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July 1-15, 1999 My CT Almanac Column |
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IT BUSINESS Real Images, Virtual Reality Caught between rapidly changing technology and sales targets, companies tend to use PR firms to generate positive stories in the media. The trouble is the media are about news rather than puffery, about information than claims. Rajiv Desai
On the other hand, there is a feeling out there that PR in the IT business is that which requisites a specialist's job. To cater to this ideology, some PR professionals opt to specialise in the IT area. They talk the talk and internalise the rituals associated with the IT business. IT people in business as well as in as in the media can relate to them. It is a comfortable arrangement, certainly from the point of view of IT industry managers. From the PR firm's perspective, however, it appears to be a limiting option. After all, the IT business is finite and with mergers and acquisitions becoming the norm for growth, the limitations are underlined. For those of us in the broadband public relations consulting business, such attitudes constitute a challenge. Caught between rapidly changing technology and sales targets, industry managers tend to use PR firms simply to deal with media or more accurately, to generate positive stories in the media. The trouble is the media are about news rather than puffery, about information rather than claims. That's not all. There's more to PR than getting a story in print or on television. Just because a story gets into the media does not mean it will get noticed, leave alone understood. If PR firms are used merely to generate coverage, then the PR business becomes all about media contacts. The focus should be on news and information, on generating a story based on facts and then ensuring it is sufficiently interesting and explanatory so it will be noticed and understood. Aside of the media, there are other issues that IT companies face. First among this is that unlike other niche segments,the business of information technology remains an enigma with the general public. For instance, there has been a lot of hype and hooplah, both in the Indian and the international media, about the Internet and E-commerce. But nobody is quite sure yet how to make money off the Internet. I just cannot see the World Wide Web ending up as a glorified home shopping network or a cyber brokerage vehicle for the stock market. As things stand, the Net today is largely used for applications like E-mail. Surely the promise is larger. It is critical therefore for IT firms to communicate their vision to select audiences beyond the confines of venture capitalists and industry analysts. The message needs to vault over the geewhiz of technology and the alchemy of finance. The case is the same with ERP. If ever there was a black hole in the understanding of IT, it is this. Clearly a business application, ERP remains the preserve of "accounts and administration". I could go on about other aspects but try to get the clear picture. The need to communicate with target audiences is paramount and cannot be accomplished through the media alone. The dominant players such as Cisco, Microsoft and Intel have understood this. Cisco works on its partnership network, Microsoft with its applications training platform and Intel with education as the key plank. Many of their successful public relations activities do get covered in the media but above all they focus on reaching their target audiences and never mind the hype. They appear to have understood that PR is about identifying major allies and winning their support. In undertaking such enlightened programs, these global tigers have demonstrated their ability to understand and influence their business environment. As the IT business grows in India as predicted, many industry players will also need to go beyond business-driven PR into other activities. For example, HCL sponsors a concert series. Firms will need to pay heed to the communities in which they conduct their business. They will need to appreciate that in a developing country like India, their own business interests are served if they focus on larger developmental and cultural issues. To start with, it is important that IT firms communicate the liberating vision of this amazing new field of human endeavor. An important first step is to stop treating PR as a commodity and look on it as a strategic tool that can help fashion powerful campaigns to capture the high ground in a competitive business environment. The writer is president of Indian Public Affairs Network, a leading Indian PR consulting firm |
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My friend Michael Laven says eventually
there will be only two businesses left in Silicon Valley: software and public relations.
Michael should know. He lives in San Francisco and specialises in taking technology firms
public. Which is why I am sometimes surprised that with notable exceptions, the IT
business in India continues to look at public relations as though it was a commodity, an
off-the-shelf component. 
