Businesses in Europe – both large and small – are increasingly having to face the challenges arising from the evolution of an expanded and more unified European marketplace. This has required an adaptation to the way companies are organised both at the business and corporate communications level. And while local legislation and regulators will of course continue to exist, along with culturally defined customer needs, companies across all sectors of the economy are becoming increasingly European, international and specialised. Corporate Communications departments plainly have to keep abreast of the changes occurring within their own companies and in the wider community. As part of a financial services firm with an international growth strategy and some 60,000 employees of 100 nationalities based in 50 countries, Fortis’s Corporate Communications department offers an interesting example of that process. The company’s financial roots stretch back almost three centuries. Fortis’s predecessors traded with Catherine the Great, financed the United States’ purchase of Louisiana from Napoleon, and were active in China as far back as 1902. In 1990, Fortis became the first cross-border company in the European financial sector, since then having integrated five major banks and four major insurance companies in Benelux alone. From that home base, the bank is rapidly expanding into Europe and – selectively – into Asia and North America.
