Corporate-sustainability-responsibility

Ford is doing a phenomenal job with their responsibility as a corporation for protecting the environment and working conditions. Here are some links below that will tach you everything you would want to know about corporate responsibility in regards Ford.

http://corporate.ford.com/about-ford/sustainability/corporate-sustainability

-Annual sustainability report

-youtube videos

-Public Face

Environmental and social

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iVfxX29af3Q

video talking about proper worker conditions and "conflict minerals" (John Viera)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GASMgViKgiE&NR=1

video talking about sustainable vision for Ford (John Viera)

reduce C02- ecoboost- technology- fuel economy

running on different typpes of fuels- electric values- not high volume until they can be made more affordable

Taking out weight in vehicles- so vehicles will use less fuel

Long term plan- Introducing Hydrogen and electric run vehicles

95% - vehicles get recycled ...perspective 50% of newspapers get recycled 30% of pop bottles

Ford learning from past Crisis

Ford has had a history of controversy and mistakes in the area of crisis Management that should not be taken lightly. In 1998-2002 Ford had a structural problem with the ford Explorer and the Firestone tires that it carried. Ford did an extraordinarily poor job of managing this crisis. The video below shows an outline of how ford handled the Ford Explorer and Firestone Tire incident that resulted in 250 deaths and over 300 injuries

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhFTw5QvyvY

(claymation video on Ford-Firestone debacle)

As you can see Ford chose to ignore the problem completely hoping that the issue would just go away on its own, even when the management team was aware of the problem and the potential damage that it could cause.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdxiglfVpKQ

(More serious video on Ford/Firestone debacle)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O3RywLAlCak&NR=1

(NBC Dateline special on Ford/Firestone debacle)

This is a prime example of what happens when you hide known facts that could hurt your company's reputation. Ford had the chance to correct the situation much earlier and could have prevented many deaths if they would have acknowledged their mistake. Besides saving lives Ford's reputation would not have taken such a bad hit from the bad press would not have been as severe had the company not insisted that they had done nothing wrong.

Hopefully other Corporations have learned from Ford's mistakes in the area of handling a crisis.

Ford's Global Relations

Ford's Global Relations concept is to maintain their reputation for helping people by providing affordable cars for all. Ford's Ceo Alan Mullaly was quoted at a Stanford Business school class as saying the corporation's main goal is, "opening up the highways to everyone around the world."

_ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIwz1KlKXP4

Ford's CEO talks to Stanford Undergrads about running a global Corporation

In recent years Ford has scaled back on quantity and has started to produce more quality cars. According to their company website Ford employs 164,000 workers and has 70 plants worldwide across six different continents.

With the Worldwide Web gaining ground in countries across the world the company's website is an important information source for many people outside of the country. Ford uses customized home pages in a large variety of languages to meet the demand from other countries.

Here is an example from Ford's Chinese site:

http://www.ford.com.cn/servlet/ContentServer?cid=1137384171424&pagename=Page&c=DFYPage&site=FCN

As you can see the website is customized for the people of China using their language. The design of the site is scaled back from the modern era so that it is easier for the Chinese to navigate through and become more informed about the Ford brand.

Ford does eye the Chinese market specifically as a place of enormous potential growth. It will be interesting to see how Ford will accommodate to the Chinese culture in order to sell more cars in the world's largest market.

The Ford Corporation hold itself to the highest standards when it comes to sustainability. A large focus of recent campaigns has been put into more fuel efficient, and hybrid model cars in an attempt to improve the world that we live in.

Ford- Investor Relations

Investor Relations are the foundation of a publicly traded company. Strong investor relations stem from great communication to your shareholders as well as to potential investors. The shareholders must be aware of ways that they can invest more money into the company as well as be aware of the company's performance.

The job of the investor relations specialist entails putting together the internal information that is relevant to shareholders. Things like financial results, SEC Filings, Proxy Statements, and Annual reports all fall under the umbrella of investor relations. The average investor may not care about anything outside of stock prices and dividends, but it is important to emphasize transparency between corporation and investor. In todays world financial news travels faster than ever before and it is important that the shareholders are aware of the internal operations of the corporation, the more that they know the better chance that they will hold their investment and maybe offer a larger contribution.

Ford Motors handles their investor relations by offering a wealth of information to shareholders, as well as potential investors from their website. http://corporate.ford.com/investors/investor-overview

Corporate transparency is the main goal when it comes to handling investors, and the tools to attain it include; weekly e-mail alerts about internal events, advertising campaigns, annual meetings, proxy details, sales announcements, financial results, and a weekly e-news (company news delivered by email). All the content is then organized on the website and available to interested potential investors as well as shareholders that may not want to be subscribed to the mailing list.

The company website takes an informative approach and offers press releases on sales forecasts, breaking news and future plans. The main goal of the information is to allow the potential investor to make an educated decision about their choice to invest in Ford. But to also allow the current shareholders to be able to access internal information that deals with their investment.

Ford's Community Relations

Shortly after Henry Ford began his enterprise in 1903, he said, "A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business." He was referring to the obligation of companies, not only to create good products for their customers, but also to share good works and goodwill. The Ford corporation has a high involvement within the community. Some examples of ways they are involved with the community include, scholarships for needy students, food drives,sponsoring sporting events, supporting environmental advocate groups, and safe driving programs.

Corporations benefit from their donations and charitable efforts through tax breaks and advertising. When a corporation has a strong relationship with the community their brand will be perceived more favorably by the consumers in the community.

