Leveraging Vision, Mission, Culture, Commitment

Over the period of their life-time, companies are forced into an Identity crisis over the deviation of its operations from the basic idea that caused its birth.

Any business is essentially a commercially viable value proposition. However, with changing times and new opportunities, new value propositions come up and sometimes not in line with the original. Ensuring the stakeholders do not lose focus, requires that the organization systematically re-discover/re-define the nature of the identity of the business - the corporate identity.

BCG studies indicate that a clear identity rejuvenates the share-holder value of the company. RoI - Return on Identity.

Major companies like Apple, Bayer, GE have all successfully undergone such processes of re-discovering their Identity -jargonized as Vision, Mission, Culture, Commitment. However, in most cases such transformation is only peripheral to say the least and is not manifested in the tactical management and operations of the business.

A 3 point frame-work for the same as put in place by Bayer has been highly successful in averting a crisis like situation for the company.

• Assessing the relevance of your Identity
• Integrating your Identity into strategic decision making
• Integrating your Identity into day-to-day operations

Daniel Stelter and Ulrich Pediun feel that a systemized approach in this regard serves as a monitor to retain the Corporate Identity - that serves as the source of all differentiation of the company in the market-place.

The process begins with a soul-searching to answer 4 critical questions:

• Can the company's identity be described in a few words ?
• Does the identity match with the key success factors of the business?
• Does the identity define the direction of strategic decisions?
• Is the identity integrated with key processes?

GE, perhaps the world's most diversified company has transformed its Identity of a 'strong performance culture and consistent portfolio management' into standizeded processes for even operationalizing its M&As.