CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
A company’s product as such is no longer the chief media projecting its image. Count more today is the public posture of management, its concern for consumer welfare and its visible response to imperative social and economic needs. In short, management must concern itself as much with protection as it does with profit (Harold H. Margins: 1970).
Every aspect of business and industry is undergoing rapid change in terms of philosophy and technology and there is more rapidly changing function of corporate management to public attitudes and reaction. In the same vein, the corporate image of any organisation has to be steer to change to correspond in response to the demands of its ever changing business public, marketing them aggressively, paying fair wages to the employees, and even paying taxes, etc. is not just enough to maintain to competitive edge. There is now economic and social responsibility that faces every business.
Perhaps it would be necessary to ask; is there any need to engage in corporate image promotion? Does promotion have effect on the returns of an organisation? Are there right and wrong ways to project a corporate image? What is the place of employee motivation, communication, customer relations, social responsibility etc. in the whole role of image promotion programme?
Margins, H. Harold (1979.7) stated, “Mass merchandising, new method of advertising, increased competition, and government regulation have brought corporate reputations into public view and cause executive to seek more favourable reactions”. However, many hard headed business men do have an uneasy feeling that promoting the corporate image is little more than a perceived gesture of public good will. The critical importance of corporate image becomes apparent when consumers protest provokes, from large organization series of explanations and apologies for the faults they are accused companies must therefore give to finance. Marketing and research in the table of rapid, social and technological change. Other wise, it cannot expect the command public respect and support in the market place.
To live and grow, the command respect and regard, the corporate image must be more than a product of public relations. Therefore, corporate image promotion should not be left in the hands of the public relations men, but should be the responsibility of top management and every member of staff. This implies that the image programme should be part of the over all planning for the company’s future. No matter how impressive a firm’s achievements are, they must be properly presented in the public, for them to be acknowledged. Thus corporate planning is an integral part of policy decisions. For some companies, image programmes is part of board planning for greater sales and profits. This is one of the fundamental objectives of management and all its activities will be programmed to that end.
Staged that, “It is not an exaggeration to say that a good image is fundamental to the existence of any business enterprise. The concept of image is often considered to be an important determination of long term sales and profits. Therefore, it is reasonable to consider the use of image as an objective not only for an advertising programme but for marketing programme and an organization as a whole”. When a new product is introduced in the market, a respected corporate name often benefits from the unknown product. People are more likely to buy a new product if they know and like its manufacturer. Furthermore, the quality image of a company’s product may have considerable influence on the kind of new product the company can market successfully. They identified four types of resources available to companies, system resources and intangible resources.
Explaining the intangibles, Scholes and Klem observed that “many organization have significant strength in intangible assets such as, image or brand name. The value of intangible resources should not be under rated. Infact, in many service companies, these intangible can be the key asset of the company. Potential purchase of money for this “goodwill” underlying their real value. Finally, order to gain the support of its publics, the corporate image must show that management is progressing, mobile, open to innovation, fair to all and free of dogma and convention. Creating and promoting corporate personality efficiently is mainly communicating company’s objectives, beliefs, reputation and achievements to its public in order to gain their goodwill.
1.2 STATEMENT OF THE STUDY
Adequate emphasis have not been laid by firms in terms of promoting a favourable corporate image and this attitude has affected their performance in the market. More so, in the face of the prevailing stiff competition among firms.
The environment in which business operate is in constant change and it constitutes an important factor in that, it affects management decisions and actions. For any business, two types of environment exist. The operating environment, which may be classified with comprises economic, social, political cultural, government, technological, while internal forces comprises the top management employee, task forces and public environment which is made up of the firms several public.
For an organization to remain in business, it has to help to shape its environment because of the rapid change that the organisation’s operating environment undergoes.
Apart from the influence of the environment, the image of the firm is another factor that requires consideration. The type of image, which an organization projects is an important determinant of its long run existence and performance. There are strategies that have to be developed and adapted creatively to achieve organizational goals. From management’s point of view. Without a good image, an organization is not guaranteed of long life, the profit objective of the organization will not be achieved, the market share will be affected resulting to decreased sales volume, there will be employee dissatisfaction; co-ordination of work will be un-impressible and there by the organization will collapse.
The correction of the above management problems requires the application of the management’s functions of planning which involves selecting objectives and formulating strategies, policies programmes and procedures to achieve organization goals.