Issues Management - Align organizational activities and stakeholder expectations

Issues Management Align organizational activities and stakeholder expectations “An issue ignored is a crisis invited” - Henry Kissinger Issue Management is in the hands of Today stakeholders mainly communicate management: over the web, individuals discuss products, issues, companies and so forth; thereby Topics become Issues, if they signify- creating public awareness and community cantly affect the corporate interests. content. Identifying, assessing and managing For business decisions this information can risks and opportunities is one of the key only be used if it is available in a structured strategic functions of a company. form. Issue Management is the strategic approach to corporate governance, to Esther Baur protect and develop the company and Swiss Re Group brand value through systematic obser- Communications vation of the company’s environment. “The NETBREEZE Issues Management When Topics convert to Issues and System allows us to monitor the Issues convert to risks. discussion of relevant topics and the share of voice of major industry Especially managers in the areas of players to steer our top topic business development and corporate communications.” communication need to detect at an early stage which topics could become an issue and may possibly build up to a risk. The NETBREEZE Issues Management Possible Issues and Stakeholders hence System (IMS) must be identified, observed, prioritised, The IMS automatically detects relevant analysed and communicated internally. information in all available sources and Therefore it is necessary that all automatically evaluates them in respect to available sources of information are an existing topic list. The IMS can also constantly and effectively monitored. identify emerging issues, recognise critical The internet nowadays offers the best stakeholders and give estimations about opportunities: online news (about 700 in development trends – all of this in relation Switzerland), the websites of all to one’s own company, the competitors or organisations, competitors, NGOs and the entire industry. interactive channels such as blogs, This gives the company the necessary basis forums and social networks permit for decision-making to adapt and automatic surveillance. Print news reorganise the corporate activities and (Argus), TV and radio stations can be corporate communication. further integrated. Netbreeze GmbH | Fon: +41 44 824 32 70 | sales@netbreeze.ch | www.netbreeze.ch | 14.4.2009 | Page 1 of 5 The NETBREEZE Issues Management Gregor Schmid, System IMS answers the following Head of Communications questions: Swissgrid How can we recognise early which of our topics develop into issues and thus become a risk? “Energy suppliers are under close scrutiny of politics, media and What options do we have to observe consumers. Thanks to NETBREEZE we the response of our stakeholders as are able to monitor and to measure closely as possible? the intensity as well as the sentiment What are our competitors of the public discussion.” undertaking in terms of a particular issue within the industry? Different options are available for How big is the influence of public further evaluation and processing of opinion leaders in relation to the the results: further development of an issue?  Analysis tool for a detailed analysis Which interest groups such as NGOs of existing data and the creation of are involved in the debate and charts and graphs. through which media channels do  The Free search function identifies they exert their influence? emerging issues. Which new issues emerge in the  The Report Generator creates a discussions among our customers? PDF report containing your analyses What topics are associated with our and graphs. company that may become an issue for us?  The Dashboard displays a continuously updated overview of How is the political debate in regard your most important analytical to our critical issues? results, charts, reports, news, etc. The Dashboard can also be integrated in the company’s intranet How does the NETBREEZE Issues and website. Management System IMS operate? Our consultants help your company to define the most important topics for the Main benefits: research. Furthermore, relevant data IMS enables you to monitor thousands of sources are chosen such as online news, information sources, respectively those blogs and forums, special and relevant to the company. professional websites as well as internal databases. IMS includes the new media. Additionally, your company defines the IMS enables the company to recognise at a languages and countries for searching very early stage whether and how the and analysing documents. NETBREEZE expectations of various interest groups can possesses the know-how to analyse be met. documents in up to 24 languages, By analysing patterns of discussion and key including languages written with Latin, words IMS will independently find new Arabic, Chinese and Cyrillic characters. topics, which were not in the company’s One of NETBREEZE’s core competences focus before. is the semantic text analysis, which gives IMS serves as evidence: IMS underpins the users a reflection of the opinions statements and conclusions of expressed in these documents. communication experts with clear facts. IMS helps you to prioritise the issues and to draw the firm’s attention to the top issues. Netbreeze GmbH | Fon: +41 44 824 32 70 | sales@netbreeze.ch | www.netbreeze.ch | 14.4.2009 | Page 2 of 5 Application scenario in the energy sector Many negative messages Negative Sentiment History are hit in the 5th month due to a certain event. with negative sentiment We notice a much higher Number of documents and broader peak for Company 1.