How is public relations used as a persuasive tool in communications?

Public relations is a very powerful tool in the area of communications as it focuses on so many different aspects of the business and is in control of many different functions. The public relations office of any corporation has to achieve four steps to accomplish their set goals. The first step is identifying the existing relationship, which means the company has to figure out which specific audience they are dealing with in each scenario and what their relationship with the company is. The next step is for the public relations office to evaluate the relationship, this step is constantly happening as the quality of certain relationships is continually changing. The third step is to design policies to improve the relationship, if, for example, the legislation of a company no longer supports a member of the company because of a scandal they were involved in and they are making it hard to get things done, the policy to improve the relationship is to either deal with the scandaled employee or find a balance with the legislation. The final step a public relations office must accomplish is to implement said policies, if this final step is not carried out then the office is left with a bunch of idea on paper but no progress happening in the company. Using this four steps, a public relations office of a major company can have a huge influence in the communications part of the company because they can control the media surrounding the company and also deal with problems inside the company, making them a very powerful and persuasive tool.