Public Relations Report: Analysis of H&M and Rana Plaza Incident

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of H&M's public relations strategies, particularly focusing on the aftermath of the Rana Plaza incident. It delves into the incident's impact on the brand's image and examines the stakeholders involved, including workers, suppliers, governments, and consumers. The report utilizes frameworks such as the power-interest matrix and salience model to analyze and prioritize stakeholders. It discusses the benefits of stakeholder theories and models in public relations, offering recommendations for H&M to improve its brand image, including enhanced corporate social responsibility and stricter supplier regulations. The report also highlights H&M's social media activities and ethical considerations. Finally, it draws parallels with Apple Inc.'s public relations practices, suggesting areas for H&M to learn and improve. This report is a valuable resource for understanding the complexities of public relations and crisis management in the global fashion industry.

Running head: PUBLIC RELATIONS
Public relations
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1PUBLIC RELATIONS
Executive summary
The report mentions the Rana Plaza incident that took place in Bangladesh and its relation with
H&M. The report explains that the Australian’s love for cheap clothes have left the Bangladesh
garment factories in financial crisis due to which they are neither able to pay sufficient wages to
the labors nor are they able to improve their working conditions. The report mentions the
stakeholders that were affected in the incident and they are prioritized accordingly. The report
includes salience model and mentions the benefits of stakeholder theories and models. Later in
the report, the social media activities undertaken by H&M are mentioned along with the ethical
considerations. At last the report describes Apple Inc as a company with excellent public
relations practices from which H&M must learn.

2PUBLIC RELATIONS
Table of contents
Introduction:....................................................................................................................................3
H&M and Rana Plaza incident........................................................................................................3
Stakeholders involved in the issue:..................................................................................................4
Power- interest matrix:....................................................................................................................7
Stakeholder identification, analysis and prioritization:...................................................................7
Salience model:................................................................................................................................8
Benefits of stakeholder theories and model:....................................................................................9
Recommendations:........................................................................................................................10
Social media activities:..................................................................................................................11
Ethical considerations....................................................................................................................11
Industry with excellent PR practices.............................................................................................11
Conclusion:....................................................................................................................................12
References......................................................................................................................................13

3PUBLIC RELATIONS
Introduction:
H&M is a Swedish multinational company that is involved in retail clothing. The
company is well- known all over the world for its fast- fashion clothes. H&M sells trendy clothes
in more than 62 countries. H&M has more than 4500 stores across the globe. The company holds
the second position among the largest clothing retailer in the world. H&M provides trendy
clothes for men, women and children of all age groups. The company also has its online presence
that has made shopping convenient for its customers. H&M has its huge presence in Australia
and the Australians form a huge customer base for the company. The apparels available at H&M
are of good quality and lower prices, which is affordable by a large population of Australia
("H&M Offers Fashion And Quality At The Best Price" 2017).
My role in the organization is of a PR counselor. A public relations counselor is
responsible for creating a positive brand image in the eyes of the public. A PR counselor is
responsible for overcoming and solving the issues of a company that is related to its brand
image. It is the duty of a PR counselor to improve the degraded image of an organization and
helping the organization recover its bad phase.
H&M and Rana Plaza incident:
H&M has faced several issues related to its deteriorating brand image when the
Bangladesh factory that manufactured its clothes caught fire that injured several factory workers.
The Bangladesh garment factories have often into limelight for its poor working conditions,
exploitation of workers, low living wages and improper facilities (Sinkovics, Hoque and
Sinkovics 2016). A majority of the Australian retailers and wholesalers purchase apparels from
the Bangladesh garment factories. The big companies like H&M and Woolworths place their

4PUBLIC RELATIONS
orders with the Bangladesh garment suppliers in order to take the advantage of cheap labor and
lower taxes. The labors in the Bangladesh garment factories are paid very less especially the
female workers that enable these factories to sell their garments at the cheapest rate in the world
(Murshed, Islam, and Sarder 2016). The Australian’s love for cheap clothes have left the
Bangladesh garment factories in financial crisis due to which they are neither able to pay
sufficient wages to the labors nor are they able to improve their working conditions. On the other
hand, these factory owners are violent with their labors when they miss the deadline provided by
these companies. Other issues faced by these factories are long working hours, sexual
harassment, underpayment, miserable working conditions and improper fire exit facilities.
H&M has been associated with the issue because the Bangladesh garment factory in Rana
Plaza that supplied garments to the company caught fire that injured several workers. The media
brought this issue into the limelight blaming H&M for the poor working conditions in the factory
that defamed the public image of the company (Boudreau, Makioka, and Tanaka 2015). H&M
was blamed that the company did not ensure the safety of the factories from where it purchased
the garments and paid such less price for the products that degraded the working environment of
the factories. It was found that the suppliers of H&M lacked the basic fire exit facilities that led
to injury in the factories. The company was blamed for not having taken any steps for improving
the safety standards in the factories.
Stakeholders involved in the issue:
Stakeholders refer to an individual, group of individuals or any organization or group of
organizations that have their interest in some organization. The major stakeholders involve
directors, employees, suppliers, shareholders, Government, unions and the community.

