Communications strategy
Give communications leaders the direction, mandate and resources to contribute to the organisation’s choices.
When you need support
You are taking up a new role, leading a transformation, broadening your mandate or revisiting your roadmap. You need to prioritise expectations, connect audiences with leadership challenges and define what communication should contribute.
How we work
We combine leadership interviews, perception analysis and a review of existing practices. The diagnosis leads to clear priorities, a message framework and governance arrangements. Each recommendation identifies the decision, its owner and the conditions for success.
What we build together
Strategic and reputational assessment
Communications mandate and roadmap
Corporate narrative and message framework
Objectives, indicators and decision reviews
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Communications leadership: turn access to management into influence on decisions
Related sectors and situations
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When to bring us in
A new leadership role, competing requests, budget choices or a changing mandate call for clear priorities before more activity.
What the engagement delivers
Communications mandate; stakeholder expectations map; prioritised roadmap; decision criteria and dashboard.
Prepare for our first conversation
Bring your objectives, current plan, available resources and two decisions communications needs to inform.
An agreed scope of work
We agree on objectives, audiences, markets, deliverables, responsibilities, timing and availability. The proposal separates advisory work, content production and any third-party services. Media coverage, search rankings and regulatory outcomes cannot be guaranteed.
How an engagement works
- Frame the decision: focused interviews, available evidence, constraints and criteria for success.
- Develop the response: diagnosis, reasoned options, messages and materials reviewed by the designated owners.
- Prepare delivery: a timetable, clear responsibilities, spokesperson preparation and response scenarios.
- Review and adapt: assess activity, unresolved questions, lessons and the next decisions.
Clarify your communications roadmap
A short introduction is enough to start: your organisation, the decision at hand, the audiences involved and your deadline. Confidential documents can follow through an agreed channel.
Email Belief SystemExperience and documented cases
Retail company: explaining difficult financial results
Make financial performance and its implications understandable to employee shareholders during a governance change.
Music industry company: structuring a positioning workshop
Use market comparison and collaborative discussion to develop positioning options.
From insight to action
Energy and industry
Industrial decisions affect jobs, resources, local communities and the credibility of a transition.
Technology, AI and cybersecurity
Technology earns credibility when people understand what it can do, what it cannot do and who is accountable.
Executive committee briefing: a practical template
An executive committee briefing turns a communications issue into an explicit decision.
Choosing your adviser
Independent consultancy, integrated agency or international network: which partner should you choose?
Choose the operating model that fits the decision, the skills required and your ability to coordinate the work. The people assigned to the account, decision rights and contractual commitments matter more than the agency’s size alone.
Agency fees: how to compare two genuinely different proposals
Compare total cost against a common scope: advice, production, seniority, coordination, availability and expenses. Two prices become meaningful only when responsibilities and exclusions are explicit.
Client references and anonymised cases: what evidence should you request from an agency?
A useful reference explains the situation, the team’s role, outputs and what can be verified. A logo or an impressive result without a measurement method does not establish suitability for your assignment.
After 90 days: how should you evaluate your communications partner?
Use the 90-day review to compare objectives, outputs, working arrangements and early observable effects. It should produce decisions about what to continue, correct or stop, rather than treating activity as progress.
Explore this issue
Perspectives on this issue
Analysis to put these issues in context and inform your decisions.