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A NUMBER of years ago, I led a team of consultants who developed corporate communications and media relations strategies for Metrorail while it still reported to the erstwhile Passenger Rail Association of South Africa (Prasa).
Despite working with an amazing internal team, I remember that some of the challenges at the time stemmed from the fact that Metrorail, as we were often reminded, “only operated the rolling stock (passenger trains) on behalf of Prasa, which owned it”. Other than motivating for better passenger trains, it had no control over capital investment in rolling stock.
The difficulty of this arrangement, from a brand reputation management point of view, was that Metrorail management could sometimes afford to wash its hands off and point the accusing finger to the Prasa management whenever things went wrong. This often happened, for example, whenever there were delays in the replacement or repair of passenger trains that had been torched by angry commuters, often because they arrived too late at stations during morning peak hours.
Since ‘Metrorail’ was always the public-facing brand, it is safe to assume that the majority of train commuters were not even aware of Prasa’s existence, let alone the fact that it owned, controlled and deployed rolling stock.
Metrorail management had very little say, except to spend a significant amount of time motivating and pleading for more trains, better trains, and a quicker turn-around with repairs or replacement of damaged trains in order to appease unhappy commuters who were often easily driven to riotous violence. Because Metrorail was the public facing brand, it always bore the brunt of public and media criticism for everything that went wrong.
Management did not always feel responsible for ensuring that Metrorail’s corporate reputation remained unblemished because its hands were tied. Many of the solutions that our team proposed, although accepted by Metrorail management, could not be implemented because Prasa, which controlled the capital budget, was never party to our many discussions with the team at Metrorail.
Prasa could afford to be lackluster in responding to Metrorail’s cries for better rolling stock precisely because it felt shielded from public onslaught; few people knew about it. In summary, our assessment of Metrorail’s challenges identified challenges located within structural, operational and communication arrangements in the company. Without these issues being harmonised and resolved, corporate communication and reputation management interventions would not have the desired effects in addressing external image problems faced by Metrorail.
To an extent, the above scenario can be compared to the arrangement between the Central Energy Fund (CEF) and the Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa, otherwise known as PetroSA, which it controls.
The CEF is tasked with the management of strategic energy interests on behalf of the government. PetroSA is one of the vehicles that it uses to achieve this aim. The others, less known, are the Strategic Fuel Fund Association (SFF), the Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA), the Clean Energy Division (CED), the South African Supplier Development Agency (Sasda), as well as the African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC). Similar to the erstwhile Prasa, the CEF operates as an umbrella body ensuring that all the entities it controls contribute optimally to the security of South Africa’s energy supply.
The problem with the PetroSA brand, if this was a problem, is that it has grown into a strong brand in its own right over the years. In brand architecture parlance, the CEF would be a house of brands – with each brand having a relatively autonomous image – with PetroSA being, arguably, the most recognised or them all.
Despite this, PetroSA is still being treated as a child, as it were, and has little say in the appointment of its board of directors, especially the chairperson of its board. Even well-placed insiders were taken by surprise when Tshepo Kgadima was announced as the new chairperson of its board of directors.
While they knew of him and some of the recent negative press involving him, including allegations that he swindled a number of unsuspecting investors of millions of rands after he misrepresented himself as the owner of a mining venture that would generate massive profits, there was never an opportunity for them to provide this input before the appointment was finalised.
Upon being contacted after the recent bizarre behaviour of Tshepo Kgadima at the offices of Business Day, a surprised PetroSA insider almost laughed this off, asserting that this is a political matter that required the intervention of the people who appointed Mr Kgadima, not PetroSA. She insisted that it wasn’t PetroSA’s problem despite being aware that the company’s name would be dragged in the mud by the reported behavior. “There is nothing we can do”, she repeated; “these people must sort-out their own mess”.
For those of us who spend time watching corporate behavior, this would have been an interesting one to watch unravel. Our fun was spoiled before it began, when the CEF acted swiftly in rescinding the appointment of Tshepo Kgadima as PetroSA’s board chairperson. Nevertheless, this was a very clever move; PetroSA’s corporate reputation managers can breathe again and continue focusing their energy in supporting the business while it seeks to boost its fast dwindling gas reserves.
* Solly Moeng is brand reputation management adviser and CEO of strategic corporate communications consultancy DonValley. Views expressed are his own.
