Public relations and press

By its very nature, content determines the value of communication. The author will be recognized here because many in the SAP community would like to see a similarly competent person as SAP's Chief Communications Officer. Why does something work at Robert Bosch and not at SAP? The community suffers from the speechlessness of SAP and many SAP partners.

Christof Ehrhart has written the book "PR as a success factor, impetus for corporate communications". written. Ehrhart has more than 25 years of professional experience in strategic communications management at international corporations. Since 2019, he has been responsible for global corporate communications, external relations and brand management at Robert Bosch.

He was previously head of corporate communications at Deutsche Post DHL Group in Bonn. Christof Ehrhart is also an honorary professor of international corporate communications at the University of Leipzig.

The topic is corporate communications (public relations) and special interest communications (trade press). The negative effects of the lack of sufficient PR and press can be observed in the DSAG summer survey and SAP's Net Promoter Score.

SAP's existing customers have no confidence in SAP roadmaps and would no longer recommend the ERP world market leader to others. SAP is innovative. SAP has handled the cloud trend and challenges excellently.

Outsiders would say: Everything is in the green! The SAP community sees it differently: Could perhaps the communication, the marketing, the relationship management have failed?

In the foreword to the book, Professor Günter Bentele writes:

"The fact that we live in an information and communication society, that communication skills have become a key competence and a component of entrepreneurial value creation, has already been said by several others.

Rarely, however, has corporate communications management been analyzed so profoundly in this society and its changes, while pointing to the need for a new, differentiated understanding of corporate communications."

Christof Ehrhart has written his book for communications managers and executives to show how PR must evolve to further contribute to the success of the organization.

He says:

"The disruptive change in business and society is also forcing new approaches in corporate communications. For senior management, but also for communications experts in companies and agencies, this paradigm shift is difficult to grasp."

Ehrhart provides orientation in answering central questions: Who will still need PR tomorrow and who will do it? What key competencies are required? What added value will communication bring in the future? How can PR succeed in the practice of digital postmodernism?

Frankfurter Allgemeine
Book, 2019, ISBN 978-3-96251-003-9, 128 pages, 25 euros.