Corporate / Public Affairs

Corporate affairs is a strategic function that enables growth and performance.

In a world that is increasingly disruptive, inter-connected and dominated by 24 hour news cycles, corporate affairs plays a critical role in managing your organisation’s brand, profile and reputation.

It does so by developing and managing relationships with stakeholders, scanning the horizon for issues and managing them if they arise, managing risk, preparing for crisis and taking steps to avoid it if possible. It identifies and promotes your purpose and values, supports good governance, roots out poor procedure, practice and behaviour, problems with culture and leadership, strategic failure. It ‘brings the outside in’, ensuring that stakeholders’ perceptions are at the heart of strategy and practice.

Corporate affairs is a broad specialism which covers a broad range of skills, not limited to external/internal communications, media relations, government relations, policy development, campaigns, copywriting and editing, PR and crisis communications.

Deciding whether you use the term ‘corporate affairs’ or ‘public affairs’ depends entirely on what your organisation needs, the challenges you face and your available budget. But whichever term you prefer, the function should provide you with a single, credible, authoritative voice and align efforts to support you in all your activities with stakeholders.

The age of ESG (environmental, social, governance) sustainability has highlighted the strategic importance that corporate affairs can play in maximizing reputational value and enabling organisational growth and performance. How an organisation engages with stakeholders and manages its socio-economic impact is an essential part of its brand narrative, and dictates its continuing freedom to operate.

Marland Sykes has decades of experience in corporate/public affairs and can support you with any aspect you require. We’ve worked with FTSE 100 and 250 companies, membership organisations, trade associations, charities and campaign groups across multiple industries, ranging from FMCG consumer to food and drink, medical/pharmaceutical, health, transport and professional services.

 

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““Aligning business strategy with stakeholders’ perceptions is essential for shaping a good business, managing reputation and mitigating against crisis.””