Background and challenge
Vodafone is the world's leading mobile telecommunications company and over the past five years, it has built an extensive range of channels to support its global strategy communication. Some of these directly target staff around the world whilst others support local market communication. As the company embarks upon the next phase of its development, it wanted to understand more about the impact of its communication and the effectiveness of its channels so asked Ibis to conduct a comprehensive review.
Approach
We gathered insight from two sources: a quantitative online survey in the majority of Vodafone's 20+ markets supported by a series of interviews and focus groups in 6 markets. The sample in both cases was drawn from people right across the business and at all levels.
The online survey asked people to respond to a series of statements about the company's vision and priorities and then sought views on the use, appeal, value and performance of each communication channel. The qualitative discussions that followed then explored these responses in greater detail to build a comprehensive view of current opinion.
The fieldwork took a total of 6 weeks to complete after which we analysed the findings and presented back to a range of stakeholder groups.
Results
As with all our research, our priority is to provide clear and actionable recommendations for moving forward. Here, this included both tactical guidance for improving the performance of specific channels and strategic advice around improving the overall scope and role of Group internal communication within Vodafone. The research findings and recommendations formed the basis of the recently-approved three year communication strategy.
