PUBLIC RELATIONS AS A MANAGERIAL TOOL IN BUSINESS ORGANIZATION

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Business organizations do not exist in a vacuum.  Whether dealing on good or specialized in rendering service.  Organizations (both private and public) exist at the expense of people in two factors have added impetus to the concept of people in today’s organizations.  They include firstly, the upsurge in the number and complexity of organizations and secondly are the ever-increasing sophistication in the demand of consumers. Today, the need for improvement in the use of “public Relations” as a means of achieving greater organizational results is increasingly being realized.  Today, organization that really wants to have the leading edge must be plugged or placed into trotline relationship with the customers and other publics.  Today it is being realized, more than ever before, that any organization, which chooses to work at cross – purposes (misunderstanding) with its various publics especially the customers will not survive for a long time.  the notion of secrecy that characterized the activities of most business organizations is now far past.
Ikechukwu Nwosu, (1990) rightly put it “Public Relations is of great importance in human indispensability in creating goodwill, understanding the support needed between an institution (business organization) and its public”.  This seen in his definition of Public Relation, when he said that Public Relations practice is a deliberately planned and sustained effort to establish and maintain mutual understanding between and organization and its public. The prevailing notion that the customer is “all powerful and therefore needs to be consulted in the various stages of production of foods and service so that the product comes out exactly the way he wants it has made public relation more and more relevant in today’s business organization.  So, business organizations in general must not isolate themselves from the public, but should maintain a cordial continuing relationship with them. Banks have gone a long way in the country or society as a whole.  They are recognized as business organizations selling services to the public.  The public’s readiness to buys the services depends largely on how much they know about the services and the confidence does not come however through “quietness” but through their effort in publicizing their activities on confidence overtime.  Looking at the failed banks situation in the country, where most customers of such banks lost their money to the illegal activities of such banks.  So, there is the need for publicizing bank activities for proper knowledge or information to the customers and public.  By the time all the necessary information is made known to the public, dubious banks would be well differentiated by the public. Banks cannot afford and should not afford to lose their customers, particularly on a continuous basis.  They have to strive to win customers but should not stop at that.  They should also retain the customers, and this has to do with public relations.