SIMON SPROULE Vice President “The role of Communications at Nissan is far more dynamic today than it has ever been. We are looking beyond traditional methods such as advertising to talk with stakeholders and approaching communications in a more strategic way. We are trying to not only become more effective but also more efficient and more proactive. We’re not just pushing messages out and waiting to deal with issues that come up. As part of that more proactive approach, we’re reaching out across the world, talking with our stakeholders, and looking for issues—both positive and negative—that may affect our business. At Nissan, Communications is focused on creating opportunities for the company to tell its story in a relevant way to stakeholders. such as streaming video have cut that communication time from weeks to just hours. But we are not resting here. We recognize that mobile communications is a growing new force in how people get news and information and have a number of projects looking at delivering important news to our employees via devices such as mobile phones. Whether it is with governments, local communities, pressure groups or non-governmental organizations, we also need to be able to respond to interest in our company across a wide variety of issues. For example, we are seeing increasing interest in Japan and elsewhere about Corporate Social Responsibility or CSR. This year, we decided to establish a dedicated function within Nissan that focuses solely on this area. Our first year will be spent defining CSR in Nissan, which areas we should concentrate on and how we will measure our progress. We are also taking a fresh look at corporate citizenship to ensure that we are giving back to society in a way that is consistent with the values of our company and employees.  One immediate need is to globalize the company’s communications. We’re working toward global consistency, behaving not as isolated regional units but as a single global entity with a strong single voice. However, that is not at the expense of local sensitivities and addressing the unique requirements of local stakeholders.  We take communications within Nissan itself just as seriously. Our new internal motto is ‘No surprises.’ That means no employee should ever read about something going on at Nissan in the media first. There is always speculation in the media, which employees naturally read like anyone else. We are focused on building our internal communications to the point where employees trust us over what they’re hearing outside. Our hope is that, when they read something about Nissan, their first impulse is to confirm it internally. It is our belief that Nissan employees deserve an internal communications system that operates at the same speed and effectiveness as an external news agency like CNN or the BBC. Last year we introduced a significant new internal communications tool called WIN—Workforce Integration at Nissan, our global employee intranet. WIN gives us a powerful global tool that links all employees who have access to a PC. Prior to WIN, it could take weeks to share video with employees of a major company event. WIN and technologies CSR and corporate citizenship are closely related because people naturally link the good works a company performs to its role in society. We want the company and its brands to touch everything we do, and corporate citizenship activities should reflect our values and attributes. The three pillars of Nissan’s corporate citizenship are in education, the environment, and humanitarian activities. Meeting the latter commitment, to give one example, means not just reacting to disasters but being proactive as well. We want to move away from simply writing a check to a much deeper level of involvement, and we will be taking this policy beyond the local community perspective to the national and global level.  We see our share price as a direct function of communications, a function of expectations. Whether we are delivering results or providing information to investors, we know that speed and transparency are vital. Our Investor Relations division works hand-in-hand with our external and internal communications teams to ensure the timely delivery of that information. Speed, relevance and trust are at the core of all communications at Nissan.” Nissan Annual Report 2004 43 OUR WORK COMMUNICATIONS Speed, relevance and trust