Company to a brand

As per MCA, there were 11,89,826 active companies as on June 30, 2018.  Not all are brands that deliver experience along with product and services. Brand is a simplest form to identify a company and further it helps to differentiate from another company in same industry.  It is essential for companies or an organization to create a brand out of services and products they deliver. It is not simple as it sounds to be. And it is not impossible to become a brand and recognized by consumers in the market.  However, the stakeholders of the company need to walk the journey to become a brand.

The first step to the endless journey to stay as a brand

Recently I was asked in a client meeting, “what is the single factor that makes a company or brand successful ?  With no hesitation or thoughts, I pointed out “culture” as the single factor that could make a company successful and hence makes it a brand. Though culture is not a visible factor, but it is the only function that determines the growth curve. Culture forms the single platform where marketing, HR, operations, sales resides. Without the concrete culture a company is not a brand and not a company that could pull itself for long run in the market (we are not challenging the exceptions as we deal with best practices).  The good news is 70% of the company stakeholders / business leaders we surveyed know the importance of organizational culture, 90% of them struggle to use culture as a key driver of performance. Business stakeholders acknowledge that they should create culture enabled brand rather than a brand which only markets product and services.

expandnext.com research shows Customer Relationship, Innovation and Accountability are the top priorities among the other parameters that brands are looking to invest and are investing. Fortunately, these are also part of culture management system. Example – Innovation is a culture which can be put into a business process or say a company can implement Innovation Process as part of culture.

Thinking extraordinary – as a part of culture

Brands need to institutionalized culture which could inspire the next generation of managers and employee at all levels. Company should groom people from being ordinary to extra ordinary for growth and innovation.

Challenges

Yes, there are challenges, specially when brands are part of the long value chain. B2B functions challenges are comparatively less than brands dealing in B2C markets. Retail brands which take the franchise route should re-think and re imagine the process and should explore culture as a key parameter. As in culture of training and development (and not business development ), culture of constant auditing, culture auditing. Brands should stop thinking their partners in business as another distribution channel, and should align them more to the culture that the brand promise.

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