The perception of the ford brand has changed a great deal over the last 10 years. The success of the organization is in part due to the way that Ford promotes and documents their community relations. As I pointed out in my last blog post the Ford Website (http://corporate.ford.com/about-ford/community) has full news stories available by region for reporters to cut and past to meet their last minute deadline. The Community section in particular is includes in depth stories, color pictures, and videos to ensure documentation ford's community involvement.I encourage you to checkout their website first hand because from a Public Relations standpoint, I appreciated the work that the employees put in to creating a fantastic page.

Community Relations demonstrates the soft side of the profit oriented corporation, and is a great way to control the message you want the public to receive. By being involved in community events people look at the corporation as having more empathy and understanding for their customers needs and wants. The different charities that corporations choose to represent are important for predicting where your brand is in the minds of consumers. Choosing the right events can lead to a favorable brand positioning as well as benefit charitable causes and society as a whole.

Ford and Media Relations

I don't think it is any surprise to say that Ford has an incredibly well developed system and team in place to take control of media relations. Ford is a company with a large financial backing that has a lot of employees that have come together to build one of the best media relations site on the web. Media-Ford offers a constant flow of current information available for reporters in AP style with contact information for any questions a reporter may have. Take a look on the link below

http://media.ford.com/ -

Extremley convenient for members of news media! Ford uses this website to post articles that are written internally on subjects such as the company's latest news, recent accomplishments, and future goals. The site also has biographies on hundreds of employees, and includes lists of PR contacts with email and phone numbers available for the media.

I don't think it is any surprise that Ford has such a well developed team that handles media relations. Ford is a company with a large financial backing that has paid a lot of professionals to come together to build one of the best media relations site on the web. on media-ford there is a constant flow of current information available for reporters in AP style with contact information for any questions a reporter may have.

Having an article database keeps the public aware and also makes for easy access for reporters looking for new information, that is conveniently typed up on one portal. Ford benefits from the boiler plates located at the bottom of each page, which with the number of articles posted on the site daily, serve as a link farm. Link farms are websites that have links for the sole purpose of increasing link popularity on another site. But having the extra links optimizes Ford's search engine ranking.

I also want to point out that because the site does serve a legitimate purpose, serving the media and public, it would not be considered unethical by Google. But the extra links do help!

Here is an example of the boiler plate used at the end of each article:

About Ford Motor Company
Ford Motor Company, a global automotive industry leader based in Dearborn, Mich., manufactures or distributes automobiles across six continents. With about 164,000 employees and about 70 plants worldwide, the company's automotive brands include Ford and Lincoln. The company provides financial services through Ford Motor Credit Company. For more information regarding Ford's products, please visit www.ford.com

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/41967147/ns/business-autos/--

A Breaking news story from March 8, 2011 from the associated press. Informing public on bonuses paid to ford's CEO Allan Mulally. Includes a quote from Ford spokesman answering a difficult question from a reporter.

Ford spokesman John Stoll said the awards were part of compensation packages from 2009 and 2010 that were disclosed in previous SEC filings. "We align executive compensation to company performance and long-term shareholder value," Stoll said.

This is an example where saying too much can only you get you in trouble. Whenever the general public hears about enormous bonuses the problem becomes that they cannot relate to the corporate pay scale and see high payouts as a negative. But, for a chief executive to make 33.4 million in just two years of work are a testament to Ford's turn around as an organization. John Stoll provided justification for the large bonus. but did not allow the reporters to twist his words, this is an example of a protective statement. Job well done for Ford.

Ford Social Media: communicating with customers

Ford is not interested in advertising on social media. " Were interested in getting on there and interacting with people" said Scott Monty on an interview on Fox business on Febuary 16, 2009. Scott Monty is the Social Media spokesman for Ford. Ford's goal in terms of social media is integrating their brand with their customers and learning about their likes and dislikes.

I started following @ScottMonty on twitter a couple weeks ago and have been impressed with the level of respect he commands in the world of Social Media. His twitter posts consist of anything from funny Charlie Sheen jokes to top news stories concerning social media, and the automotive industry. After searching around twitter for a corporate page I found that Ford does not have a general twitter page, but rather specific pages for customer service, ford racing, and flex fuel.

Scott Monty's personal blog/website: http://www.scottmonty.com/ contains Social media insights to what he refers to as a new era in marketing. I found it interesting to browse around on his blog and have been checking it on a daily basis. I have found that he updates it frequently. The page is not static and he posts original material, that i don't find on other blogs that i keep up with. Monty has branded himself as an honest spokesman trying tell the "ford story" on whatever medium he can.

The mindset of the Ford corporation in regards to social media can be defined as a way to increase two way communication between the corporation and its customers. In the era of social networking, each user has a voice to reach other people. So it is that much more important to value the voice of every customer. After a good interaction with a customer they can pass on thier positive experience through facebook, twitter or blogs and have the potential to reach many others. It serves Ford and other corporations well to be available for their customers and that way the customers can better serve them.

A great example of a successful social media campaign is the previous presidential election. In a quick summary: Barack Obama used Facebook groups, flicker, and twitter to organize his following and have his supporters do the advertising and the campaigning for him. Candidate Mccains approach was to get big money corporate donations to fund his advertising. Obama used smaller donations from many people on a web based format that made it easier for his supporters to support him and get to the voting polls.

More next week....