I recently had the opportunity to facilitate and led a VMA Enhance training workshop around measurement for a leading global healthcare company. Here are some of my thoughts and observations that you might find relative to your day to day business communications.

Speaking to many global organisations, one realises that strategic communication is increasingly higher on the business agenda. Much higher than it used to be. In fact, business executives are putting more and more pressure on communication to report in financial terms of the benefits they are able to bring to the organisation. Many still say quantifying communication outcomes is difficult, but many organisations are seeking to translate their output to outcomes, and further to financial returns.

Is it easy? Of course not! And it requires more rigorous research and correlation to other business objectives that are not only communication key performance indicators. The word research is key – without it, we have no empirical evidence as to the quality of communication outcomes.

The measurement challenge is a global one. It is faced by communicators everywhere. In a recent workshop in Thailand, working with a global healthcare company, the question of linking financial metrics to communication took centre stage. In reality, the only w