Analyzing Your Corporate Identity

To maximize your corporate performance, you must maintain in your company a proper balance between the permanent and the temporary; the stable and the transient. On the one hand, your company must quickly and efficiency adapt to rapid changes in your business environment; on the other, it must maintain a certain core which stays the same regardless of these changes. Therefore, your company must always maintain an optimal balance between core (permanent) and temporary components of its corporate identity.

By definition, your corporate identity is the system of certain key corporate attributes & components that form a unique and distinct image (just like an identity of an individual does) in the minds of its stakeholders that interact with your company (shareholders, consumers, partners, suppliers, government entities, etc.).

Which specific corporate components constitute a corporate identity, is a subject of an intense debate. However, the most obvious are embodied in corporate objects and processes certain values, beliefs and principles (what your company stands for); your core competencies and unique value propositions (expressed in broad, general terms); your corporate mission (likewise) and the key milestones of your corporate history.

Whenever we are discussing a system (or a portfolio) of some objects, we immediately think about synergy between these components which must be maximized. Therefore, you must make sure that the synergy between components of your corporate identity is, indeed, maximized. 

The next (actually, the first) obvious requirement for your corporate identity is that it (both core and temporary components) must be unique. Your company must always stand out from the crowd. Which means that its identity must be something very difficult (better impossible) to duplicate.

Which brings us to one more (and also quite obvious) requirement – stability. Actually, your core corporate identity must be not just stable, but rock-solid. Rock-solid not just in terms of stability, but also of strength and power. Only a strong and powerful ‘corporate core’ will enable your company to weather even the strongest storm (of which there are and will be plenty). Companies with strong corporate identities prosper for centuries; the ones with weak ones go out or business or are acquired by stronger rivals in a few decades (or even years).

Stability of your corporate identity specifically means that your company must easily and naturally keep its identity even after departure of its founder(s) who typically form the corporate identity in the first place. In other words, it must already be independent from its founders – in a way, become a separate, distinct being.

Your company may not have the declared (‘written’) corporate identity, but it always has the real, actual, ‘unwritten’ one. Which in most cases happens to deviate very far from the optimal. Therefore, you must always make sure that (a) you always have the right declared corporate identity and (b) your declared corporate identity always matches the actual one.

Your corporate identity is very closely related (but not identical!) to the image of your company in the minds of your stakeholders. For whom their perceptions are the only reality (actually, this is true for practically any human being). Therefore, you must make sure that your perceived corporate identity matches the actual one.

Your corporate identity is not given to you by some ‘higher power’. It is created, built, formed by you, your employees and possibly by your external consultants. In this project – arguably one of the most important (if not the most important) for your corporate well-being – you must make sure that your corporate identity fits the reality in general and your KEF in particular.

There is one more match you need to be concerned about. I will explain below that in order to maximize financial value of your corporate brands (which for mature companies constitute a lion’s share of aggregate shareholders’ value) you must maximize emotional value created by your corporate identity for your stakeholders.

Which means that your corporate identity must satisfy their emotional needs and desires. Which are not necessarily the same thing.  Wants are what your stakeholders think they need while needs are what they do actually need. Unfortunately you have to figure out how to satisfy both to the maximum.

Although your corporate identity must satisfy aggregate needs of all of your stakeholders to the fullest, there are always “the first among the equals”. In this case – the shareholders of your company – entrepreneurs and investors. Who want not only to make a lot of money (that goes without saying) but also to implement in your company their values, beliefs, principles, etc.

Therefore, your corporate identity must satisfy their aggregate needs – financial, functional and emotional (and possibly also spiritual – depending on the specific owners)

The best way to describe, analyze and optimize your corporate identity is to develop a formal identity statement or declaration of corporate identity (DCI). Which must be comprehensive, well-structured, accurate, up-to-date and logically sound.

DCI belongs to a select few of corporate documents (others being corporate mission and vision statements, corporate strategies statements and corporate UVP statements) that can (and must) provide a powerful motivational emotional impact on your workforce. Motivating your employees to maximize their individual performance, performance of workgroups and functional units and the aggregate performance of your company. Therefore, you must make sure that this is, indeed, the case.

Although by itself, your declaration of corporate identity is useless. To be useful and valuable to your company it must be tightly integrated into your strategic and operational planning and overall decision-making – to make sure that every decision and action in your company brings you closer to achieving your strategic corporate objectives. In other words, you need to develop and deploy a highly efficient corporate process of using your DCI in your strategic and operational management.