5PUBLIC RELATIONS
Stakeholders are those whose actions affect the functioning of a business. The stakeholders
invest their time, effort or money within an organization (Barua, and Ansary 2016).
The key stakeholders involved in this issue are the Bangladeshi suppliers, Bangladeshi
workers, Bangladesh Government, Australian Government, unions, NGO’s, shareholders, board
of directors, media, competitors and the customers. The following table shows the list of primary
and secondary stakeholders:
Primary stakeholders Secondary stakeholders
Shareholders Australian Government
Employees Bangladeshi Government
Board of directors Bangladeshi workers
Customers Competitors: Woolworths
Suppliers Clothing industry
NGO’s
Media
Australian clothing wholesalers and retailers
Global clothing brands
Bangladeshi suppliers
Departmental stores in Australia
Bangladeshi factory unions
Bangladeshi public
Australian public
Prospective customers

6PUBLIC RELATIONS
Fire safety organizations in Bangladesh
Table 1: Primary and secondary stakeholders
(Source: Author’s work)
The following table shows the stakeholders using situational theory:
Stakeholders Situational
Board of directors Active
Customers Active
Media Active
Bangladeshi factory union Active
NGO’s Active
Fire safety organizations in Bangladesh Active
Bangladeshi suppliers Aware
Australian public Aware
Shareholders Aware
Australian Government Aware
Bangladeshi Government Aware
Bangladeshi workers Latent
Employees Latent
Table 2: Stakeholders according to situational theory
(Source: Author’s work)

7PUBLIC RELATIONS
Power- interest matrix:
Keep satisfied
Board of directors
Customers
Employees
Shareholders
Manage closely
Bangladeshi workers
Bangladeshi suppliers
Bangladeshi factory union
Monitor (Minimum effort)
NGO’s
Fire safety in Bangladesh
Keep informed
Media
Australian Government
Bangladeshi Government
Australian public
Table 3: Power- interest matrix
Interest
Power

8PUBLIC RELATIONS
(Source: Author’s work)
Stakeholder identification, analysis and prioritization:
Stakeholder identification refers to the determination of the key stakeholders and their
appropriate grouping. Stakeholder analysis is an in- depth vision of the interests of the
stakeholder groups as to the impacts on them and their impact on the project or organization. The
stakeholders identification and analysis helps in the construction of a stakeholder engagement
strategy. All the stakeholders do not have similar powers and do not hold the same interests
(Wang, Liu and Mingers 2015). Therefore, it is necessary to prioritize the stakeholder groups and
group them accordingly. The following are the approaches to identify, analyze and prioritize the
stakeholders:
 Develop a strategy: This step involves reviewing the previous engagements of the
stakeholders, determining the organization’s motivation for stakeholder engagement and
clearly defining the objectives.
 Map the stakeholders: This step involves clearly identifying the stakeholders and
prioritizing them accordingly. This step involves utilizing the appropriate engagement
mechanism such as social media, meeting and stakeholder panel.
 Prepare for engagement: This step involves defining goals and setting rules for the
engagement.
 Engage stakeholder: This step involves focusing upon the communication among the
stakeholders and arranging engagement sessions between them.

9PUBLIC RELATIONS
 Establish action plans: This step involves obtaining feedback from the stakeholders for
improving the strategies and operations, planning for future engagements and building
relationships with the stakeholders.
Salience model:
Salience model is an effective method that aids in grouping the stakeholders and prioritize
them accordingly. The project managers usually face the issue of classifying the stakeholders and
prioritizing their needs. The salience model helps in identifying the prominent stakeholders that
helps the project managers in prioritizing them. The model determines the prominent
stakeholders in terms of power, urgency and legitimacy. Power refers to the capability of a
stakeholder to force their opinions (Thijssens, Bollen and Hassink 2015). Urgency refers to the
requirement for instant action. Legitimacy refers to ensuring that the involvement of the
stakeholders is appropriate. The model divides the stakeholder groups into the following types:
 Dormant stakeholder: These stakeholders possess power but have neither urgency nor
legitimacy. Therefore, no planning is required to meet their communication needs.
 Discretionary stakeholders: These stakeholders neither have power nor do they have
urgency but they are legitimate. Therefore, they do not require much attention.
 Demanding stakeholders: These stakeholders have urgency and their needs are to be on
an urgent basis.
 Dominant stakeholders: They have power and legitimacy and it is necessary to meet
their communication needs.
 Dangerous stakeholder: These stakeholders have a combination of power and urgency
and they are essential for the project or organization.

