Business Case Studies & Business Publications

Digital Internal Communications: How Org...

West, June A., Gib...

Technical Note

Digital Internal Communications: How Organizations Can Stay Connected Within

West, June A.; Gibbs, Shea

BC-0274 | Published November 3, 2020 | 14 pages Technical Note

Collection: Darden School of Business

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External corporate communications and the rapidly changing ways in which companies engage with their customers received a lot of attention between 2010 and 2020. With social media, online chats, blogs, vlogs, and much more, consumers gained unprecedented access to corporate decision-makers, celebrity spokespeople, endorsement-driven athletes—even the US president. Internal communications, through which companies engage with their employees and inside stakeholders, changed just as quickly for organizations undergoing digital transformations during the same period—without receiving due attention. By mid-2020, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) had made effective internal corporate communications even more essential. The virus shuttered the physical locations of many businesses, requiring huge swaths of corporate staff to work from home. As a result, employees became increasingly reliant on web-based tools—such as virtual meeting applications, email, Facebook, and Twitter—to collaborate, complete projects, stay in the loop on company developments, and simply keep in touch. This note explores the digital media and internal communications tools being used by firms worldwide, presents the importance of these tools, and gives examples from leading companies that are using information and communications technology.