Does the organization have the strategic communication plan which will explain how the communication activities will help it to succeed? If not, then you are likely to get the minimal return on the investment in the things like the company intranet, newsletter, and even the e-mail. The Corporate communication should be funded for a reason: to help a company to achieve the goals. If you do see no evidence which the communication has the positive impact on a business, you are likely wasting the time and the money.

If you have the communication department or the staff person, are these goals aligned with a company's goals? Communication goals should focus on the business outcomes, not the tactical outputs. The outcome-oriented goal is to educate the employees about a company's top three objectives for a year. The output-oriented goal is to produce the 12 issues of a company newsletter this year.

Does the communication staff considers the "customer" to be leader of the business? If a communication function does exists solely to satisfy the employees, the customers, reporters or any of the other audience, staff's energies are been misdirected. The business leaders set the goals and the priorities. achieving them will require efforts of the employees, the loyalty of the customers, and sometimes a cooperation of the other groups. Influencing those groups in ways which helps the business is the job of a strategic communicator.

Is the communication among the people and the groups in organization is managed well? If the systems do not exist to enable the communication and the processes do not work, then the communication is not the strategic tool. The business would not tolerate the shoddy inventory control system or the broken manufacturing process. Why must it tolerate the communication processes which do not work?

Is The communication two-way activity in the organization? To be used most effectively, the communication can't be top-down. The business leaders should engage the employees, customers, suppliers, the shareholders and the other groups in the dialogue. In addition, people in these of the key groups should be able to initiate a dialogue, not just respond when been prompted.

Notice here that none of the questions above asks about the grammar or spelling. They are just the tools of trade, but unless the business does apply these tools to help it to succeed, buying them is foolish.