Know-How Exchange : Other

Be careful about using other companies, especially in other industries, to serve as benchmarks for how you structure your own communications department.

It's better if you start with your mission, or the business objective, to get at this. A company seeking aggressive growth, for example, might organize differently than one that's more mature and just seeking to maintain market share. And the needs may be different in different countries/continents, so don't rely too heavily on what others are doing unless you know exactly what their objectives and strategies are.

It would be helpful to understand the scope of what your company considers communications. Will you have a marketing communications function or are we talking strictly internal and external activities without any sales objectives?

If you don't have a marcom function, then the simplest way to divide the work is by internal vs external. Internal includes deliverables like employee newsletters, intranet, exec speeches, employee events, etc... External could include media, government, investor and industry relations. I have aerospace experience, and from what I have see, the vast majority of industry exec leaders see comms as something they begrudgingly support. They'd rather be putting their money elsewhere.

Regardless of what shape your department ultimately looks like, I would strongly recommend you develop quantifiable metrics that are as black/white as possible to demonstrate ROI. Link your activities to revenue targets on the external side, and cost-efficiency/reduction on the internal side. That will take some creativity and resources, but it is critical to lay the groundwork for success.