Describe how investor relations impact your work environment. Has the recession forced any changes?

The source of a company's fund can be creditors which are the banks or the investors who are the stockholders in the firm. The funds borrowed from creditors is termed as a debt and is a liability to the company whereas the investors money is accounted as the stockholders equity and company has a smaller liability towards the investors which makes investors very important for a firm.

It is natural that when an investor invests in a firm he expects a good return for his investments and hence it is the duty of the firm to enhance the stockholders' value. But sometimes when the company is not in a good shape or a new comer it is very difficult to attract and retain investors and to fulfill this goal it needs to have a healthy relation with its investors and hence investor relations come into play.

A deterioration in investor relationship could jeopardize a company's stability and its stock position. A company would lose its current investors and would fail to attract new investors and this could sink the stock prices of the company and make its future dull.

In order to retain investor relation the company should communicate with its investors effectively through media like websites, annual reports etc. A company should update its investors about its new innovations, projects and investments.

Describe how investor relations impact your work environment. Has the recession forced any changes?

 Investors relations are basically two way communication between a company, financial community and other constituencies. To ensure that constituents are secure with their investment, a company has to maintain a strong and healthy relationship with them. When someone invests in any firm, they want to know what their return will be on the investment. A firm has to communicate its strategies for reaching its goals with all its investors. Providing the proper information to them is just one aspect. Performance and company image are very important also, being a socially responsible corporation would attract more investors. When a company performs at top level, investors recognize it and are intrigued by it. They want to know that investing in your firm would be the best option for them if they want to make money. Making the price of your stocks reasonable also attracts investors. This allows them to purchase more shares, and again attracts more people.

There are numerous companies who make it top priority to build strong,lasting relationships with their investors. I visited the Apple webpage, where they had a page specifically for their investors. They have all of their stock prices along with recent news from within the company that investors would find interesting. This is Apple's way of acquiring investors and keeping them. They are making a conscious effort toward keeping strong relationships with investors. It's a strategic way to their company and seems to be working out well for them.

https://www.apple.com/investor/

Chapter 8-Investor relations in Chili's grill and gar restaurant, Brinker International Inc.

Chili’s grill and bar restaurant, under the Brinker International Inc. which is one of the world’s leading casual dining restaurant companies. With more than 1,700 restaurants and over 125,000 team members in 27 countries and two territories, Brinker and its brands welcome more than one million guests into the restaurants every day.

As one of the biggest restaurant company, Brinker build complete network with investors. If you check their website, you can see the annual financial reports from 2001 to 2010. They know how to use advantage of internet to build IR program. There is the website which Brinker International, Inc. builds for IR:
http://phx.corporate-ir.net/phoenix.zhtml?c=119205&p=irol-irhome

The following chart is Brinker’s everyday stock performance shows on their website for all the investors and stockholder to easily get the latest update financial performance.




I was really surprised and happy to see how Brinker International Inc. build such completely IR grogram. Let all shareholders to know details of their annual performance.







Reference
http://www.brinker.com/company/default.asp

Investor Relations impact companies

Investor relations play an important role in a company now. It can affect a company’s operation activities and be a kind of channel that companies can use it to communicate with shareholders and investors. Companies have a department which provides accurate financial information and value to investors to help them with making buy or sell decisions. Building a good relationship with investors is also a good way to increase the stock value and company’s image. As the result, in most medium and large companies, building a good relationship with company’s investor is very important.

There are many different ways to build a good relationship with investors. I believe build a complete website for investors can provide investors understand a company more quickly and easier. It is an efficiency way to build good relationship with its investors and also can attract some other people who may be interested in this company.

This is Microsoft investor relation website. This website provides completed recent information about Microsoft, including financial reports, company’s events, and company information etc.

When I worked in the Globe Industries Corporation, a specialized adhesive tapes manufacturer in Taiwan, the shareholders and investors were very powerful in our company. Actually, we didn’t build a completed channel for our investors to understand our company.

