OBJECTIVE

X/Open is an independent organisation responsible for establishing Open System standards worldwide and is governed by 95% of the leading hardware manufacturers including Apollo, AT&T, Bull, Digital Equipment Corporation, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, NCR, NEC, Nixdorf, Nokia Data, Olivetti, Philips, Prime, Siemens, Sun Microsystems and Unisys.

SG was appointed to deliver what was seen as arguably the single most important user message in the computer industry, worldwide. The challenge was to promote a concept which involved a seismic change in IT thinking, namely the shift from proprietary operating systems to open systems. Reporting to the President and CEO, Geoff Morris, SG held executive level responsibility for managing X/Open's communication plan worldwide. The scale of the mission, namely, to create a global IT standard was such that SG's communication skills had to be augmented by a good understanding of the worldwide market for information systems. This objective had to be achieved worldwide with a budget which was less than had previously been allocated for the UK alone.

RESULTS

Due to budget restrictions SG handled all European and Japanese PR personally. As a result of her work the press coverage increased four times with particularly good results in national newspapers in the UK and Europe. Larger external agencies had previously been used. With regard to advertising, well over 3000 enquiries were generated and the effectiveness and speed of the campaign is still commented on in the Open System community. A good example of how X/Open users were leveraged as part of the strategy to explain X/Open's role is the press release "Users look to X/Open for Leadership in Open Systems confusion". This release generated a great deal of worldwide press coverage and signalled the way forward for X/Open in the Open Systems dilemma. Users were crucial to X/Open's strategy and SG succeeded in gaining public endorsements by government agencies and worldwide industry giants. There was considerable liaison with the worldwide User Council aimed at encouraging them to specify X/Open as their procurement standard.

As Open Systems became more accepted and as the market expanded so it became important to focus more on strategic work. SG recommended that this should position X/Open as the only common ground in the Unix world and the route to protect users and their investments. As the 'Open Systems Battle' hotted up, so the increased confusion was seen as a platform for X/Open and the theme of X/Open being the clear path out of the confusion was recommended.

Geoff Morris, President and CEO of X/Open Company Limited: "During the l2-month period that Sally applied her communications talents to X/Open, our visibility increased dramatically with the doyens of business and technical press across the globe. This was a very difficult accomplishment, executed to the highest standards."

STRATEGY AND TACTICS

Press: SG organised high level press briefing meetings for X/Open executives so as to maximise their time as they were travelling throughout the world and over 100 of these valuable meetings were held in under a year.

SG provided comprehensive press mailing lists covering the computer, technical, business and national press in Europe, UK and Japan. Wrote 98 press releases which required approval by the X/Open Board. Translations were arranged and then simultaneous distribution worldwide. Each press release was consistent with X/Open's strategy and complementary to members' objectives. SG also phoned the press directly to place stories and research reactions to particular announcements, followed up telephone enquiries, and handled a multitude of enquiries about X/Open and its progress.

Each press event was seen as an opportunity to demonstrate how international X/Opens is, thus, selected journalists were brought in from different countries to attend press events wherever they were being held worldwide.

As well as press conferences and one-to-one meetings, SG structured technical workshops throughout the world. These had the benefit of being less high profile events where the more technical journalists had the opportunity to come to grips with the technology associated with X/Open. Such events had the benefit of giving 'weight' to X/Open and helped identify technical champions.

In addition to preparing and distributing the worldwide press cuttings every month, SG also produced executive summaries of key coverage. This became necessary as the volume of the press coverage increased. The work done by various agencies including Regis McKenna Inc, Burson Marsteller, Sterling and other agencies in Europe and Japan was also managed and co-ordinated by SG.

Advertising : Under great time and budget pressures SG organised X/Open's 'leadership' advertising campaign in six countries. This involved briefing the agency, presenting the ads to X/Open management and Board of l7 members, obtaining sign off from all internal and external authorities, arranging translations, reviewing and selecting media, reporting on results. Publications included Financial Times, Business Week, Wall Street Journal, Computerworld as well as Zero Uno and Il Sole in Italy, Ol Informatique and Les Echos in France, Computerwoche and FAZ in Germany and Computerworld Japan. Well over 3000 enquiries were generated, and the effectiveness and speed of this campaign is still commented on in the Open System community.

Speaker opportunities : SG assessed speaking opportunities worldwide on behalf of the President and other executives, confirmed details, liaised with organisers to obtain maximum benefit for X/Open, helped organise presentation material, prepared support material such as information packs and press kits to hand out at events and arranged associated press interviews.

Communications management : As an executive of X/Open SG was also responsible for preparing and justifying budgets and general management activities throughout the year. When reporting on effectiveness to X/Open management and the Board of Directors, SG's financial reports and forecasts had to be accompanied by objectives and comparisons with actual performance.

