For Branding Products and Services

Competitive advantage:

1.2.2. For outside the business

Corporate culture is the identity of the business, the attractiveness of the business to customers, partners, management agencies, and the government; creating a brand for the business to help distinguish it from other businesses. In today's business era, external partners will become more critical than ever before, relationships are based on trust in the business rather than immediate benefits . Corporate culture helps strengthen relationships with outside businesses as well as is a factor that attracts customers and partners to the business, especially customers and partners who also have a healthy culture. Specifically:

Customers will feel secure and proud when using the products and services of the business. They will be more loyal to the products and services of the business; easily accept the new products of the business, and are less likely to be attracted by other competitive substitutes of competitors. Moreover, they can be the most trustworthy promoters and advertisers of the business.

Partners will be more confident when dealing with businesses and they can offer preferential prices, go through life and death with businesses in difficult times, and keep their commitments to businesses...

When the management agency and government come into contact with a business whose culture has been proven over time, they will feel more confident in the business and therefore reduce unnecessary procedures such as those that have to be done for a business without a brand. Moreover, the business also receives support from the management agency and government in its business activities, for example, receiving support from the state in introducing and exporting products to foreign markets.

1.2.3. For branding products and services

Building corporate culture is also building a brand for the business and its products and services.

Building Corporate Culture starts from the foundation of building cultural people for the business - organizational culture, defining culture in business, leadership culture, quality culture...; defining the direction and goals for the existence of the business as well as the products and services of the business. The crystallization of these cultural values ​​creates a brand for the products and services of the business.

Depending on the characteristics of the product and the company's strategy, some businesses have corporate brands and private brands for their products, such as the brands of Henessy, XO, Napoleon, which are all part of the Cognac association; Unilever has Dove, Omo, Sunsilk, Hazeline, etc., or it has only one name, which is also the company name, for all its products. For example, Sony has TVs and music players all under the Sony brand; all Honda products such as cars, motorbikes, water engines, chainsaws, etc. are under the Honda brand.

Product branding creates a position of product quality. Consumers look at product branding to evaluate product quality, and corporate branding helps consumers evaluate the reputation and ethics of the business. This is extremely important for consumers, partners, and cultured governments to know that they will not support businesses that do not have the right business practices and can harm people and the environment.

All of the above roles of corporate culture will eventually help the business grow and develop, crystallizing into the business's profits - the decisive factor for the survival of a business. It can be said that when all other things are lost but Corporate Culture still exists, the business still has the opportunity to exist and develop, but on the contrary, if the culture is lost, the business cannot last. The success or failure of a business is linked to the creation of its own identity of Corporate Culture.

1.3 BUILDING, MAINTAINING AND PROMOTING CORPORATE CULTURE

1.3.1. Building Corporate Culture

Building corporate culture is a comprehensive process that includes many related steps . So what specific steps need to be followed to build a comprehensive corporate culture?

There are many models proposed by researchers, of which the 11-step model by two authors Julie Heifetz & Richard Hagberg 1 has provided the most specific and clear steps:

(1) Study the environment and factors that influence future business strategy. Consider whether there are any factors that will change future business strategy.

(2) Identify the core values ​​that form the basis for success. This is the most basic step in building a corporate culture. Core values ​​must be timeless and the heart and soul of the business.

(3) Build a vision that the business will reach. The vision is the ideal picture of the business in the future. The vision is the direction to build the corporate culture. The business we want to build may be completely different from the current business.

(4) Assess the current culture and determine which cultural elements need to change. Changing or building a corporate culture often begins with assessing the current culture and combining it with the corporate development strategy. Assessing culture is extremely difficult because culture is often difficult to see and there is confusion about the evaluation criteria. Unspoken or unwritten assumptions are even more difficult to assess. Often people are immersed in culture and do not see its objective existence.

(5) Once we have identified an ideal culture for our business and have an understanding of the culture that currently exists in our business, the next focus is on how to bridge the gap between the values ​​we currently have and the values ​​we want.

(6) Identify the role of leadership in leading cultural change. Leadership plays an extremely important role in building culture. Leaders are the ones who initiate and

1 Excerpt from the article "Building corporate culture" by Dr. Phan Quoc Viet & Master Nguyen Huy Hoang

guide change efforts. Leaders are responsible for creating a vision, communicating it to employees, and working together to build it. Leaders also play an important role in alleviating employee fears and insecurities.

(7) Once the gap has been identified, the next step is to draft an action plan that includes specific objectives, activities, timelines, milestones, and responsibilities. What are the priorities? Where should we focus our efforts? What resources are needed? Who is responsible for specific tasks? What are the deadlines?

(8) Communicate the need for change, the action plan, and motivate and inspire change. Change will affect employees' lives. They need to know that change will bring them good things. Motivation and encouragement will be easier when people know their role is to contribute and build the future of the business.