We didn’t build a website just for our investors and any other channels to communicate with them, so we met a problem when we want to set a new plant in Zhu Hai which located in China. We need more money for investing in China. Unfortunately, we met the Financial Tsunami. Most of investors didn’t want to invest more money because they worried about the economy recession and they didn’t trust. As the result, our investor relation department tried to let our investors believe their investment is valuable. It is very difficult and waste much time and money to build trust with our investors.

reference:

http://www.microsoft.com/investor/default.aspx

http://www.globetape.com/tw/company.html

Describe how investor relations impact your work environment. Has the recession forced any changes relating to investor relations at your company?

As a matter of fact, investor relations is managed by the public relations or corporate communications department. That is to say, investor relations must be conscious of current issues because it works closely with the business law and regulatory matters that influence shareholders. MAZDA, for example, provides some informetion relating to investor relations on its website, not only concentrates on Stock and Bond information or Financial Data, but also offers some news about Social and Environment Reports. That means MAZDA emphasizes that Corporate Social Responsibility is also an important part of the entire company. In other words, good reputation results in value add to an organization. In sum, maintaining well contact with investors and concern with the real society is critical to investor relations of a company.


Reference:
Retrieved from http://www.mazda.com/

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

"The pen is mightier than the sword" - Edward Bulwer-Lytton

The quote signifies the importance of journalism and media in the 21st century. Media can cause companies to shut down. It can also help transfer minnows into giants. It can affect the decision of a customer who is going to choose a product from all the options available to him or her.

Media can even change a voter's mind and hence can affect the world politics.

Media is basically a medium of communicating. It can be in the form of news in newspaper, on radio, televisions or internet. Media also includes social networking sites which involve participation of all the members. Celebrities and top executives of multinationals have their blogs which they use officially or unofficially to interact with the world in order to keep their fans and followers aware of the truth and away from rumors about them. As far as work place is concerned various media is used to communicate globally spread businesses and to reduce the geographical distance. External media can also affect a firm by helping the firm gain or lose employees and customers.

Nike was severely criticized in media due to the sweat shops it partners ran in Asia and eventually it faced a boycott by many loyal customer.

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

In the 21st century, media has become very powerful. It is the medium through which we get to know the happenings of the world. Media can remove the curtains to show the world the truth. Also media brings front the injustice done to people. Every company has to have positive relations with the media in oder to market there brand name , image and reputation. Media plays a big role in bringing new customers and retaining the old ones. New releases and new products can be marketed very well to the customers if the company has good relations with the media. Media can be of many type, television and radio where in existence since long but now social networking (  facebook and twitter) are becoming as important as others. 

Well I worked for Met life for a while and we used both the newspaper and television media for advertising both our existing and new products. Nowadays we have created a Facebook page and have more than 12000 members joined to it.  

http://azstarnet.com/business/local/article_1eae8a8e-728f-5223-b05c-5a2a5f96dd43.html

How do you see Media Relations used in your work environment?

There are countless examples of businesses getting widely discussed in the media. From the very bad; the decision to cut health care for employees or a class action discrimination lawsuit being filed, to the very good; charitable contributions or building a community center in an inner city neighborhood, actions are going to be discussed on much more than a local level. Regardless of what an organization does, it will have ramifications in the media. That is why it is essential to have good media relations. PNC Bank makes use of all forms of media. For example, when National City was consolidated with PNC, many consumers were concerned. National City customers were worried that programs and accounts that they had been using for years would no longer be accessible at PNC and they feared that they would simply be expected to open new accounts. PNC made sure to get the word out via various media sources that this would not be the case. This was also apparent during the banking bailout when PNC was able to inform its customers that they did not receive any bailout money nor did they ask for any. It is important to be able to get information out as quickly as possible and if you have a good relationship with the media, you can help assure that this happens.

The importance of Media Relationship in Department Store

Media play an important role in business, especially in service industry. Service industry use media, such as internet, newspaper, and TV, to spread all information about their service quality and activities to customers. When I worked in department store, SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI, media was an important tool which could let our customers know when we have discount and what kind of discount they have. Most of customers get our promotion information from Newspapers and internet, and then they will come to visit department store because of our promotion.
Actually, building relationship with media is not very easy. There is too much complex factors effect media environment. For example, before having special activities, we need to invite the reporters to know our activities and we have to let them feel this activity is special. They will report your activities and directly impact customers’ impression. That’s the reason why the service industry always spends much time and money building good relationship with mass media.

