Coca-Cola has given employees the option to pull the plug on voicemail for at its Atlanta headquarters and technology plaza, urging staffers to use text-based communication in a bid to boost productivity.
The company says cutting voicemail this month will "simplify the way we work and increase productivity" as it cited "changing the tolls and methods in which we communicate as a company" for the move. Only about six percent of employees opted to keep voicemail, the company said.
MIT research fellow Michael Schrage told the Huffington Post that "corporate voicemail is to the 21st century what the telegraph is to the 20th century." He added: "Something that was once seen as valuable and indispensable is now seen not only as worthless, but as so inefficient it must be removed."
Bloomberg reported that Coca-Cola is one of the largest companies yet to ditch voicemail, as it becomes redundant with smartphones and texting.
But the extensive hack and leak of internal communications at Sony could make corporations hesitate to scuttle voicemail.
The Wall Street Journal, noting National Security Agency eavesdropping has also heightened privacy concerns, reported Dec. 23 that a smartphone app, Confide, is pitching Hollywood and big companies on its technology that encrypts text-based messaging like the photo app Snapchat, which destroys images after a short period of time.
Hollywood has moved away from email and text communications in favor of phone calls since the Sony leak, according to NBC News. "Now people are treating email more like a letter: A more formal, thought-out correspondence," reported Julia Boorstin. "And now people are writing not just for the audience of the people they're writing to, but with an awareness that the whole world might be able to read it."
Business leaders will face challenges in the upcoming year, some of which will come as a complete surprise, or beyond anyone's imagination.
Teneo has hired Philipp Grontzki, who is a 20-year veteran of corporate communications and financial journalism, as a managing director in its strategy and communications group.
Rowan Benecke, who co-founded Zeno Group and helmed Burson-Marsteller's tech practice, has joined McKinsey & Co as director of communications for North America.
BCW has named Golin's Matt Coldagelli EVP and leader of its corporate affairs practice in Chicago.
Abby Bailey, who headed corporate communications for Fedex in its Middle East, India and Africa region, has joined Teneo as managing director in Dubai.
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