Why Pfizer closure is blow to Kent
Comments |
by
Charlie Vavasour
The news that Pfizer is shutting down its Sandwich operation is
devastating for the 2,400 who work there, and also for the wider
east Kent economy.
This is news that will impact on the lives of many thousands of
people in east Kent and further afield, and yet the communications
surrounding the announcement appeared surprisingly unplanned and
unclear.
As the news was breaking, there were many rumours flying around
which the media wanted to report on, but no clear message from
Pfizer.
Television news reports featuring reporters outside the gates of
the facility interviewing staff as they came and went from work was
a clear indication that there was an information vacuum.
News packages were being put together based on rumour and
individuals' opinions about what was happening, with no official
steer.
Central government, local authorities and Pfizer employees knew
something was happening but had no detail, and the company was
keeping silent.
From Pfizer's point of view it was a difficult, controversial
announcement. Always in these cases the worst thing that can happen
is workers learn about impending redundancy from a news report,
before hearing it officially from the company. It looks as though
Pfizer was, correctly, being very mindful of this.
However, careful media management can ensure that staff,
stakeholders and the wider media can be informed very quickly one
after the other, without leaving an information vacuum as Pfizer
did, with no one acting as spokesperson to the wider world on the
day of the announcement.
The announcement should have been planned like a military
operation, but it appears that Pfizer didn't manage to reconcile
all the individual parts of the plan.
But does it really matter? Pfizer is the world's largest
pharmaceuticals company, and it operates in a global economy, and
needs to make decisions on a global scale. This is all understood.
If its reputation in east Kent takes a bit of a battering it is not
going to impact on its sales and profitability. Ultimately, people
will not stop buying Viagra because of the way the company handled
its announcement.
But there is another element here that is rapidly disappearing
from our commercial sector - corporate responsibility. Starting
with Quakers such as Joseph Rowntree more than 100 years ago,
companies began to see that they had a responsibility to
society.
They couldn't operate without society (schools to educate its
workers, roads for them to get to work, a police force to maintain
law and order), and so felt a responsibility to engage with and
support "society". Unfortunately this element of commercial
operations seems to have gone from the mindset of companies large
and small.
Perhaps it's now time for companies to, once again, start
understanding their interaction with society and not focus so much
on the profit margin.
Pfizer should have got its communications right, put forward a
spokesperson to explain the announcement - and give it a human face
- and thank east Kent for everything it had done to make the
company a success.
This proactive approach would have made the negative
announcement slightly more palatable and would have protected the
large amounts of goodwill that Pfizer has built up in the area over
the years it has been operating.
This can't be classified as a PR disaster, but it's a long way
from best practice and could have been managed much more
effectively.
- Charlie Vavasour is managing director of Quantum Public
Relations in Ashford. Tel: 01233 500200.
Tuesday, March 08 2011
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