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

As my experiences, I see Chili’s doing good job and effort to establish media strategy and promote themselves. They know how to combine the most popular internet programs together. They put the link—facebook, twitters, youtube…etc on the official website and let people share links to friends. They are really wise to collect fans.

If you notice the right side under corner of the website, you would found they even have their own “Chili’s Radio”. As Chili’s fan, I’d happy to listen the radio when I get online. Actually, I was listening to the radio when I was typing this blog.

As you can see, they have already have 480,548 fans in chili’s facebook, almost 1,1000 twitter followers. Chili’s reply peoples’ common very often or announce the latest promotion in time. These are good platforms for fans and chili’s managers to multicommunicate with each other.

How do you see media relations used in your work environment?

Media is like supervisors that responsible to communicate information between companies and people. In other words, when a corporation announces some information, not only good news but also bad one, to media and then media disseminate news to people. I could give an example for the relationship between media and companies. If an organization is devoted to philanthropies, the news will be report by media, such as newspapers, magazinges, even internet. Consequently, people will give positive appreciation of the organization. On the contrary, when a company does some illegal acts and affect its image, it will also be proclaim through media and bring negative effect to the company. In sum, media could be companies' friends, but they also could be companies' enemies that just be decided by what the companies do and impact to the society, better or worse. Therefore, organizations should attempt to develop relationships with media because it has huge influence for organizations.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate responsibility is gaining more importance than ever before in the corporate world. The main reason being that the people are becoming aware and conscious about the conditions of people in other countries due to globalization. Today the common man is much concerned about how the products bought by him are produced. He also sees firms that contribute something to the society as the good guys. The term "Greed is good" is seen as the words spoken by the bad guys.

Corporate responsibility is taken seriously by all the corporations today. Every firms tries its best to benefit the society by donations, purchasing policies that involves buying products that are involved with inhuman practices, making schools and hospitals. Some companies are adopting practices to help the environment.

Sometimes the top management may face critical situations where the profits of the companies have to be sacrificed for the sake of corporate responsibility. If they chose not to cut profits and continue their traditional practices they may face protests from activists, media and common man and eventually their products could face a mass boycott.

Hence corporate responsibility may seem like a loss in near time, it will eventually help building the reputation of the firm and help the firm in the long run.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Each company has its own set of core values, but the company’s values also touch everyone that the business deals with. Early, a company’s corporate responsibility was dictated by its government. There were set laws that had to be adhered to regarding financial and social responsibility, wherein today companies have realized the importance of CR and they know how customers and other socio groups  are keeping an eye on them. In its most basic terms, corporate responsibility can come down to the ethics of a business . Companies have to take in account the environment and the surroundings in which they do business.

A prime example of corporate responsibility is the situation that happened recently in the Gulf of Mexico with the British Petroleum oil spill. Whether or not the response was up to the task of the natural disaster is subjective but there is no doubt that BP undertook an extensive public relations campaign in an effort to demonstrate corporate responsibility.I do not think the general public would tolerate a global corporation not paying for and diligently fixing any kind of problems they have caused.

         

 Whats BP socio responsibilty?

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate responsibility is not a new issue, however, it has become increasingly evident in today's marketplace. You see many different companies touting their sustainability or environmentally friendly policies. This is a testament to the changing values of our society, smart businesses are making changes that are popular with the community at large. The best example I can give personally is when I worked for PNC Bank. PNC has an enormous environmental program dedicated to going green. Dozens of PNC branches have been converted into green buildings, in fact, PNC has more green buildings certified by the U.S. Green Building Council than any other company worldwide. These branches reduce wastefulness by using power saving features, recycled products, etc. They have even copyrighted the term Green Branch. This is just one of the aspects of their CR programs, others include the Grow Up Great program, the PNC Foundation, and many others. These programs have firmly cemented PNC in the communities in which they are located. Customers know that PNC is dedicated to their community and this is often listed as a reason for why they choose to bank with PNC.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate responsibility has deep connection with corporate reputation. For instant, few months ago, because of industrial development, Formosa Petrochemical Corporation (FPCC) had brought some environmental pollution. The most important, it also decreased local living quality and caused residents' health problem. Due to this event, FPCC's reputation influenced result from it lack of corporate responsibility. In other words, FPCC didn't be a good model of society to people. In my opinion, I consider that if FPCC could not only focus on its development, but also prevent environmental pollution, it will improve corporate reputation and increase its empolyees' loyalty. In sum, a better corporate responsibility strategy not only could earn more profit to company, but also, the more important, it could attract more and more customers and retain excellent empolyees in company.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation?

