Developing a Regional Communications Strategy for APAC by Temenos Bank

Summary
This report outlines and addresses the gaps in the current communications strategy and provides a strategic approach to improve stakeholder engagement through better placed and targeted internal and external communications. 

The internal research shows a misalignment of communications within the regions through a centralized global communications strategy and was crucial in the discovery for a need of having regional communications strategies and change management plans in place to ensure and ongoing stakeholder engagement.  

The current situations shows that employees outside the headquarter region (EMEA) feel neglected and not informed due to lack of communication from regional leadership and due to communications not being directed at the right audience but merely

 

Introduction

Temenos has grown rapidly over the last five years and undergone a change from a company that sells core banking software to a company that offers now the entire range of banking software including of digital on-boarding and digital front-office software. This evolution happened through an acquisition of multiple smaller companies to expand Temenos product range and ensure competitiveness in the fast evolving digital age of banking.

Two factors have contributed to an increasing disconnect between the senior leadership and employees:
1. No change management plan was put in place and followed when acquiring new companies

2. The failure of acknowledging different work cultures when acquiring other companies and dealing with these differences appropriately
In order to achieve an improved work culture and employee satisfaction across all regions, regional communications strategies must be implemented to ensure that employees feel heard and listened to. This report will focus on the APAC region which has been most affected by above mentioned points and outline the following:

Indentifying key stakeholders and impact on the organization
Analysing the environmental factors impacting the APAC region using PESTLE
Indentifying Issues and Opportunities via SWOT analysis
Proposal of a regional Communications Strategy for the APAC region which includes internal and external activities to strengthen Temenos position and brand awareness in the market inclusive of deliverables for success measurement purposes.

Inclusion of an academic commentary to support the chosen strategy and recommendations made in the Communications strategy.

 

Stakeholders involved

For an effective communications strategy, the key stakeholders must be identified and prioritized to ensure the strategy maximizes the efforts undertaken to improve misalignment. A more detailed stakeholder map can be found in the Appendix (Appendix A) and identifies the key interests for each stakeholder. Below is an overview to visualize the need to focus on improving internal communications, hence the focus will be on internal communication. However, the external communications is of crucial importance to raise and increase Temenos brand awareness. Given that Temenos Global Communications Team is working on this, there will be less of a need to focus on this in the regions, but an adaptation of existing strategies can be considered.

Stakeholders involved

 

External Environment Analysis – PESTLE 

The results show that the most pressing communications issue lay within internal communications outside the headquarter regions, however Temenos as a brand needs to ensure that both external and internal communications is aligned to be able to paint a consistent picture of its brand and purpose.

Below are the key elements influencing Temenos in the market which Temenos need to cater for 
Political:  - Governments in some APAC can be unstable and changes hard to predict. 

Economical: - Economies in the APAC region vary from country to country and can have lasting impact on market share

Social: - Social Media is very more powerful, giving consumers a way to speak up about their discontent with companies

Technological: - Technological changes in the industry are vastly impacting business

Legal: - Temenos is currently involved in multiple lawsuits with clients and partners

Environmental: - Many Financial Institutions include now a questionnaire about CSR in their due diligence before entering into contracts. This depends on region. Temenos has little to vague content to offer on this topic

 

Above listed key issues are not all but mostly region-specific and with only a global response team that has little to no knowledge about regional or even local events which might need fast and decisive action, Temenos is vulnerable and exposed to such threats. With a regional Communications strategy in place, some of these issues can be addressed better and with more urgency leading to a better reputation in the market.

 

Issues
The SWOT analysis revealed that there is a big misalignment of regional leadership and the rest of the organization which is a result of the lack of communications in the region. Global Communications can only serve the regions to a certain extent. As an organization with a big representation like in APAC, regions need to be able to adjust and amend existing global strategies to make communications fit to the region and the culture. A failure to do so will result in loss of talent and market position due to the high turnover in staff.

1. Global Communications gaps and unclear ownership
Global communications does not cater for specific regions and their different needs. This results in employees feeling not informed and valued. The ownership of internal communications is not clearly defined and causes for crucial information such as company values and cultural aspects are not addressed to the proper audience in a proper way.

2. Regional Leadership lacks responsibility
The Regional leadership does not feel that communication from their end is necessary as they believe Global Communications is responsible for employee communications. Given that Temenos is a large international company, regional leadership needs to step up and make employee communications their responsibility to improve employee engagement.

3. Outdated internal legacy systems
In addition to the lack of communication, the internal systems are old legacy system which are not easy to understand and no communication or training is provided. This is a bad look for a technology company that claims to provide clients with modern technology to thrive in the digital banking age.

 

Opportunities

1. Regional responsibilities for Communications

A dedicated Communications Manager in the region would help to facilitate Global Communications needs in the region and would be able to better tailor and distribute the communications for the relevant audience. This role would also support the Leadership Team to ensure that employees feel connected to their leaders and therefore improve employee engagement.

2. Changes in communications from the Leadership Team internally would lead to many improvements such as:

Better company culture and retaining great talent 
Increasing competitiveness in the market due to less turnover of staff 
Increase of productivity and innovation
Better reputation in the market

3. Temenos has acquired start ups which are technically advanced compared to Temenos internal systems. Utilising the gained IP to update internal system ensures efficiency and potentially saves headcounts. It also gives the company a better reputation in the industry as modern internal systems show that the company stands for what they are selling.