Chapter 3:

Understanding
Organizational Culture
for Successful Brand
Management
 Contents
• Organizational culture
• Strategic brand wheel
• Brand mantras
• Internal branding
• Aligning staff with the brand performance
 Introduction
• The top management provides the strategic framework that
‘takes the brand from current value to the potential value’ by
execution of the brand experience.
• ‘In an increasingly competitive environment with continuous
pressures of quarterly performance the operating team is
forced to focus on the short term objectives of meeting sales
and customer acquisition.
• This approach is myopic and completely overlooks the long
term value creation potential of the brand to the business’
(Unnikrishnan, 2010).
 Introduction
• The top management needs to carefully delineate the core
brand values and design the brand identity based on their
corporate vision.
• This brand identity through an internal branding process is
clarified to the employees. The employees of the organization in
turn build the brand and deliver the brand experience to the
customers.
• The customers interpret the brand values according to their
own brand experiences. This results in the brand image that is
the perception of the customers of the brand identity.
 Introduction

The customers’ interpretation of the brand is reflected in

the confidence they place in the brand through the degree
to which they purchase and consume the same.
 Apollo Hospitals Brand Values
The Apollo Hospitals Group was founded by Padma Bhushan Dr
Pratap C. Reddy. Dr Reddy ‘shaped and nurtured the ethos of Apollo
Hospitals with his vision and inspiring leadership. Recognized as the
architect of India’s healthcare revolution, Dr Reddy made Apollo
Hospitals a centre for medical excellence, innovation, and a catalyst
of positive change.’ What started in 1983 with a team of 25 members
is now spread across Asia with 46 hospitals, 8000 beds, and over
60,000 team members. It is Asia’s largest and most trusted healthcare
group and has achieved international recognition. How does it
manage to deliver consistently on the exceptionally high levels of
service quality standards?
 Apollo Hospitals Brand Values

The employees of Apollo are ‘enjoined to follow rigorously the

Florence Nightingale approach of “tender loving care.” All efforts are
made to ensure that every patient who comes into Apollo is put at
ease instantly. It’s not just the quality of the diagnosis, the
equipment, the medical staff, or the exceptional success rates at
Apollo that have made it the leading health care provider in the
region; it is largely the emotional bond that the hospital creates with
the patient that makes Apollo so special.’ (Superbrands, 2009).
 Brand value delivery
Senior
Management

Specify core
Influences brand values

Marketing
communication

Consumers Organization
interpret and staff enact
redefine values
offering
 The Organizational Culture
• Organizational culture is defined as the ‘company’s
overall philosophy, a set of values, and beliefs that
shape the way people think and behave’ (Hankinson
and Hankinson, 1999).
• It is ‘an amalgamation of values which gives rise to
behaviour’ (de Chernatony and Cottam, 2008).
• Thus, we can define organizational culture as ‘the
values of the organization that gives rise to and
influences the behaviour of employees.’
 Organizational culture and brand performance
• Organizational culture is ‘the pattern of shared values and beliefs,’
which helps individuals in gaining an understanding of how the
organization functions. This understanding further provides them
‘norms for behaviour in the organization’.
• This means that the workings of the employees in organizations are
uniquely influenced by the prevailing culture of the organization.
• For the employees to ‘live the brand’ they need to be supported by
an appropriate organizational culture.
• Organizations need to build a culture which revolves around the core
brand values. This will influence the employees to perform their
duties in line with the brand identity the organization has delineated
 Organizational culture and brand performance

The brand interacts at the following three major levels

• With the organization through the organizational vision
• With the internal stakeholders through organizational culture
• With the external stakeholders through the identity of the brand
which it portrays and the image the consumers develop on the
consumption of the brand.
 The Strategic Fit
Organization

Brand
External
Internal stakeholders
stakeholders

Delivery of brand experience

 Strategic Brand Wheel and Gaps
• Vision-culture gap
• Vision-delivery or Culture-image gap
• Vision-image or Identity-image gap
 Internal branding
Internal marketing Internal branding

Perspective To ‘orient and motivate its customer-
contact employees and supporting
service people to work as a team to
provide customer satisfaction.’ (Kotler
et al. 2010)
Scope Only the customer-contact employees
To ‘develop and reinforce a common
value-based ethos, typically attached
to some form of corporate mission or
vision.’ (Mosley 2007)
All the employees in the organization

Employee role Employees are used as a tool to deliver the Employees are strategically involved in
brand creating the brand

Employee status Channel to market Employees ‘live the brand’

Focus Narrow. Just focus on customer-brand ‘Broader range of brand-led corporate
experience goals and objectives’
Approach ‘Outside-in’ approach as ‘focus on ‘Inside-out’ value-based approach
communicating the customer brand
promise, and the attitudes and
behaviours expected from employees
to deliver on that promise’
 Internal branding process
Organization vision

Stage 1:
Brand identity
(character clarity Planning
and preparation)

Communication
and commitment Stage 2:
Culture
Executing

Feedback Performance of activities / Delivery of brand

experience to the customers

Performance-Cultural fit analysis Stage 3:

Evaluating
Cultural fit Cultural gap

Brand adequate behaviour Brand inadequate behaviour

Feedback Motivation, rewards and recognition Facilitation (brand oriented

and compensation training and development)

Periodic appraisal for brand adequate

behaviour over time
 Aligning Staff
with the brand
• Organizational culture should support and encourage the staff to be a
part of the branding process
• Strong brand philosophy and recruit staff who share similar values
• Quiz top management about values of the brand over time
• Consistent employee behaviour
• Survey employees about their perception of brand from external
stakeholders / customers perspective
• Consistent branding programs
• Show individual employees their job description and responsibilities
• Consistently measure and communicate the various brand gaps to
employees
 Quick Recapitulation
• Organizational culture
• Strategic brand wheel
• Brand mantras
• Internal branding
• Aligning staff with the brand performance
Questions?