The essential role employees play as brand ambassador for corporation. Foxconn is subsidiary company of Hon Hai. The news in this spring, it showed that Foxconn’s employees suicide in its dorm in China. Some medium reported that Foxconn didn’t have good welfare of personnel and that its employees always work overtime. Because of those reports in Asia, Foxconn’s stock price falls next day and some customers had bad image with this company. Moreover, Foxconn is the OEM of Apple Corporation. Apple required Foxconn provide its salary statement and the welfare of Foxconn.
Hon Hai’s president, Terry Gou, tried to fix its company’s reputation. He gave his employees better salaries and provided them more promotional opportunities. These events impacted Foxconn to respect for the corporation responsibility and improve its welfare of personnel. Also, Foxconn adjusted some policies in company to balance its employees and managers relationship for building better reputation in the OEM industry.

How do you see the impact of corporate responsibility on corporate reputation in your work environment?

Corporate Responsibility is not only to increase corporate profit but to build trust with products quality and customer service. I got some experiences when I worked in Chili’s grill and bar restaurant.

First of all, the HACCP is the most basic standard for all the restaurants that is to insure the food quality if above the standard of safety and sanitary. People now much emphasize the healthy food and care about the ingredients of the food. Chili’s menu always shows calories aside the dish names, listing ingredients below and provide diet menu which with lower calories and fat. Besides, Chili’s training their employees to remind customer the food with milk, egg or seafood might get allergic for preventing from it happen. This behavior helps them to enhance the service quality.

In addition, food waste has been one of the biggest issues for food industry. Chiefs cut down unwanted part and that would otherwise been thrown away. Or restaurants getting too much food materials in stock thus can’t completely consume them. Chili’s also have the same problem but they find a way to solve. For example, Chili’s provide employees free meal. The meal comes with some materials like corn which used to be sides of steak. It’s really a good approach to consume these extra foods and reduce cost.

More and more investors are now evaluating CSR in deciding what companies get their money. Chili’s excel in CSR, bring investors and customers both positive impression and reputations of its restaurant. They gain more profit and let investors willing to put their money in the company from the positive reputation and CSR.

How do you see Identity, Image, and Reputation used in your work environment?

Identity, Image and Reputation are important aspects for the employees as well as the employers. These three characteristics are important for the company in order to attract valuable clients and also to attract talented and skilled employees. Identity tells the people what you are and what you exactly do. Image is picture that people have developed about you and reputation is the estimation or favorable value about one in people's mind.

There are plenty of firms in the market which have not earned of these three characteristics. They have difficulty in attracting talented employees as well as good clients. I use to work with Sapient Corporation. The company was a favorite for graduating students in my college. It had been winning "the best places to work for" title for years. When I joined the company I learned that it did business with some of the best companies. In spite of being smaller than the major software players, it still attracted skilled programmers. Thus its identity, image and reputation helped it compete with the giants.

While working, I realized that these three characteristics played an important role for my progress. During the training I developed identity amongst my colleagues and when I began the project and started helping others, my image and reputation in the team improved, and it helped me get a promotion.

How do you see Identity, Image, and Reputation used in your work environment?

Regardless of whether you work in a small Mom and Pop corner store or a huge multinational conglomerate, your organization is going to have to figure out what it wants to be and how it wants others to see it, after all, business is based on how the world sees you. I’ve worked in a few different industries thus far in my career and the best example I can provide for this question is when I was working at a restaurant and bar. This is a perfect example of how rushing into things without taking the time to really know what you want to be can be harmful. The organization was new; it had just been built and staffed, so it was just starting to create its culture. The owners’ vision for the place was a little confused; they wanted both a good old country bar and at the same time an upscale environment for their wealthier customers. These ideas didn’t really mesh well together and it was a little difficult for people to understand what the place was going for. The identity was clearly aimed at the country bar theme, with the uniforms, menus, decorations, we even had a mechanical bull. However, the upstairs section of the bar was upscale, with private booths and VIP seating, etc. Unfortunately, due to the confusion in what they were going for, the owners didn’t follow through completely one way or the other. Sticking with their upscale idea, prices were high, we didn’t have the more common drinks that people were looking for, cover charges were too high, etc., both upstairs and downstairs. This all caused the place to develop a poor reputation in the community and business took a definite hit. After a few months of revamping, business finally started to turn around, however it never developed as well as it could have if it had started strong from the beginning. If the owners and management had taken the time to really consider the importance of establishing their identity, this problem could have been avoided.

