Shooting yourself in the foot, the Dassault way

A hundred supersonic fighter jets, two brothers jousting over a multi billion-Dollar business empire, a Prime Minister with 44.1 million Twitter followers, a former President who alleges unilateral force dictating a deal, and a political minefield. Now that’s quite a cast for a rather racy Hollywood thriller. In fact, they are just the players in a controversy that has engulfed India, is threatening to spread to France, while putting a massive corporate organization into a nose-dive.

Source - Amul

First things first, France’s Dassault Aviation is one of the world’s foremost manufacturers of fighter and commercial aircraft. The Company first agreed to sell 126 'Rafale' fighter aircraft  to India in 2012 in a deal worth an astronomical 10.2 billion US Dollars. Fast forward to 2015 and India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, he of the gargantuan Twitter following, renegotiated the deal to include only 36 aircraft. Quite the cut, surprising considering the fact that India would still need to pay 8.7 billion USD for the 36 fighters. According to Indian law, Dassault (the corporate organization) would require an Indian partner. This partner amusingly was one that had no previous experience in defence manufacturing, let alone complex fighter aircraft. Currently, the Indian parliament is ablaze with allegations of corruption, kick-backs, and crony-capitalism. Muck is flying thick and fast about Dassault  being allegedly complicit in under-hand dealings. 

Source - The Indian Express

The reputation of the organization has taken a severe beating, but apart from a few squeaks, it doesn’t seem to be doing too much to repair it.

Timothy Coombs (2007) in his oft-cited Situational Crisis Communication Theory (SCCT) posits that organizations need to be quick to adopt a frame for their crisis. Either the organization could apologize, deny, or find a scapegoat. It is imperative for the organization to adopt a narrative, but more importantly stick to it. Dassault’s handling of the Rafale crisis seems to be anything but ‘holding firm to a narrative’. The Organization was content to let the Indian and French governments take centre-stage, allowed their Indian partners to spin a story where they absolved themselves of culpability, and showed a reluctance to put their side of the story forward.

 Source - NDTV

A ‘para-crisis’ is another concept propounded by Coombs (2012). A ‘para-crisis’ is not really a crisis but looks like one. It has the potential to snowball into a crisis if effective action is not taken. Dassault’s Rafale fiasco is a shining example of a ‘para-crisis’ which was almost ‘wilfully’ allowed to mitigate into a devastating inferno, which threatens to consume the Organization’s credibility itself.

In an age of new-media, Dassault could have blitzed their social media channels with strong denials, scapegoated the Indian government, or built a narrative of being forced to partner with a dubious entity positioning themselves as the 'victim'. As van der Meer (2016) states, the Organization’s narrative on social media is an important contributor in the stakeholders and public’s adoption of a frame. Dassault so far has failed to even attempt to construct a frame. The only press release that Dassault released fails to include even their CEO’s comment on the whole controversy and there is no effort towards framing Dassault as the innocent party.

Source - www.dassault-aviation.com

Yes, defence deals in developed nations are tricky with serious allegations (whatever their merit never far). However, communication practitioners in organizations like Dassault have to understand that leading the narrative is the key. A clear and strong narrative allows the organization a shield against allegations, counter-claims, and allows for more avenues of attack (in a strictly communicational sense). Unfortunately, funnily for someone who produces cutting edge weaponry, Dassault's communication strategy does not even fire blanks! 

Academic References; 

van der Meer, T. (2016). Public Frame Building: The Role of Source Usage in Times of Crisis. Communication Research, 45(6), 956-981. doi: 10.1177/0093650216644027

Coombs, W. (2007). Protecting Organization Reputations During a Crisis: The Development and Application of Situational Crisis Communication Theory. Corporate Reputation Review, 10(3), 163-176. doi: 10.1057/palgrave.crr.1550049

Coombs, W., & Holladay, J. (2012). The paracrisis: The challenges created by publicly managing crisis prevention. Public Relations Review, 38(3), 408-415. doi: 10.1016/j.pubrev.2012.04.004

About the author - Chinmay is a Masters student at the University of Amsterdam. Having served as a journalist with one of India's leading English dailies, he has also driven communications for two of India's leading conglomerates' sports divisions. He is passionate about sports, cinema, and communication.