Master of Business Administration Program – Weekend 2015-2017

Assignment 2

Understanding Organizational Culture for successful brand

management

By

Rifnaz A.M 2015/MBA/WE/75

Course: MBAMK 617 – Advanced Brand Management

Semester IV – Second Half – 2017

Lecturer: Mr. Tharaka Dias

Postgraduate and Mid-Career Development Unit

Faculty of Management and Finance

University of Colombo, Sri Lanka

  What is organization culture? How can organizational culture impact on brand?

Organizational culture can be defined as the internal values, beliefs and basic assumptions that
embody heritage of the company and communicate its meaning to its members. There are three
levels of culture which are visual artifacts, values and basic assumptions. Culture helps to create
shared awareness and understanding out of different individuals and create unique value towards
stakeholders. Also understanding organizational culture provides a strong indicator about the
values that characterized the brand. According to Hatch Schultz, for corporate branding, strategic
vision, organizational culture and stakeholders’ image should be linked together where one
depends on the other and the gaps between one another should be minimal as possible.

Culture can be varied on different aspects like country, customer, senior management control and
etc. For an example, let’s take the banking sector of Sri Lanka. Some banks are operating under
government control & regulation and some are fully privatized. The best example for this culture
differentiation is the employee’s behavior at the working environment, where staff in rural
branch of Bank of Ceylon (where fully owns by SL government) has minor status relationship
with the customer while Sampath bank (which operate as a local private bank) is welcoming
people by saying “Ayubowan”. Even the simple practice is applied in the situation, Sampath
bank is able to make long term relationship by delivering respect and pleasant welcome. One
reason for Sampath Bank strong performance as a brand is the sense of identification between its
branch employees and its customers. Sampath Bank is very popular at Internet and mobile
banking which has similar targeted customers base as BOC. The company also much developed
at the technological aspects where able to deliver the best customer experience in the region by
giving training to employees. So Sampath Bank can be regarded as the winner in terms of
promoting brand towards customer by adhering to best cultural practices.
  Discuss the internal branding process?

The process of aligning an organization around a brand is known as the internal branding process
and this can be aimed to both existing and prospective employees. Basically internal branding is
defined as the cultural change within an organization, where employees become more customer
and business focused. It allows employees to understand brand values and let them to change
their processes for better customer benefits. There are huge advantages behind this process where
company performance, customer satisfaction, brand equity and shareholder value will develop.
Internal communications, training support, leadership practices, reward & recognition programs,
recruitment practices and sustainability factors are defined as the main processes involves with
internal branding process. Internal branding is divided in to three stages; planning, execution and
evaluation.

At the planning stage of internal branding process, it is needed to define organizational value and
mission. The defined vision need to communicate to employees and awake their role to deliver
greater results. Management can get ideas from employees and engage them for build an identity
for the brand. Once you build up an internal concept for the brand, it is needed to communicate
to customer interface (external environment) by behavior or as a message. As an example, in
Sampath bank vision statement it is mentioned as "The Growing Force in Sri Lankan Financial
Services" where employees are always trying to show the brand identity by better engaging with
the customer. Creating an emotional connection between employees-brand is mandatory in every
customer touch-points like regional branches, call centers and at even online banking portal. This
will create a working culture that best suit to uplift the brand name towards the public.

Evaluation should be carried out while executing. Feedbacks are the key always specially during
the internal branding process. According to the feedbacks, the process should be modified thus
the core objective of internal branding is achieved.
  Discuss the term cultural-fit? Why is it important for the organization and the
brand?

Basically culture fit is denoted as the individual’s compatibility with organization values and
operation mode. For the development of internal branding, it is important to identify the person
who is really compatible to the working environment where those people can be regarded as
brand ambassador in their own organization as they better perform by working with the
customers & shareholders. Once those people understand the similarity in their individual brand
values and organization values they are outperforming to enhance the brand deliverables. This
can highlighted as the Brand adequate behavior. There are many training and appraisal process
behind the selecting those individuals from the bunch of employees at any sector where can gain
numerous results. For Sampath bank example, if they could identify the people who are
outperforming according to their brand promise message, those can be placed in most critical
places like urban branches, head offices and at senior management posts. It is mandatory to
implement correct motivation & reward program for filter out the best people in any working
place. Compensation and other benefits can be improved for those who are committed to involve
in such branding process where organization can earn huge customer attention.