Analysis of Why Organizations Engage In Government Relations and Lobbying
Government policies strongly impact business organizations. As such, it is in their best interest to be conversant with public policies and trying as much as possible to influence government decision-making. Government relations is a hybrid of public relations (PR) and, at times, is referred to as lobbying and aim at helping organizations communicate with elected officials and government agencies (Page and Parnell 833) to express the organization’s view on public policies and policy formulations.
One fundamental reason for government relations and lobbying is to champion the organization’s perspective on policies and policy formulations to the government and public officials (Page and Parnell 833). Government relations and lobbying refer to approaches to organization-to-government communication. Government relations form the indirect communication while lobbying denotes direct communication. In lobbying, for instance, the company representatives meet directly with the government policy-makers and the politicians to express the company’s opinions. The impetus for such reaching out in many cases is business-related since new regulations or laws can add costs or complicate the consumption of a product or service. The focus of any business is to keep the costs down and profit margin up. As such, both indirect (government relations) and direct (lobbying) communications are pursued to increase the organization’s influence and impact in the policymaking process (Page and Parnell 841).
As such, engaging in government relations and lobbying is strategic to leverage internal strategic planning and development processes. The study, for instance, shows that about 67% of companies that successfully influence policymaking and manage their reputation effectively adopt the strategic planning process to align their external-affairs goals with the organization’s overall strategy (Goodwin and Fleisher 3). Organizations, through government affairs experts, can take advantage of opportunities offered by government relation and lobbying to influence business goals analyzing and applying non-market data, trends, insights, and intelligence, and establish an interaction between market approaches and non-market strategies (government policies) both vertically and laterally within the business (Page and Parnell 82).
Government relations and lobbying are also ways which the company can use to coordinate and incorporate market-nonmarket activities across the business organization into market strategies. It is challenging for government affairs professionals across the enterprise to engage effectively in their issues management without strong connections. Lobbying and government relations or outreach work on behalf of the company. Globally, there are instances of government affairs coming in to bridge the non-market and market environments in the company by serving as “brokers of intelligence” between business units, lobbying with functional groups in the organization, and promoting cross-functional teams of experts to expedite policy engagement (Goodwin and Fleisher 2). The government, for instance, takes into consideration several issues in policymaking, such as preserving competition and protecting consumer rights. Policy-makers must weigh the issues during the policy-formulation process (Page and Parnell 841). The role of communicators, therefore, is to represent the interest of the organization when the laws are formulated. Influencing government policies, groups as non-market issues in business is essential in predicting market and planning for market-related strategies.
Government relations and lobbying, sometimes groups as government affairs, play a more significant role in organization strategies, helping the business to navigate the external non-market issues, including government policies. As such, business strategies should consider positioning government relations and lobby as strategic tools for market strategies.
Works Cited
Page, Janis Teruggi, and Lawrence J. Parnell. Introduction to Strategic Public Relations: Digital, Global, and Socially Responsible Communication. SAGE Publications, 2017.
Tommy Goodwin and Craig Fleisher. Why doesn’t government affairs play a greater role in business strategy? 2016. https://lobbyinginstitute.com/2016/10/24/why-doesnt-government-affairs-play-a-greater-role-in-business-strategy/