Every organisation has a corporate image, whether it wants one or not.
When properly designed and managed, the corporate image will accurately reflect the organisation's commitment to quality, excellence and its relationships with its various constituents: such as current and potential customers, employees and future staff, competitors, partners, governing bodies, and the general public.
As a result, the corporate image is a critical concern for every organisation, one deserving the same attention and commitment by senior management as any other vital issue.
Managing the Corporate Image
The fallout from the Enron collapse continues to impact the global business community.
The sad fact is that it appears that it wasn't the business concept that Enron got wrong; it was the corporate culture that was wrong. The impact now affects the accounting firm that audited the methodologies used by senior Enron executives. It also affects numerous other companies as the investment community is acutely attuned to not getting caught out by the "next Enron."
Not surprisingly, the issues of ethics, business ethics, and corporate ethics, have suddenly become key topics of conversations and the subject of numerous articles in the business press. Unfortunately, the suggested solutions often mentioned - more rules and regulations, more oversight entities (both internal and external), and clearer reporting of financial transactions - will merely treat the symptoms of this current managerial crises but will do little to remedy the underlying condition.
The true way to fix this problem is to understand how to create the right corporate culture through the corporate image management process.
As I wrote seven years ago in Corporate Image Management: A Marketing Discipline for the 21st Century, corporate image management will help senior executives to deal with another of the critical issue facing management today: Corporate ethics.
As The Economist asked in 1995, "how can a company ensure that its code of ethics is both followed and enforced?"
The sure-fire way is to develop a corporate culture that not only emphasizes ethical behaviour, but also punishes and ostracizes those who do not live up to the desired standards. Very rarely can a single employee engage in unethical behaviour without other employees being "in the know," or at least suspicious.
A corporate culture, communicated and spread throughout the organisation, that exhibits zero tolerance for unethical behaviour and that is intricately tied to the corporate image is management's best form of assurance against this deadly disease.
This works a whole lot better than having internal policy police and a bundle of quarterly forms submitted, analysed, and then stacked in some compliance officer's cupboard.
Companies that win the marketing battle are those who have the internal strength from knowing who and what they are, and where they are headed - three of the most critical elements for managing the corporate image.
The underlining principle of my marketing philosophy is "if it touches the customer, it's a marketing issue.™"
Nothing touches the customer more than how he or she perceives your corporate image. This fundamental perception will be the major factor that determines whether the customer will decide to conduct business with you and, more importantly, enter into a long-term and mutually rewarding relationship with your organisation.
There may be no greater marketing issue than corporate image management in today's increasingly competitive markets.
Likewise, there may be no greater methodology for heading off potential business ethics and corporate ethics problems in your own organisation than through re-evaluating your corporate image management process.
And it's not just in the area of financial manipulation that business ethics in recent years has gone astray.
How many people justify such so-called guerrilla marketing tactics as releasing highly skewed market share data? Or the buying of market share and then claiming that market share actually grew, as if such growth had been organic. Or how about the stealing of someone else's idea? Or making a product announcement of a future product when the product is little more than a concept on the drawing board? The latter even resulted in new terminology in the IT industry - vapourware.
Unfortunately, as marketers we are often no less dirty in our shenanigans and tricks than our colleagues in the financial department have been. Are the dirty tricks of politics now firmly embedded in the business world? Is the business community about to sink to the same level of distrust as politicians? It is indeed a slippery slope that we collectively appear to be on.
What can you do to ensure that your company, department, or work group abides by the highest business ethics?
If you're the CEO, Managing Director, or other senior leader, you need to create and manage the right corporate culture.
If you are a department head or work group leader, you need to "walk the talk," - in your personal life as well as your corporate life.
Why?
If you brag about all the copyrighted music you downloaded for free from Napster, what message does this send to your subordinates and colleagues?
If you take your spouse or significant other out to dinner and put it on your corporate expenses, what message does this convey?
If you lift materials out of some one else's presentation, or download data off the Internet without crediting the source, what other actions does this suggest as allowable?
Ethics is not a grey issue.
If you have a single seed of doubt about what you are doing, or planning to do, is wrong, it probably is!
As Dr. Martin Luther King wrote:
"Cowardice asks the question - is it safe?
Expediency asks the question - is it politic?
Vanity asks the question - is it popular?
But conscience asks the question - is it right?
And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is RIGHT."
What does this have to do with marketing?
EVERYTHING.
Because, "if it touches the customer, it's a marketing issue.™"
Your business ethics will eventually be directly reflected in the way you interact and do business with customers, suppliers, channel partners, and others.
Conducting business the RIGHT way is the ONLY way. This principle should be a nucleus of your marketing strategy and corporate culture.
As Nelson Mandela said, "the time is always right to do right."
If you don't, then your organisation could well be on its way to a future induction in the Hall of Shame & Failures.
Today’s Most Important Managerial Issue
We live in a world of change. As a matter of fact, the rate of change today is faster, and affects a larger portion of the earth's population, than at any other time in history.
Yet, despite all this change, there is still one constant. And this is that marketing excellence and a strong corporate image are firmly linked. You cannot have one without the other. At least not for very long.
Because, at the end of the day, your competitors can mimic and better your product offer. They can create stronger distribution systems than yours. They can outspend you in advertising and promotions. And, of course, they can always beat you up on price.
But the one thing a competitor cannot mimic or copy is a well-defined corporate personality.
As I always advise my clients, "if it touches the customer, it's a marketing issue.™" And nothing, nothing touches your customers more than how he or she perceives your corporate image.
This makes the management of your corporate image one of the most potent marketing and management tools available for senior executives to use in ensuring the viable execution of your corporate vision.
Especially in today's world.
Especially with today's headlines.
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