How do you see identity, image, and reputation used in your work evnironment?

I worked in Chili’s Grill and Bar restaurant in Taiwan few years ago. According to my experiences, the following are what I saw when I worked there.


1. Identity: Chili’s identity their brand as passion, happy and fun. For customers, whenever people see red pepper reminds Chili’s restaurant. For employees, Chili’s give “Chili Head” as the group name of employees. There is a motto for employees- “Chili Head take their job seriously but not themselves.

2. Imagine: Whenever you go to the restaurant or see the TV advertisement, the symbol- red chili always come with them. Chili’s company is about to convey the symbol through passion, happy Moreover, identity their food as American and Mexican style. Since the symbol is hot pepper which convey customers through inaccurate imagine of the restaurant, many customers though the food are spicy. One of the interesting things I met when I was working at front desk. I often got customers making phone calls and asking whether most of the food here is spicy.

3. Reputation: Since1997, Chili’s start support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital®, helping children who with cancer. Every year, Chili’s has one-day event to donate 100% one-day benefit to the hospital and also encourage people to donate.

How do you see identity, image, and reputation used in your work environment?

Identity, image, and reputation are important for each organization. Identity is the first message that firm wants to communicate to people. For instant, Leader Management Consulting Corporation, a Taiwanese marketing research company. The symbol of "LEADER" is a simple logo that clients feel easy to remember and it's a good name those employees could encourge each other-"We are the LEADER!"

Image is customers' initial impression on the company. That is, "What you think when you see it!"LEADER is a good name that people could associate with "the top, the first, and the best."

Reputation is like a long-term investment. "LEADER" could get a good reputation because it always tries to do the best for its clients. In other words, if many customers were commissioned LEADER to do market research in the same period, LEADER choose fewer cases and concentrate on more details rather than handle much cases in the same time. Maintain the good reputation, not only regular customers, but also new customers will believe that LEADER is a reliable company.

How do you see identity, image, and reputation used in your work environment?

I had a part time job in the SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI, a big department store in Taiwan. When customers see its logo, they willassociate with high quality department store. (SKM, 2008)
When I was employee, I was required that regard customers as priority. Before department store opening, all employees need to do gymnastics and say “Welcome” to prepare to serve customers. Moreover, we need to dress uniform and keep smiling when we are working. SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI builds an image that it is friendly shopping environment and it can satisfy all customers’ needs. In addition, SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI supports some charitable organizations to do some activity for public welfare. Through its promotion, SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI not only helps the public also earns positive image.

SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI builds its department store to a scale shopping district. In Taipei, the capital of Taiwan, most of people will go to SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI when they want shopping or relax. It is not only a shopping center but also an entertainment center. SHIN KONG MITSUKOSHI provides high quality services and goods and the best shopping environment for customers.

Reference:

SKM, (2008), Retrieved from

http://www.skm.com.tw/eng/index.html

How do you see identity, image, and reputation used in your work environment?

In today’s competitive environment corporate image or identity is one of the biggest concerns of the companies. Customers have become choosey and are loyal to those companies which have unique identity and clean image.  Identity is who you really are and image is how much of that reality people know. A company’s reputation can be established in the public’s eyes by the corporate responsible actions of the company. For an individual also image and identity is as important as for a company. I just saw this movie Eat love and pray which had this quote “That’s what you do, that isn’t who you are.”
I was a Sales Manager at Metlife insurance. In order to sell insurance one must have a clean image so that people trust you blindly. As I was new to this industry I dint have my identity in the market. So first thing was I had to create my identity so that people knew who I was and could have faith on me and my team members.
Reputation and image plays a big role in my industry.