Week 10

Since Chapter 7 has already been discussed on my blog this week I am going to look directly at Chapter 8: Tactics. This is helpful since it is also my debate topic. Firstly, I wish to reiterate a strategy is an overarching plan allowing organisational goals and objectives to be achieved . A tactic is any means of achieving this strategic outcome. There are two types of tactics, controlled and uncontrolled. Controlled means the practitioner has power from the start to the very end of the process, such as advertising. Uncontrolled tactics are anything that can be altered or blocked completely such as media relations. Tactics can be dispersed through the mail, fax, news distribution agencies, email, CD Rom, couriers, videos, video-conferencing, personal delivery and websites. When deciding which to use the important factors are economics, dynamics, target audience and whether it will actually reach its destination. For example if I have an important notice about contaminated chocolate bars it would probably be more effective for me to send direct emails to papers and video footage with press kits to television stations rather than fax press releases through. The press releases might get lost in the copious amounts of paper sent to media outlets everyday and also the instantaneous nature of email will mean the urgency of the message will be understood. Finally, there are numerous tactics so I am only going to go into two in detail. The annual report is a credible method for achieving a strategy. It records ad highlights the challenges experienced by an organisation and gives financial details. It is constantly updated and is useful for 6months to a year. It is a legal document giving it great credibility and it can be easily distributed. The only negative is it can not be immediately given to the public because of the amount of information and jargon. Another effective tactic is the newsletter. This is useful especially for internal publics. it is a form of on-going communication building a good rapport with its readers. It is also cost effective, however often it is only suitable for a very specific target audience. These are just two tactics within a vast landscape of strategic tools.