CASE STUDY: Siltronic Corporation

The challenge: Siltronic Corporation is a global silicon chip manufacturer with headquarters in Munich, Germany. Employees at their US site, located in Portland, Oregon, were feeling disconnected and left out of the information loop. With rapid changes in the economy affecting the more than 1,000 local employees, better communication was needed. However, with no in-house communication department the task was overwhelming for the Human Resource Department.

The problem: A local public relations firm was hired to handle the company's quarterly newsletter. However, since the firm specialized in writing only, they had to subcontract the graphic design, photography, print production, and distribution. This caused a great deal of inconsistency in the look and feel between issues. They also needed extensive direction from the HR Department on story ideas and content development. And because they were unfamiliar with the management of this sort of complex publication project, it became too big for them to handle. Their costs, which they passed onto the client, became too much for them. The PR firm finally gave the client notice that they could no longer do their project. The client was referred to Newsletter Associates.

The solution: Newsletter Associates was able to take over the complete project: research, interviewing, and copy writing, editing, photography, graphic design and layout; prepress preparation and print production; and distribution for one-third the cost of the previous firm. An editorial calendar was created at the out set which provided guidance for content development. Regular columns such as Benefit Focus, Employee Anniversaries, and Employee Profile were created. This eliminated the HR Coordinator's need to continually come up with content ideas. We also communicate directly with the German production team ensuring that the publication is seamless and consistent.

The result:

• Production time and costs were greatly reduced
• Quality and consistency was improved dramatically
• Staff time involved is a small fraction of what was needed previously. Newsletter Associates' editor simply makes one phone call to check on current events per issue. We handle the rest of the data collection and research.
• The style guides with the German office is now much more consistent resulting in a truly global image.

A look inside:
Take a look at a few employee profiles.