Strategy, Planning and Scheduling (Week 4)

I think the key points to remember for this week’s reading were that for every company, having strategic PR plans have its benefit and its important values over them. Good PR strategic planning is extremely valuable which contain positive reputation and professional credibility. This could be based on the public's trust, perception and confidence created and sustaining it through positive PR messaging of individual businesses or companies.

On the other hand, it came to my surprise that actually, even before a company starts to rack their brain and think how to write how a strategic PR plan, the best starting point for the above is to review the organization's mission statement and goals initially. These documents indeed have their importance and necessities. They actually summarize what the organization’s business is and what the company is trying to accomplish. This should be especially genuine for the public relations practitioner’s efforts. The next element of a strategic PR plan include is a mission statement for the public relations department, which points out what that department does and how it assists and supports the organization in carrying out its mission.

Therefore, I felt that PR practitioners should work hand in hand with the specific personnel, while writing out a strategic PR plan as it can reflect how well the internal of a company is working through effective communication. Essential communication foundation for clear and consistent PR is built on key messages. Effective strategic PR plans continually entrench and broadcast key messages into every company activity. Whether it's a corporate message, key product or services, I believe all the employees should know its ‘company line’. Employees and executives, especially PR practitioners should know, "Who we are, what we do, what we produce, where we are going and where we've been."

The readings made me think more about public relations theory and practice in that a key performance indicator (KPI) can be reflect as an outcome. It describes what would happen if the staff member succeeded in fulfilling that particular role. A KPI is not merely a PR activity. It is an outcome for the business that is having its purposes to be delivered, internally and externally. Key performance indicators should also be review frequently to ensure they are still relevant, determine that the way of measuring them is still valid, determine how the staff member or the company itself performed in relation to the KPIs. From the above, it can determine whether any skills training are required or whether more resources could be applied to help the company or the employees to improve their KPI results.

I think it is important for a company or business to be equipped with the ability to identify the key challenges, after completing the above steps should the areas that are of below-expected performance be addressed. Companies or businesses, together with the professionalism of PR practitioners can then identify what factors are contributing to those problems and develop a better strategy plan for dealing with them.