Surviving the credit crunch

Alan Bell, Managing Director of Bell Design and Communications, writes about the role of the corporate brand and how effective planning and communication provide the life-blood to sustain your brand.

As summer 2008 runs its course, the UK economy is experiencing its most challenging drought for many years.

Away from the gloomy headlines, the effective CEO will have an eye on the upturn that is sure to come around.

Alan Bell, founder and Managing Director of Bell Design and Communications, a leading independent brand consultancy, explains how effective planning and communication provide the necessary life-blood to sustain and build your brand for the business of tomorrow.

For the sake of clarity, when I use the term 'brand', I am talking about the very persona that defines an organisation, not just a company's visual identity or logo.

As a leader, the CEO needs to articulate the vision for an organisation and I contend that he should also closely examine the way the corporate brand is viewed.

Slightly tongue in cheek, I have 'dissected' a CEO so we can closely inspect his anatomy, and therefore the very foundations of an organisation's corporate brand, and its appetite for future success.

I believe the corporate brand needs to stand up to scrutiny and by interrogating each part of the corporate anatomy you will have the potential to create a unique brand energy.

How many times do we witness dysfunctional organisations trying to come to terms with a poorly managed merger? Often employees fail to interact with conflicting systems and processes because of poor design, such as inconsistent information architecture or the lack of an intuitive human interface.

It could also be through the various terms and conventions that are used by different parts of an organisation to describe the very same thing.

How often is a clash of cultures the elephant-in-the-room? It is not only your employees that face these problems.

If you use consultants or outsource work to other companies the onus is on you as the leading organisation to manage and discipline the easy correlation of information and intellectual property, and specify how all these knowledge strands can come together and be delivered as one.

Clear information architecture will maximise the asset value gained throughout this exercise and ensure your ownership for the future.

When the time comes to expand or takeover another business you will have the necessary scalability.

This is the perfect time to you take your brand for a health check.

The outcome of such a check-up will give you a blueprint for many of the key issues that face you and your business.

By putting your brand at the very heart of corporate life you will be able to better plan for life after the credit crunch.

As you sit in the corporate clinic you may want to consider the following.

Your brain - order your company's knowledge through systematic and standardised information architecture so you, your management team, employees, contractors and potential acquisitions in the future can easily access the necessary intellectual assets.

Take time to get your house in order, so you are in the right place when more sunny weather returns.

Left ear - listen to your staff, at all levels: what is going well - what's wrong/logistically inefficient with delivery of the corporate strategy - where are the areas of the business that are not executing business in line with corporate strategy.

Right ear - be open to new ideas from customers and external stakeholders.

Create forums to listen to your customers and stakeholders.

Mentally, compare and contrast both perceptions Eyes - look to build consistency of brand key messages: make sure you hold up your side of the conversation with your customers and stakeholders.

No one likes being told the wrong thing at the wrong time.

Mouth - communicate focused brand messages with a clear voice to customers and stakeholders.

Review your key messages, to make sure they are still relevant in the new working environment; focus on fewer messages that can be shouted louder for less money.

Tell the 'strategy story' to internal staff and make it relevant to their situation: ensure all of you employees know your business strategy and how it affects their business unit, department, team and selves.

Strategy lives and breathes at the organisational coalface, not in the boardroom on tired old PowerPoint slides.

In times like these, poorly executed strategy is like throwing out clean water in a drought.

Heart - culture and values are the beating heart of every organisation - whether consciously or not.

As CEO you must be the heart that pumps the lifeblood of the organisation.

Set the benchmark and reap the benefits, ignore and fail.

Hands - reach out and communicate with customers in ways that engage different senses for a more complete and memorable brand experience.

Legs - accessibility: take your message to others and communicate in ways they can positively receive it, do not expect to wait for people to come to you.

For example, make it easy for the majority to read your communications.

Clothing - be attractive to the right talent.

Think about your employee brand and create the right conditions to recruit and retain true talent.

Feet - be careful how you tread on the earth: clearly communicate your CSR commitments and stick to them.

It is vitally important to continue with existing commitments.

The media do not hold back just because it's getting tough out there - you don't want a PR issue when there are enough financial headaches to attend to.

As a brand consultant I feel these areas will need to be addressed for the benefit of your corporate brand.

It is far easier to plan for a positive future when your body corporate is fighting fit.

Alan Bell is the founder and Managing Director of Bell Design and Communications, a leading independent brand agency.

Started in 1976, Bell works on a range of complex communication issues, covering financial services, the public sector and consumer foods.

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