Brand New View

Destiny-Creating Value

The top companies we studied had a profound sense of how to Create Value to achieve their Destiny. Creating value refers to the contribution and impact the brand seeks to make, and the competencies and skills required to get there. Contribution and Impact describes how a brand expects to add value to customers, markets and society, concurrently maximizing positive impact and minimizing negative impact. Biodegradable consumer products are examples, such as those made by Toms of Maine. Competencies and skills describes the unique capabilities and strengths the company wishes to develop in support of value creating activities. For example, Disney is widely known for not just its creativity, but its creative expansion--in other words, its ability to transform a basic creative idea, such as a cartoon character, into a decades-spanning icon used in wide variety of products, content, and services initiatives. This requires a remarkable collection of talented managers with the ability to think well beyond how to implement the core idea and toward the myriad of ways that idea can be leveraged.  Creating Value supports and propels top companies toward achieving their Destiny.

 

Destiny components-Ultimate Dream

The Ultimate Dream, as abstract as that sounds, simply describes a brand’s vision of success if the company could perfectly control its offerings and markets. It is a timeless understanding of the brand’s enduring contribution. Ultimate dreams are about anticipating the unknown and imagining ahead. To do this, company leaders must embrace exploring uncertainty. Examples of Ultimate Dreams abound, including President Kennedy’s famous 1961 moon speech. From the corporate world, Harris Corporation, a large global communications and IT company was seeking new ways to grow its business, so they embarked on an aggressive brainstorming and planning process. At the outset the only rule was no rules. Every idea was cataloged. No idea was judged. As the brainstorming process continued, the very best ideas were identified, irrespective of the company’s capability at that time to deliver. They simply wanted path breaking ideas. From that point forward, they laid out a strategy and implementation plan for those ideas they considered ‘game changers’ and pursued them relentlessly. The end result: a $425 million sales increase over their target. What was the secret? They realized that previously they were incrementally adjusting plans using known customers and business development people, which limited their flexibility. As a consequence, management decided to ‘imagine’ a different future for the division and how it could contribute to society, not just a limited set of core customers. The results speak for themselves.

 

Destiny, continued...

A great illustration of Destiny is well known to many travelers around the world-Singapore Airlines. Their Destiny can be described as concentrating on customer needs by providing exceptional service. As obvious as providing exceptional service sounds, very few other organizations that were studied for the book Competitive Success-How Branding Adds Value’ are adept at this. Most talk about customers being ‘key’, and that customer service is their ‘point of differentiation’, but as we discovered, most do not back it up with concrete implementation. Singapore Airlines, however, does. Their entire strategy since their founding in 1972 is about superior customer service. Their justification is clear: competitors can copy planes, cabin interior design, online web usability and even uniforms, but the unique organizational practices (superior service, in Singapore Airlines’ case) cannot be copied because they are rooted deep into the DNA, the founding principles, and the general psyche of the company. New employees are hired through a rigorous regimen of varied interviews that assess whether a person is capable of delivering their unique service experience. Many of Singapore Airlines’ competitors understand this, but most have not acted on it by revamping their organizations and hiring practices to upgrade the service experience in an authentic way. For those that make the effort to change it will take years to see results. Singapore Airlines has been working on this relentlessly for 40 years and it is one of the reasons they are the recognized leader. They are not the biggest, but they are considered consistently the best. And they are guided by an uncomplicated Destiny that says they will focus on exceptional service. 

 

Destiny

Nearly 300 companies researched and catalogued around the world and more insights are captured every month. What are the lessons and best practices? There are many, and my latest book, ‘Competitive Success-How Branding Adds Value’, discusses them in detail. But let’s begin at the beginning. Great companies that lead their industries and markets have a profound sense of their Destiny. They understand not just why they exist, but that the answer to that question determines whether they succeed. Understanding one’s Destiny is complicated and does not lend itself to glib slogans or superficial mission statements. But there are several factors that help companies determine their Destiny: having an ultimate dream: knowing how to create value; living by clear values; and understanding the company/brand’s personality. Time and again, these factors were clearly understood, articulated by and embodied within the practices of the top companies studied. in subsequent posts, I will share more about each of these, and examples. Please feel free to share your examples as well.