In order to make X/Open standards a reality it was necessary to encourage ISVs to develop software to the X/Open standard. This was achieved through regular communication of the benefits to the ISV Council.

SG was responsible for the X/Open Positioning Statement, all external communications between X/Open and its target market. This included government and commercial users, ISVs, suppliers, press, financial analysts, and other standards bodies. The goal was that there should be a clear understanding of the benefits of X/Open and who should be contacted to obtain those benefits. Internal communications between X/Open Company Staff, the Board of Directors, the technical management group and the marketing management group were also the responsibility SG who had to ensure that there was a common understanding and enthusiastic commitment to X/Open, its mission, aims, objectives and opportunities.

SG instigated, produced, organised translations, distributed and updated the X/Open Fact Sheet, Milestones, Corporate Brochure and Writers Guide. These documents proved to be the cornerstone of X/Open's communications strategy. This saved a great deal of executive time because the background was available to journalists in different languages and the executives were free to concentrate on the priority messages they wished to discuss.

SG was also responsible for presenting and justifying monthly progress and budget reports for the Board of Directors' Meeting which comprised directors from Apollo, AT&T, Bull, Digital Equipment Corporation, Fujitsu, Hewlett-Packard, Hitachi, IBM, NCR, NEC, Nixdorf, Nokia Data, Olivetti, Philips, Prime, Siemens, Sun Microsystems and Unisys.

Each of these Board Corporate Members had Technical and Marketing Managers' meetings where SG would report on communications progress. The objective was to enable and motivate the member companies to orientate their business plans to X/Open. Many of the communications were highly sensitive due to the political relationship between the members. 'Communications' ranged from personal lobbying to general distribution of reports.

Case study of a press conference held in Germany for X/Open

Objective : To show X/Open's commitment to Germany. At that time X/Open was in danger of being seen as merely a British organisation. Each of the nineteen members had the objective of promoting their own organisation in Germany as a result of their investment in X/Open, and X/Open wished to announce its new Portability Guide.

Strategy : X/Open's achievements in Germany were trawled and the successes included the fact that various important user organisations were specifying X/Open in procurements, and 85 companies were writing software to X/Open standards. These users and ISVs were interviewed by SG on the phone and the case studies were written up. The releases had to be approved internally and externally and the 19 Corporate Members had to feel comfortable with the material.

SG consulted with each Board member to obtain their commitment and approval for each step. Obviously such a conference was of major interest to all the members since each operated in Germany - not just the German members - and each member had their own objectives for any such event.

Leading German computer, business and national press were selected and invited by SG. She prepared a briefing document (in English and German) for the Directors which included :

• Objectives for the event
• Schedule
• Presentation and slides
• Key messages
• Q&As
• Press releases and case studies for distribution
• Copies of recent German press coverage
• Copy of invitation
• List of the attending journalists and their publications

Prior to the conference SG also verbally briefed the Directors. At the conference SG made introductions, directed questions, and ensured all journalists met the Members.

Concurrent with this press conference, SG arranged for the major releases to be translated into French, Italian, German and Japanese and distributed to the appropriate countries. The remaining countries received the release in English.

SG organised this conference totally unaided and, at the same time, continued her normal VP of Worldwide Communications duties.

Results : The event was well attended and brought excellent coverage. It was seen as a turning point in X/Open's German activities. X/Open increased its status in Germany and its commitment to the German market was recognised. The nineteen Member companies were pleased to be given the chance to promote their companies and products in Germany under the aegis of X/Open.

X/OPEN COMPANY LIMITED
American Project as a London based consultant.

OBJECTIVE

As a result of her previous success as Worldwide Communications VP, SG was later asked to manage the worldwide re-launch of X/Open. Unfortunately, due to other client commitments, SG was unable to take on this full time project. However she was able to undertake valuable research in the UK and USA to support this initiative. The brief was to find out :

1. Whether X/Open was perceived as a technical or business organisation,
2. How international X/Open was perceived as being,
3. The positioning of X/Open compared with other standards bodies and
4. Whether X/Open was seen as user oriented.

RESULTS

Due to her relationship with these people SG was able to obtain some very useful and heartfelt personal comments which might not have been forthcoming to a general market research company. This information enabled X/Open to shape its communications strategy for this major event. The report was produced within a few days for presentation to an imminent Board meeting.

STRATEGY

SG interviewed eighteen press and luminaries in the US including Judy Horwitz, Nina Lytton, Amy Wohl, IDC, Standish Group International, Yankee, Business Research Group, Seybold, Datapro, Infocorp, Creative Strategies and Arthur D. Little. The press included Corporate Computing, Government Computer News, Unix World, InfoWeek, Wall Street Computer Review and John Dvorak. The ten national papers and press in the UK included the Financial Times, IBM System User, Computing, Computer Weekly, Which Computer?, Unix News, Open Systems Today, IBM Computer Today and The Guardian.