news aktuell & PER: Impact Map 2023

The study “Impact Map 2023: The biggest challenges currently facing communications” by news aktuell and PER Agency explores the following question: What must corporate communications deal with more intensively and in the long term in order to be successful in the future, and what influences the work of communicators in particular? For this purpose, the authors Prof. Lothar Rolke and Jörg Forthmann interviewed 139 PR specialists and managers in an online survey from October 2022 to February 2023. Prior to this, an initial qualitative survey was conducted.

Communications departments face a dense web of challenges. It’s a real multi-challenge. One core challenge is the digitization of communication processes, which 93 percent of communicators believe will have a (very) high impact on corporate communications. A whole series of sub-topics are linked to this topic: Agility in work (80 percent) and the measurability of success (79 percent), the use of data in PR or the use of artificial intelligence (61 percent) or the introduction of a newsroom (57 percent). This list alone shows that communications departments will be extremely challenged in the near future.

But that’s not all. If you think digitization further, you see the unmet challenges posed by social media, the need for a changed leadership culture, and in all of this, proving yourself in the VUKA world. The focus of the CommTech WG’s work also shines through clearly.

The authors used a multi-stage evaluation process to structure and assess the future challenges facing the communications industry. This opens up the possibility of finding one’s bearings in the jungle of pressing issues that assail us on a daily basis and of developing one’s own solution strategies. The study is available for download free of charge.