Your Company and Brand Dilemmas

For those of us of a certain age, this article will be like the old episodes of the Batman series on TV. In the first one, the problem was created and the Batman and his faithful squire, Robin, were on the verge of death. In the epilogue, they both saved their lives, solved the problems and defeated the bad guys.

Likewise, here we’ll talk about dilemmas, and in the next chapter we’ll provide the way to deal with them… and how with Allegro 234 we again beat the villains!

The Stature Gap in Company and Brand Dilemmas

Like life itself, everything that happens around us offers choices. We live by making decisions, but not all of them are equally important.

The same is true for companies, both at the level of the firm itself as well as at the level of its business and brand, there are multiple decisions that create dilemmas of diverse relevance. In simple terms, decisions about the company’s shareholding structure, or entry into new markets or Black Friday offers are obviously not at the same level.

This difference suggests that there are what we can call levels of abstraction. The higher the level, the more importance, the more relevance, the more lasting, the more abstraction.

Those level could be summarized as follows:

1. The Ethereal Level of the Permanent

Although each of us has unique scales of values, there are things that may vary little or not at all over time -I firmly believe that there are more of them than we could ever imagine.

Thus, those things, let me call them values and guiding principles, which, although they may change in content over time, do not lose their essence.

There are permanent principles in a company that form the very basis of its raison d’être. For example:

Maintain ethical behaviour in accordance with permanent social and cultural requirements.
Guarantee the generation of a minimum result that ensures the company’s existence over time, even transcending its founders.
Develop on the basis of its own ethos, maintaining those key aspects that make up its legacy and allow it to align its present with its future ambitions.

This stage will serve to define the company for what it truly exists, what it offers, who it is targeting, what its differential know-how base is, and what big idea makes it absolutely singular among its peers.

2. The Deep Level of the Strategic

A few steps down the ladder of abstraction, we enter the world of business.

The way we can look at strategy, the “grand strategy”, is to assume that it is there to create the creative tension between what you are today and the aspirations you have for the future.

Business strategy takes the form of a series of objectives, which in turn are of different kinds and levels. This is how we find the mission as the executive expression of the purpose as a contemporary ambition (in fact, it is what links this stage with the previous one). The vision, on the other hand, is the description of how we envisage the company and its business if it fulfils its mission.

To remember at this point:

Purpose is an everyday thing
Mission is something of today, here and now.
Vision is something for tomorrow

Then come other strategic objectives associated with transformation, growth, positive impact, satisfaction, measurement and use of available resources. A strong concatenation of concepts that make the company undertake a particular course.

Finally, these definitions make sense if attention is paid to what is happening around the company and may affect it, not fads, rather behaviours observed in other sectors and geographies, and which are expected to prevail over time.

Great examples from other companies are also explored to shed light on key policies and, at the same time, help refine ways to bring a rewarding experience to life. Let’s call them good practices.

Following these definitions, each area of the company will go through the same exercise to define its strategy, while ensuring that it is aligned with the company’s “grand strategy”.

Spoiler

When we get to the level of the brand we will see that, strategically speaking, it is almost at the same level as the major definitions of the company:

Let’s remember that:

Company strategy looks at what to do with its key stakeholders to achieve success.
Whereas brand strategy looks at what to do with the company to make its key audiences achieve success.

3. The Focused Level of Those Around Us

Let’s go down a rung or two. In order to fulfil the previous stage, we need to have business processes -something that generates nightmares even for the most experienced-, different kind of resources, and above all, people. Yes, people!

Some assume that just having customers is enough. Moreover, a good number of entrepreneurs believe that anyone who buys their product is a good enough client.
Others argue that to be prosperous, the key to success lies in the employees. In some cases, they even do this by saying the odd outrageous thing -in political circles they would say “cheap populism”.

Nor is it a question of limiting ourselves to shareholders -it is passé. In fact, it is not about one or the other, but about one, the other and the others. Long live to stakeholders!

Success lies in the ability to recognise in each specific case all those audiences that are key to the company, according to the strategic objectives it pursues, and under the umbrella of the values it defends. The different stages continue to interconnect among themselves.

4. The Ignominious Level of Those Who Besiege Us

This stage is like descending into Dante’s Seventh Hell. Our strategic efforts must be genuine about our ambitions and sincere about the world around us, especially towards those who, for various interests, may put a spanner in our works.

It’s not just about knowing who my direct competitors are, but also about indirect ones – for example, the iPad competes with Mont Blanc in the gift-buying decision-making process – regulations, hidden fees, etc.

At this point, it’s also important to make a “mea culpa“, acknowledging our lack of skills to succeed in the marketplace.

Spoiler

At the brand strategy level, it will also be important to understand the apparent positioning and personality of the competing brands, mapping them and looking for arenas of opportunity which may allow us to win this battle.

5. The Ambitious Level of Pragmatic Transformation

Hence, we arrive at the ground floor of the definitions that make up the strategic space of the company.

From time to time, companies tend to revisit their founding concepts -the first level of abstraction, rarely modified-, review and redefine their strategy both as a business and as a brand, and adjust the other aspects associated with their context -people, trends, competitors, etc.

The reason behind the scenes is no other than the intuition of the need for transformation and growth of the company, understanding that either growth can only be limited to a defensive action that safeguards the survival of the business, or that there are aspects that are evolving and require adjustments to be made -think of social impact, it is a journey that one knows where it starts, but doesn’t know where it ends.

Although it is not perceived as such, this is a common sense effort, in which the most important thing is to have the sensibility to recognise how far to stress the system without generating frustration in those who must bring the transformation process to life.

Spoiler

The brand plays a fundamental role as a synthesis of the company’s relational capital. It thus becomes a lever for transformation that embraces, and even commits, the stakeholders with whom the company maintains a close relationship.

“Holy Uncanny Photographic Mental Processes, Batman!”

At the end of the day, all of this is a nice story that leads to the fact that, from the company’s point of view, what we are doing is going back to the introduction of this article and answering the five big questions that need to be addressed in order to play and win this match:

What are our values and raison d’être?
What are our main strategic objectives?
Who are our key stakeholders?
With whom do we compete?
How can we achieve lasting growth?

All these concepts are interconnected, and it’s worth understanding that in its development it moves back and forth, adjusts and redefines itself until reaching the expected solution, the one that is perceived as a true benefit for the company.

Let’s call it systems thinking, agile methodology, design thinking. Call it whatever you want, the point is that you understand why and what you are making this effort for!