How To Apply Strategic Communications in the Tech Sector
There are many ways in the Tech sector – particularly the world of tech start-ups could benefit from a more strategic approach to communication and that would be in the areas of issues and crisis management and employee engagement/internal communication and organizational effectiveness.
The text book definition of communications is the purposeful use of communication by an organization in order to fulfil its mission. It involves taking a structured step-by-step approach that starts from current reality to desired outcomes, working through audience, research, data analysis, messaging, content to platforms, spokespersons, KPIs etc.
First of all, one must recognize that the Tech Industry as a whole has excelled in several areas of strategic communication. The sector has been extremely purposeful in terms of how it has developed and how the ecosystem is nurtured, talent is grown, products are released and socialised etc. The tech sector is fundamentally purposeful and extremely strategic in nature. And this is evident in the ways in which it uses communications to achieve its purpose:
Leading Uses of Strategic Communication
- Fund-raising Communications – The tech industry relies a lot on the ability to attract capital and this requires the ability to package and market a story that is bankable in millions of dollars. When you look at the numbers that tech start-ups have raised in and outside Nigeria and the African continent and the world, it is clear that this is an area of strength for the sector. And is also a critical skill that separates the wheat from the chaff.
- Tech Marketing Communication: Closely related to this is tech marketing communications at a product or service level. This could be B2B or B2C marketing but the tech sector has become a leader in this area to the extent that tech companies are some of the fastest growing and biggest brands in the world. The ability to sell products at high volume to a vast number of customers/users across the globe within a very short period of time has been a crucial growth driver for this sector. Communications has been a strong driver/enabler of the abilty to scale at the required pace
- Technical Communications: One other area in which the tech sector has excelled is the ability to communicate complex systems and products to non-tech savvy buyers/users. The tons of user information made available online for different software and apps is immense. The tech industry is probably one of the sectors that socialized the concept of explainer content – where you provide how to explanations for users to navigate their way through a site, system or tech product. The explainer content is so useful that it reduces calls to the helpline or ensures that you can learn about the product on a day to day basis
However although the above are success stories for the sector, there are some areas where the sector could learn from the more traditional side of business.
- Issues and Crisis Communications: Tech companies have been known to be notoriously poor at crisis communications and managing issues. For most of the companies that have had internal issues around transparency, governance, leadership style or employee issue, the management of the issues has been the issue. Most tech companies are able to manage internally-driven communications very well but very few are able to handle external pressure and scrutiny just as well. And this appears to be a global problem for the sector. An MIT Sloan Management Review in 2018 attributes this to over confidence and the thrill of having great success too soon and also a lack of investment in communications expertise on a well-rounded level.
- Employee Engagement: Employee engagement is another poor performance area. Most tech companies start off with highly motivated staff attracted to the thrill of the challenge of building something new and dynamic and initially do not worry too much about the lack of structure for internal communication and alignment but as time goes on, the cracks begin to show and the impact depends on how big the gap is – or the maturity level of the leaders at play. Very few tech companies have a structured approach to internal communication probably because many start small but are slow to scale up their internal processes and leadership practices to grow at scale with the complexity of the organization as it begins to expand. Tech companies are therefore far more likely to have an even more toxic work environment than in a traditional non-tech work environment – regardless of size.
- Organizational Effectiveness: This is closely linked to the above point and requires collaboration between HR, Communications team and the Transformation or Change Management Team if there is one. Tech companies by their nature tend to be less bureaucratic in their approach and pay less attention to building people systems. However, this creates a gap or blindspot for leadership in that the organization may not be as effective as it could or should be and there is no system in place that curbs the excesses of certain personalities.
Every Communications Professional working in these sectors should watch out for these 3 areas – as they are the open switches that could make it even more difficult to effectively manage the bread and butter communications.
SA&A is a strategy and communications consulting and training firm dedicated to enabling businesses, brands and organizations to achieve their desired objectives through strategic communications, organizational effectiveness and reputation management.
Join us in class on November 27, 2025 for our last online ZOOM full day course on Strategic Communications from 9Am – 4PM WAT.