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Business Purpose – Brand Context

April 27, 2009 •

Last month I blogged on the pur­pose of a busi­ness and the prob­lems that can arise when orga­ni­za­tions lack a clear sense of pur­pose, or when they define suc­cess nar­rowly in finan­cial (share­holder-cen­tric) terms. Today’s post focuses on busi­ness pur­pose and its links to cor­po­rate brand strat­egy.

In the con­text of brand strat­egy, pur­pose ener­gizes the organization’s “heart” — the inter­sec­tion of cor­po­rate strat­egy, the organization’s shared val­ues, and its fun­da­men­tal rea­son for being. Pur­pose is the “zen of the brand,” in com­pa­nies wise enough to define and be guided by a clear sense of cor­po­rate pur­pose.

What Is Purpose (brand context)

Purpose as the Essence of Corporate Identity

Pur­pose ani­mates the brand, infuses it with mean­ing, shapes and inspires the moti­va­tions of employ­ees. When employ­ees iden­tify with the organization’s pur­pose, when it gives mean­ing to their work, cus­tomers ben­e­fit.  The brand promise will be grounded in some­thing mean­ing­ful and endur­ing – some­thing that should out­last the cast of char­ac­ters who lead the orga­ni­za­tion at any given point in time.

For the world’s best-loved brands, employ­ees who closely self-iden­tify with the pur­pose become pas­sion­ate brand evan­ge­lists; the com­pany, its prod­ucts and the peo­ple behind them inspire cult-like loy­alty among the cus­tomer base. [Read more…]

The Purpose of a Business

March 20, 2009 •

I’ve been mus­ing on the ques­tion of Pur­pose while read­ing the Wall Street Jour­nal and online busi­ness press, try­ing to under­stand how so many bright peo­ple can have caused so much last­ing dam­age.Purpose

Why Do Companies Exist?

There are those who think that busi­nesses exist for solely util­i­tar­ian rea­sons: to sat­isfy cus­tomers, gen­er­ate prof­its, cre­ate share­holder value or make the founders rich. You get the drift… Thou­sands of busi­ness pun­dits will tell you so.

Oth­ers think that busi­nesses should be ani­mated by some larger, endur­ing val­ues-based Pur­pose, one that serves as sort of a moral com­pass to inspire and keep the orga­ni­za­tion and its peo­ple on a cho­sen course.

Clas­sic exam­ples of com­pa­nies with a clear sense of Pur­pose include:

  • John­son & John­son: “to alle­vi­ate pain and dis­ease”
  • Merck: “in the busi­ness of pre­serv­ing and improv­ing human life
  • Dis­ney: “to bring hap­pi­ness to mil­lions”

Those of us who worked at Apple in the 1980s were inspired by this mantra: Chang­ing the way peo­ple live, learn, work and play. We were indoc­tri­nated in this belief sys­tem, start­ing with Ori­en­ta­tion, our first day on the job (think brain­wash­ing, Apple style!)

It’s safe to assume that this notion still ani­mates the com­pany.

[Read more…]

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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