) to agree that communication professionals will need to know more than one language to communicate effectively internationally.

Multilingual respondents are also more apt than others (92 percent vs. 82 percent) to agree culture has a greater impact than language on the effectiveness of an organization's international communication.

o Those who now communicate internationally are more apt than those who do not to strongly agree (59 percent vs. 48 percent) cultural differences have a greater influence than linguistic differences on the effectiveness of an organization's communication with international audiences.

Public relations professionals do not appear to believe globalization should bring more uniformity to an organization's international communication with audiences in different countries. Because of linguistic and cultural differences, they believe it is difficult for public relations professionals to communicate with audiences in different countries. Perhaps for these reasons, a majority (59 percent) disagrees that a multinational organization's communication functions should be centralized in one country.

So, while most communicators agree both with their employers and among themselves on the emphasis of their current communication programs, less certainty prevails regarding communicating about globalization of markets and competition. They appear to be waiting for change to come to them rather than preparing themselves and their departments for it.