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What makes for a true Internal Communications partner?
Mar 04, 2021
I woke up this morning to some pretty significant news in the internal communications/employee communications applications (ECA) industry -- Staffbase, the pioneer in employee apps in Europe was merging with Bananatag, a leader in email design, distribution and measurement from Canada.
Having been in the ECA space pretty much since its inception, I attended dozens of employee communications events where both companies participated and demonstrated their respective solutions. I always was impressed by both companies for what they were doing to address the challenges of the IC industry and considered them “frenemies” since we were all looking to sell our solutions to the same people. But what impressed me the most was that unlike many of the other technology companies and vendors in the exhibit room, both companies, like mine, were founded and grounded with a mission to help and partner with internal communications professionals. Many of the other vendors present had started out as something else and had pivoted their business models to take advantage of the opportunity that the “employee experience” had to offer.
The merger today of Staffbase and Bananatag is significant news because it’s the first real merger of substance in the ECA industry. More important is that, from what I know of both companies and their founders (I’ve had the opportunity to break bread with several of them), the ethos of the combined entity will be dedicated to and focused on partnering and helping those professionals responsible for getting information to, communicating and engaging with an organization’s most important audience -- their employees.
Here
is the press release announcing today’s news.
All the hard work in building your new intranet is almost done. The day is quickly approaching when the cord is going to be cut and the new intranet will go live. But it would not be wise to do so without a plan in place. Change is about to occur . . . and this presents a great opportunity to create awareness, build excitement and rally employees around something that is not only exciting, but all positive. Part 5 concludes this series on building a corporate intranet and offers tried and true communications strategies to ensure a successful launch. Read it here .
All of the content is defined and organized in your intranet. Now employees need to be able to find what they are looking for quickly and painlessly. You don't need to be a design professional to architect a great intranet. Rather, you just need to be empathetic to the people who you are communicating with (i.e. your employees). Part 4 of The Communicators Guide to Building a Corporate Intranet provides tips and tricks for designing and architecting your intranet even without a MFA. Read it here .
Content is king. We all know that. Without good content that is interesting, fresh and relevant, it is human nature to ignore, right? At the same time, thinking about all of the content that needs to exist in an intranet can be overwhelming to think about. Why take on this responsibility and risk? Part 3 of The Communicator's Guide to Building a Corporate Intranet takes you through several basic steps to simplify the process of ensuring the right content for all employee constituents and to ensure the success of your new intranet. To read Part 3 in Reworked, click here .
Getting out of your comfort zone and being the go to source for understanding your organization and the communications needs of ALL employees . . .
Getting started with a new corporate Intranet does not have to be daunting . . . After having knee surgery earlier this year, I was lying on my bed slightly in pain but bored out of my mind. So, I started thinking about the work that I have been doing helping some of the great companies in the U.S. reimagine their corporate intranets. I decided to put pen to paper (well, I started typing on my laptop), and within a week, I had written a 7,000 word piece covering all that one (communications professionals that is) needs to do to go about concepting, building and then launching a new intranet. I approached Reworked about what I had written. It was definitely too long for a single article, so we transformed it into a 5 part series. In Part I, I make the case for communications professionals (in partnership with IT) to be the ones to champion and spearhead an intranet project given their expertise in dealing with content -- and of course, an intranet is all about content right? I then offer thoughts on how to make the case for moving forward with this project given that so many current intranets are decades old and in need of modernization. To read Part 1 in Reworked, click here .
Who are Employee Communications Management (ECM) Platforms intended to help? First and foremost, communications professionals! Second and foremost, employees! Everyone's a winner. To read more about ECMs, read my latest article in Reworked by clicking here .
With all of the M&A transactions that have taken place over the past few years in the burgeoning ECA tech market and the hundreds of millions of dollars pouring in from the capital markets, the time has come for tech solution providers to focus on the communications professionals charged with putting these tools to work. Enter Employee Communications Management platforms. Just like their brothers and sisters in sales (customer relationship management - CRM) and human resources (human capital management - HCM), ECM platforms offer a holistic, rather than siloed, approach to helping communications pros by providng them with a multi-channel way to getting information to, engaging and communicating with their employees in the way or ways employees prefer. Read more in CMSWire about how the ECA tech market is evolving into the ECM tech market.
2021 was a momentous one for M&A transactions in the Employee Communications Applications (ECA) market. And it is likely to continue in 2022. Why not? There are a lot of employees in the world, interesting times in the labor market and many tech companies (some with purpose and some without) looking to take advantage of a pretty significant opportunity. Check out my most recent thoughts in CMSWire on what’s going on in the ECA market and the questions that Internal Communications professionals should be asking before making important software technology decisions. Want to discuss/debate? Email me a jcorbin@ecaconsultinggroup.com or IM me on LinkedIn .
Proud that CMSWire selected our article on the state of the Employee Communications Applications market as one of its top 10 of 2021. Stay tuned to what we predict for 2022 . . .
More big news in the communications tech industry last week with Dynamic Signal and SocialChorus announcing they were merging. Having been part of and following the burgeoning “employee communications applications (ECA)” market since the beginning, I was excited to see more activity in the area. At the same time, I scratched my head trying to figure out what this transaction means for internal communications professionals looking to use technology to be more effective and efficient in their work . . . Click here to read more of my thoughts on this transaction in CMSWire.