Despite working with an amazing internal team, I remember that some of the challenges at the time stemmed from the fact that Metrorail, as we were often reminded, “only operated the rolling stock (passenger trains) on behalf of Prasa, which owned it”. Other than motivating for better passenger trains, it had no control over capital investment in rolling stock.
The difficulty of this arrangement, from a brand reputation management point of view, was that Metrorail management could sometimes afford to wash its hands off and point the accusing finger to the Prasa management whenever things went wrong. This often happened, for example, whenever there were delays in the replacement or repair of passenger trains that had been torched by angry commuters, often because they arrived too late at stations during morning peak hours.
Since ‘Metrorail’ was always the public-facing brand, it is safe to assume that the majority of train commuters were not even aware of Prasa’s existence, let alone the fact that it owned, controlled and deployed rolling stock.
Metrorail management had very little say, except to spend a significant amount of time motivating and pleading for more trains, better trains, and a quicker turn-around with repairs or replacement of damaged trains in order to appease unhappy commuters who were often easily driven to riotous violence. Because Metrorail was the public facing brand, it always bore the brunt of public and media criticism for everything that went wrong.
Management did not always feel responsible for ensuring that Metrorail’s corporate reputation remained unblemished because its hands were tied. Many of the solutions that our team proposed, although accepted by Metrorail management, could not be implemented because Prasa, which controlled the capital budget, was never party to our many discussions with the team at Metrorail.
Prasa could afford to be lackluster in responding to Metrorail’s cries for better rolling stock precisely because it felt shielded from public onslaught; few people knew about it. In summary, our assessment of Metrorail’s challenges identified challenges located within structural, operational and communication arrangements in the company. Without these issues being harmonised and resolved, corporate communication and reputation management interventions would not have the desired effects in addressing external image problems faced by Metrorail.
To an extent, the above scenario can be compared to the arrangement between the Central Energy Fund (CEF) and the Petroleum Oil and Gas Corporation of South Africa, otherwise known as PetroSA, which it controls.
The CEF is tasked with the management of strategic energy interests on behalf of the government. PetroSA is one of the vehicles that it uses to achieve this aim. The others, less known, are the Strategic Fuel Fund Association (SFF), the Petroleum Agency South Africa (PASA), the Clean Energy Division (CED), the South African Supplier Development Agency (Sasda), as well as the African Exploration Mining and Finance Corporation (AEMFC). Similar to the erstwhile Prasa, the CEF operates as an umbrella body ensuring that all the entities it controls contribute optimally to the security of South Africa’s energy supply.
The problem with the PetroSA brand, if this was a problem, is that it has grown into a strong brand in its own right over the years. In brand architecture parlance, the CEF would be a house of brands – with each brand having a relatively autonomous image – with PetroSA being, arguably, the most recognised or them all.
Despite this, PetroSA is still being treated as a child, as it were, and has little say in the appointment of its board of directors, especially the chairperson of its board. Even well-placed insiders were taken by surprise when Tshepo Kgadima was announced as the new chairperson of its board of directors.
While they knew of him and some of the recent negative press involving him, including allegations that he swindled a number of unsuspecting investors of millions of rands after he misrepresented himself as the owner of a mining venture that would generate massive profits, there was never an opportunity for them to provide this input before the appointment was finalised.
Upon being contacted after the recent bizarre behaviour of Tshepo Kgadima at the offices of Business Day, a surprised PetroSA insider almost laughed this off, asserting that this is a political matter that required the intervention of the people who appointed Mr Kgadima, not PetroSA. She insisted that it wasn’t PetroSA’s problem despite being aware that the company’s name would be dragged in the mud by the reported behavior. “There is nothing we can do”, she repeated; “these people must sort-out their own mess”.
For those of us who spend time watching corporate behavior, this would have been an interesting one to watch unravel. Our fun was spoiled before it began, when the CEF acted swiftly in rescinding the appointment of Tshepo Kgadima as PetroSA’s board chairperson. Nevertheless, this was a very clever move; PetroSA’s corporate reputation managers can breathe again and continue focusing their energy in supporting the business while it seeks to boost its fast dwindling gas reserves.
* Solly Moeng is brand reputation management adviser and CEO of strategic corporate communications consultancy DonValley. Views expressed are his own.
