Communication Practices of Honeywell, a Large B2B MNC

Lydia Lu, Asia Communication VP, Honeywell, shared Honeywell’s best practices of corporate communication at the PR Newswire 2013 New Communication Annual Summit. Her presentation inspired B2B communication professionals who were present at the event.

Lydia started the presentation by providing an overview of Honeywell. In hotel rooms, one can often see the Honeywell’s name on the room’s thermostat. When Honeywell started its business, the company focused only on temperature and automation control in the United States. But now it has grown into an large international company with four strategic business groups: Aerospace, Performance Materials and Technologies, Automation and Control Solutions, and Transportation Systems. Anyone who takes a plane is probably not aware that Honeywell produces 50% of different parts of a plane, such as the air control and navigation systems. It is also the international supplier that has won the most bids for large passenger aircraft. The firm also provides performance materials and technologies as well as refining and chemical technologies, such as Spectra Fibre, materials for bullet-proof vestclothing, medical film and terylene. Honeywell’s APAC headquarterserquarts is based in Shanghai.

Honeywell’s Corporate Communication led by Lydia serves 10 business divisions. Each has their own Marcom (Marketing & Communication) staff. These Marcom employees don’t report to her directly, Lydia needs tohas to provide guidance and support to drive alignment and synergywith leadership. She finds it a very challenging role. For a multinational company with a high complexity and diversified businesses, it may be relatively easy to implement one program externally, but before that it takes huge effort toeffort to secure internal support and resources. Lydia summarized four points on how Corporate Communication mobilizes its internal resources at a multinational company like Honeywell.

Corporate communication at Honeywell includes several key elements: Message, Story, Spokesperson, and Measurement. The first and foremost one is Message. That message must be well-developed and aligned across the entire company. In China, the articulation of the key message cannot be a solo by the China president, but rather the general managers of the various businesses need to sing in a choir with harmony. Furthermore, we must understand which media we will target and be clear what you can and can’t. Due to limited financial and human resources, we must carefully choose our battles.

The following diagram shows the layers of Honeywell’s messaging. It is in the shape of a pyramid in order to allow you to know in which layer it is located, what prior preparations need to be made and how many musical scores or lyrics there are across the company.

The second is Story: How to tell a compelling story in combination with the company’s “brand promise”. Honeywell has an extensive line of businesses and a wide range of offerings, which include more than 15,000 products and services. Over 50% are% are related to energy efficiency and environment. In its brand promise – “We are building a world that’s safer and more secure, more comfortable and energy efficient, more innovative and productive”, the key elements are: 1. energy efficiency, 2. Safety & security, and 3. Customer productivity. Around the brand promise, all stories need to be highly relevant to the business.

At the business messaging layer, Honeywell identifiesHoneywell identifies the “coolest” operations and technologies from each of its business groups so as to differentiate itself from its rivals. In general, considerations are given to where the customer value is and what the expected impact on society will be. Besides, any major business wins or milestone projects, either domestically or internationally, can serve as a study case or success story, as long as it can serve as a useful reference point for China.

The third point is Spokesperson. With the aforementioned key messages, this point is about choosing whom we will work with and what story we will tell. Any Message and Story need to be told by Spokespersons. The next step is to select a general manager of a division and Subject Matter Experts to work with them. Ideal candidates will be either a marketing director or persons with R&D expertise. Corporate Communications will provide the training and incentives to the selected spokespersons.

Lydia then showed a histogram to the audience, indicating the number of interviews with the leaders of various business divisions that took place during the second half of last year. She pointed out that there is a lack of PR/media in traditional B2B Marcom, as it is more focused on trade fairs, seminars, product collateral translation and website updating. But it is different now: the concept of media engagement is required. Lydia reiterated the value of PR Newswire’s press release distribution service. The need for press releases is growing as a result of active involvement by the various business divisions.

Lydia then spoke about the fourth point, i.e., Measurement. In addition to reviewing whether the business divisions’ Marcom staff members were spending time in preparation of media outreach, she also takes into account the degree of participation by the executives of the various business divisions. Four factors are taken into consideration as part of the appraisal process: Activities, Reach, Relevance, and Resonance. With regard to Activities, the company will present a dashboard every half year that shows the number of press releases , interviews, and public speeches . Reach refers to the number of media outlets that have covered Honeywell stories with a breakdown in terms of the types of media. Relevance refers to the amount of media clippings that mention Honeywell’s most important technologies. And Resonance means a story needs to tell what company wants to communicate.

Finally, Lydia discussed the four trends in B2B corporate communication.

Trend 1: A future B2B company is required to be able not only to tell a story but also to create a story — to create topics that get more people involved and therefore drive the discussion of a topic by initiating surveys, planning the content and engaging opinion leaders.

Trend 2: Must engage not only media but also different public stakeholders in order to expand the reach and influence of corporate communication through innovative initiatives.

Trend 3: For a B2B company, CSR is not only just charitable donations but also a strategic communication tool for building a corporate and employer brand.

Trend 4: Each communication campaign must go digital and be content-oriented. Channels can be integrated, but digitalization is a general trend.

When talking about Honeywell’s CSR programs, Lydia shared an interesting example. Honeywell had just invited Sheldon Glashow, the 1979 winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, to China. Professor Glashow paid a visit to the Honeywell office in Beijing and conducted a face-to-face dialogue with nearly 70 engineers there. He also gave a lecture at Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, which was heard by more than 400 students in the auditorium, and seen by 700-800 people onsite through a live broadcast hookup. The Nobel Laureate also met with the university’s faculty and management. He also took part in several events including a press conference, an interview and a career seminar. This two-day program well integrated online and offline tactics. Through such a CSR program, Honeywell aims to cultivate and inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers and provide an opportunity for science students to interact with winners of the Nobel Prize in Physics and Chemistry.