Perception Management Is An Essential Corporate Tool

By Author: Sushant Sharma
Total Articles: 8
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Perception management in the corporate world involves formulating and projecting the right perspective of a company to all its stakeholders. With a rise in media platforms and newer technologies of communication, managing perceptions is a challenging task.

Perception management provides strategic communication support to corporations for delivering the right message to the right people. In modern times, information exchange happens very rapidly and easily through advancements in mass media. Often, vitiated or false information damages a company’s reputation and brand image, sometimes very seriously. This is where perception management comes into play to save the day.

Every business has stakeholders to consider and targeted customers to think of, who can make or break a company. Tangible brand value factors like pricing or packaging of a product/service is easier to monitor and control, but something like perception and brand image is an intangible factor which requires a more multi-pronged and specialised strategy.

With the rapid revolution on the internet of tools like social networking and blogging sites, ...
... the smallest comment and its cascading effect can cause irreparable harm to a product or service. In this backdrop, perception management acts like a crisis manager to counter such incidents with a well-thought-out game plan. And this is only one small aspect of this essential management tool.

Features of Perception Management:
 
Perception management moulds opinion made by stakeholders on the basis of what they see and interpret of a company’s actions, behaviour of staff and news reports. Stakeholders perceive a company in a certain way and that becomes their reality. Managing perceptions is about ensuring that this stakeholder reality is a good experience for them.

Often there is a gap between how a company perceives itself and how its stakeholders and targeted customers perceive it. Through perception management this gap is reduced as companies get advised on corrective measures that need to be taken. This is often a step-by-step process but sometimes it can take the form of crisis management to save the company’s reputation, brand equity and market share. Bad perception leads to revenue loss and reduced brand value. 
 
The first step in managing perceptions is to audit and understand existing opinion. After gauging this reality, gaps need to be identified and then corrective measures taken. Once negative perceptions are identified and assessed, the task begins of placing the right messages on the right platforms to change them into positive perceptions.

Perceptions are often damaged during crisis communication. In the wake of a crisis, due to the intense pressure to respond quickly, managements often make goof-ups that cause immense harm to their business. An ill-conceived off-the-cuff remark can compound problems.

Every company board must have a communication strategist who ideally should have a bearing on policy decisions. A functional head who is often the crisis communicator can damage perceptions by being ill-prepared. Adequate preparedness is essential from the wider corporate perspective. The speed of communication, correct targeting and its accuracy are all important in perception management. Managing perceptions can make the crucial difference between being a successful enterprise or a company that sinks in a highly competitive corporate environment.

The author of this article is associated with India InfoMedia reputed for providing strategic communication support to clients for brand management India InfoMedia has been consistently assisting its clients reach out to their stakeholders through focused communication strategies.