Tuesday, August 3rd, 2010

  9:00 am – 12:30 pm
Venue: ISB&M Auditorium, Kolkata

Speaker: MR. PRADEEP GOGTE

Mr. Pradeep Gogte has worked for 27 years in Godrej & Boyce, Tata Power Co, Johnson & Johnson, Skypad Couriers, Wartsila Diesel and Infomedia 18, managing diverse assignments in Human Resourses, Personnel and Administration such as manpower planning and recruitment, design and conduct of management development training modules, performance management systems, development and management of diverse related policies and industrial relations.

Also worked for about 6 years with high-profile B-school like the Indian School of Business (ISB), Hyderabad, and the S P Jain center of Management, Dubai-Singapore, with responsibility for admissions, placements, faculty hiring, supervising HR processes and as HR faculty.

This morning we had a session from Mr. Pradeep Gogte. The topic was Current Perspective on PR. He initiated by a small introduction about himself. 

He informed us on the different agendas of Public Relations, empahsising on what is PR. PR communicates to create, maintain and enhance client’s goodwill and image. We need to communicate through print, television, newswires, social networks etc. The different clients with whom we have to communicate i.e, the investors, suppliers, employees, society etc. were identified.

A PR Campaign includes client interactions, defining objectives, research work before or during the campaign, types of campaign, audience, message and medium and finally timing. Communicating with audience’s expectations is necessary. The different functions of a PR staff are to manage crisis, understanding client’s primary issues, developing strategy, crisis readiness workshops and SOPs for crisis management. Then we came to know about the guiding principals of a PR. We do PR to enhance reputation and to resolve conflict. We also came to know what is reputation and how PR enhances it. Then he explained us that as a consultant we have to keep some points in mind like as know ur client, understand the client’s business, know the client’s environment, know the right media, understand state of economy, understand geo- political scenario, understand psycho- social aspirations. Lastly, he explained us HR challenges in PR. Like retention of talent, low shelf life.

2:00 pm
 SPEAKER: MR. ASHOKE MUKHERJEE

 An MBA from IISWBM, Calcutta University had his stint with the corporate world for more than a decade. Presentlly he is the Vice Present-Corporate Communications of Reliance Communications. Prior to this, he was associated with some of the big corporate brands like Shaw Wallace & Co Ltd, Exide Industries, Allahabad Bank, CESC Ltd, BDA Ltd. He is also the Guest Lecturer, Department of Journalism & Mass Communications, Calcutta University. He had authored seven books and had won the Snowcem-Ananda Literary Awards, which was instituted by Snowcem India and Ananda Bazar Group.

In the second half, we had a session from Mr. Ashoke Mukherjee. It was an interesting session. Firstly, sir gave us a definition of Public Relations. PR, according to a widely accepted definition, is the deliberate, planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain a mutual understanding between an organisation and its public. 

We were then introduced to the 8 phases of PR. They are :-

  1. Analysing the general climate of attitudes and the relation of the organisation to its universe.
  2. Determining the attitude of any group towards the organisation.
  3. Analysing the state of opinion.
  4. Anticipating potential problems, needs or opportunities.
  5. Formulating policy
  6. Planning means of improving the attitude of a group.
  7. Carrying out the planned activities.
  8. Feedback, evaluation and adjustment.

Lastly, he explained us the roles of a PR in a Corporation. It is the function responsible for Corporate Goodwill. PR, in essence, builds acceptance for the corporation as a whole much as marketing departments build acceptance for individual products. PR, cannot be the effective part of the management team if it is not contributing toward corporate progress.