(9) Identify the obstacles and reasons for resistance to change and develop strategies to deal with them. Getting people out of their comfort zones is a difficult task. Therefore, leaders must encourage, motivate and show employees how their benefits increase during the change process.

(10) Institutionalize , model, and reinforce cultural change. Leadership behaviors and decisions must serve as role models for employees to follow and be consistent with the established cultural model. During this stage, behaviors that follow the ideal model need to be encouraged and motivated. The reward system must be designed to be consistent with the corporate culture building model.

(11) Continue to evaluate your Corporate Culture and set new standards for continuous learning and change. Culture is not static, so once you have established a suitable culture, it is important to continually evaluate and maintain good values , and communicate those values ​​to new employees.

In all 11 steps of the model, leaders play a decisive role . They can be the ones who directly assess the corporate culture, the ones who bring the desired cultural values ​​into the organization, or they can play a collective leadership role in

step by step construction of the model. The success or failure of building a corporate culture depends largely on the qualities, style, and capacity of the leader. If the qualities and leadership style are consistent with the operating philosophy and value system of the organization, and their leadership capacity is high, they will successfully perform their role. In addition, the extent to which members of the enterprise perceive the values ​​also depends on the normative power of the values, the harmony between organizations in the enterprise, and the effectiveness of communicating the values.

Thus, building a corporate culture is not simply a matter of listing the desired values ​​of the leader and hanging them on the wall as regulations, but rather how to integrate these regulations into all actions of the enterprise and in all circumstances, in prosperity as well as in difficulty. This process not only requires the leadership role of the leader but also requires the support, effort, consensus and perseverance of all employees to be successful.

1.3.2. Maintain and promote Corporate Culture

Culture is defined as the identities created by humans, so maintaining and promoting corporate culture also depends greatly on human factors. Enterprises need to pay attention to the following issues in recruiting and training employees; the qualities of leaders and in preserving cultural characteristics.

Recruitment: As analyzed above, national culture and personality of each individual greatly affect the ability to integrate into the corporate culture. It is best for the company to choose employees whose personalities are compatible with the corporate culture . Obviously, an individual who prefers order, calmness, and stability will find it difficult to integrate into a corporate environment that requires dynamism, agility, and risk-taking.

Training: No new employee can adapt to the Corporate Culture immediately, even though their personalities may be very suitable for the Corporate Culture. As analyzed in section 1.1.1, Corporate Culture includes three components: tangible objects, expressed values, and underlying assumptions. New employees need to be trained and guided clearly and specifically about cultural characteristics through objects.

tangible and the values ​​expressed by the business. The basic assumptions can only be obtained when the employee is truly integrated into the business environment, then they will automatically apply the basic assumptions in their actions. The handbook on principles, philosophies, and operating mottos of the business is very useful for this training. Meetings and conversations with the management board, human resources department, and professional departments will contribute to clarifying the confusion surrounding Corporate Culture.

Leadership qualities: this is the key factor in maintaining and promoting corporate culture. Leaders - the captains of the corporate ship must not only be imbued with corporate culture but also be able to provide appropriate orientations for corporate culture in each period; have qualities and personalities that are suitable for the corporate culture that the business is aiming for. The type of leader who prefers personal power cannot lead a democratic collective that respects individual freedom.

Preserving the characteristics of corporate culture: maintaining the inherited advanced identities of corporate culture cannot be completely successful if there are deviations in understanding corporate culture. Keeping handbooks and honest records of corporate culture characteristics is necessary to maintain corporate culture, especially for businesses that often have sudden, major changes in managers.

Culture is formed over time, it is not an easy factor to change quickly, enterprises acknowledge cultural values ​​when those cultural values ​​have proven to be successful in the past. Maintaining culture is important for the continued success of the enterprise in the future, however, enterprises need to always consider which cultural values ​​should continue to be maintained and promoted in the current context as well as which cultural values ​​are no longer suitable, hindering the development of the enterprise, then need to be changed and eliminated. Only then can the long-term success of the enterprise be ensured. Culture has the meaning of inheritance and promotion, not eternity.

1.4 SOME EXAMPLES OF SUCCESSFUL BUILDING CORPORATE CULTURE

Among the many explanations for the prosperity and long-term development of businesses in the US or Japan, researchers have a common conclusion that these businesses have a strong corporate culture. The following are the characteristics of corporate culture of two world-famous corporations (Johnson & Johnson and Honda) and a typical one in Vietnam (Unilever Vietnam).

1.4.1. Johnson & Johnson Corporation USA

What are the factors behind J&J's success? That is J&J's cultural identity for the community . This is partly demonstrated through the pioneering of finding new inventions that are beneficial to society by J&J's founders when facing the dangers of human diseases. This cultural identity is also concretized in a page called "Values" (Credo) of the company that has existed for more than