10PUBLIC RELATIONS
 Dependent stakeholders: They do not possess any power but have both urgency and
legitimacy. These stakeholders are required to be kept informed as they can be useful
in future.
 Definitive stakeholders: These are the most important stakeholders who have power,
urgency and are legitimate. They are required to be satisfied and informed.
Benefits of stakeholder theories and model:
The stakeholder model and theory help in identifying the groups that have interest in the
organization and helps in understanding their requirements and expectations. Stakeholders are an
essential part of an organization and the success or failure of an organization is highly dependent
upon the stakeholders. The companies are considered to be successful, which have been able to
satisfy its stakeholders (Harrison and Wicks 2013).
The stakeholder theory is highly relevant to the public relations practices as PR
practitioners are able to communicate the right information to the right person only when he or
she knows about the stakeholder groups and their classifications. Classification of the
stakeholders according to the salience model helps the PR practitioners to identify the
stakeholders that have power, urgency and legitimacy and emphasize upon keeping them
satisfied. The stakeholder theories and model also help the PR practitioners to identify the
stakeholder that are to be either informed or monitored. The power, urgency and legitimacy of
the stakeholders help the PR practitioners to design appropriate PR strategies (Cooper 2017).

11PUBLIC RELATIONS
Recommendations:
The company should have compensated to the families of the dead and injured workers.
The company must spread awareness regarding the poor working conditions in the Bangladeshi
garment factories and must encourage the other brands such as Walmart to contribute towards
improving the working conditions of the factories by increasing the payments given to the
suppliers and personally ensuring the security measures within the factories. This can help the
company in improving its brand image and winning the support of the people. Nowadays, people
prefer to associate with those companies and purchase goods and services from those companies
that work for the betterment of the society and environment. Therefore, H&M can extend its
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) activities in order to win the confidence of the people and
become sustainable (McWilliams 2014). The company must make strict rules and regulations for
its suppliers and specify the terms of contract so that the suppliers ensure that they meet the basic
working condition requirements. This shall help in reducing the exploitation of the workers and
harassment during the working hours and shall also improve the quality of products.
Social media activities:
After the incident of Rana Plaza collapse, H&M used Facebook to get the signatures of
thousands of people and finally became the first recognized brand to sign the ‘Accord on Fire
and Building Safety’ in Bangladesh. The agreement shall compel the company to ensure safe
working conditions within the Bangladeshi garment factories. H&M has taken several steps in
order to strengthen the Bangladeshi textile factory workers. The company emphasized upon
sustainable development of its business by developing several programs that support the
suppliers (Reinecke and Donaghey 2015).

12PUBLIC RELATIONS
Ethical considerations:
H&M must maintain ethical PR relations by ensuring that the messages provided by the
company are true and the company shall adhere to all the promises made by it. The company
must ensure the authenticity of the person who is involved in the public relations activities in
order to avoid any confusions and misleading. The company must ensure that the public relations
activities do not cause any harm to the stakeholders involved and their respect is maintained. The
company must ensure that it works for the betterment of the society on a whole (Parsons 2016).
Industry with excellent PR practices:
Apple Inc is one such company that has been successfully utilizing its PR practices for
becoming successful. The PR practices of Apple have shown that the company has emphasized
much upon communication and has been successful in keeping its customers engaged with the
brand. The company has been efficiently utilizing press release and has valued the feedback
obtained from the customers. The company has emphasized upon culture marketing and has
designed its PR activities according to the changes in the culture and trends. The company has
outsourced its manufacturing in various countries and has ensured that the factories have proper
working conditions (Swann 2014).
Conclusion:
The case study of Rana Plaza collapse has been studied to understand the role of H&M in
the incident and its ethical implications. The report mentioned the various stakeholders that were
affected by the Rana Plaza Collapse in Bangladesh. The stakeholders were classified in primary
and secondary groups and the advantages of the stakeholder model were specified. The report
included recommendation on the H&M’s public relations practices after the incident. Further, the

13PUBLIC RELATIONS
report mentioned the ethical considerations that the company must follow. Lastly the report
mentioned Apple Inc as the company with excellent PR practices and a role model for other
organizations.
References:
"H&M Offers Fashion And Quality At The Best Price". 2017. Hm.Com. http://www.hm.com/au.
Barua, Uttama, and Mehedi Ahmed Ansary. "Workplace safety in Bangladesh ready-made
garment sector: 3 years after the Rana Plaza collapse." International Journal of Occupational
Safety and Ergonomics (2016): 1-6.
Boudreau, Laura, Ryo Makioka, and Mari Tanaka. "The Impact of the Rana Plaza Collapse on
Global Retailers." URL: https://goo. gl/b7CRTH (2015).
Cooper, Stuart. Corporate social performance: A stakeholder approach. Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Harrison, Jeffrey S., and Andrew C. Wicks. "Stakeholder theory, value, and firm
performance." Business ethics quarterly 23, no. 1 (2013): 97-124.