6 Symptoms of Misaligned Global Brand Function

Keywords: #global #brand #function #management #headquarters #local #implementation

Key takeaway: Global brand function suffers from executional misalignments which create additional costs of time, money and effort both on individual and team level. Outlined are 6 main symptoms which will help global brand professionals properly diagnose their situation.

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Global brand as a marketing strategy is built around the idea of creation of a single global strategy that can be replicated in local markets. One story that can be literally and figuratively translated in multiple languages so that it will resonate with and engage consumers around the globe. As they transcend geographies and cultures, management of global brands needs to ensure continuity of both global and local relevance. This is why the role of global brand management and global brand function members is to leverage organizational structures, processes, and corporate culture to allocate brand-building resources globally and create global synergies.

Global brand equity growth and benefits of global brand as a marketing strategy are unleashed only if headquarters and country teams act synchronously

Consistent global strategy and positioning requirement means that any successful global brand should therefore be managed as a single system, not as a portfolio of independent positions. It is because of the brand-as-a-system management requirement that there is a clear and obvious need for a central authority, mostly embodied in a global brand management function at corporate headquarters. Global brand equity growth and benefits of global brand as a marketing strategy are unleashed only if headquarters and country teams act synchronously. Surprisingly, even in biggest global brand organisation, global branding function suffers from executional misalignments which create additional costs of time, money and effort both on individual and team level

1) Excessive Emailing

"I wish I had more emails in my inbox" - said no-one, ever. There is no more pervasive element of employment in a large corporate global brand organisation than an email inbox racking up 200+ emails every day. The higher your status the more cluttered your inbox becomes as you oversee (via cc) more people, projects and initiatives.

Problem of excessive emailing in global brand execution stems from a combination of 3 factors : 1) intense, time sensitive upstream and downstream communication and task alignment requirement between HQ and country level teams inherent to global brand campaign execution 2) completely inappropriate both choice and usage of email as a branding software / tool 3) global-to-local branding execution ambiguity and lack of transparent organisation wide accepted step-by-step brand campaign execution methodology.

Taken together these 3 factors cause a lion share of excessive emailing in all phases of global branding execution (planning, implementation, reporting). Problem is that without a clear operational structure available and accessible to everyone people are bound to ask for information, clarifications, materials just to start with grasping what needs to be done. Once they actually start implementing the global brand campaign/activation, again using an inappropriate tool - briefs, specifications, and clarifications will keep flying through emails, triggering yet another round of piecing together bits and pieces of information and assets.

Last but not least, if so it happens that somewhere in the chain of people not-so-tight knit together who participate in the global brand campaign execution, one or more people leave either internally or externally, you'll end up with a both new round of complete process explanation and potential change to what was previously somewhat agreed. Given that there's no procedure 'set in stone' every new person brings in a new way of how he or she does work - impacting the whole chain of activities both downstream and upstream.

Combination of technology and restructuring of branding operations, depending on your role, may unburden up to 40% of your daily email count.

To be clear, fair amount of your inbox load, simply can't be avoided, given that an email as a communication tool still is most effective and least expensive way of corporate communication. However, the load of emails in relation global brand execution across markets can be significantly reduced through implementation of tailored technology solutions & global brand operating model optimization. Combination of technology and restructuring of branding operations, depending on your role, may unburden up to 40% of your daily email count.

2) Late Nights At The Office

There couldn't be a more acute symptom of organisational and functional misalignment than overworked employees who continuously have to come in early and leave late just to keep their head above the water. When it comes to global brand organisations and global brand and marketing professionals late nights at the office have almost become a norm.

Global branding campaign execution as a highly complex organisational endeavour which brings together countries, vendors and partners working as virtual teams that span both geographical and time zones in intense time sensitive coordination and communication tasks. If, for whatever reason, any of the links in this multi-organisational, multi departmental and multi-geographic teams doesn't deliver his part of the task within predefined timeframe and interval, the spillover effect impacts all those downstream, pressuring them to work extra to recoup the time lost and still deliver on the launch deadline.

Costs of the misalignments in this case are, however, born not by the company, but by brand professionals - who spend late nights at the office rectifying the results of poorly organised function.

With a fixed campaign launch date, if for example, the global team is late with finalising global brand creative, this delay eats into time disposable for organisational levels and teams bellow. Likewise, if country level key account manager or marketeer is late with sending requirements, this will cause late reaction and potentially extra work from organisational levels above to compensate for time lost.

Having a tailored technology solution which would bring all participants on single playing field would not only increase vertical visibility, but also enable to identify and quantify bottlenecks - a first step to fixing the operating model.

Again, this is where the lack of global branding process infrastructure, monitored and measurable global brand operations and inherently complex matrix infrastructure take its toll. Costs of the misalignments in this case are, however, born not by the company, but by brand professionals - who spend late nights at the office rectifying the results of poorly organised function. Having a tailored technology solution which would bring all participants on single playing field would not only increase vertical visibility (enabling each to 'see ahead' what's happening and organise corrective measures) but also enable to identify and quantify bottlenecks - a first step to fixing the campaign operating model.

3) Waste of Time, Money and Data

Even if they're not professionals in process design, lean business workflows and continuous improvement methodologies, global brand professionals, like most people in general, fairly quickly realise that the way work is being done is far from optimal. One doesn't need to be a rocket scientist to realise that acting as a human forwarder of email chains is neither most fulfilling nor most productive way of spending days work.

Likewise, most brand professionals realise, that micro-management of digital production doesn't appear in the original brand management role description and purpose even less so. Yet, not only do they do it, but are awash with it and many others mundane tasks that stem from disorganised global brand operating model. Surprisingly however, even though they observe the waste of time, energy and their digital brand management talent, very few will, except being overwhelmed by feelings of frustration, actually go ahead and try to fix the way work is being done.

Most brand professionals realise, that micro-management of digital production doesn't appear in the original brand management role description and purpose even less so.

Problem is that global brand professionals already have too much work on their hands, and inter-departmental operational cooperation improvement would mean extra cost of their time while the benefits for them would be only marginal. Operational improvement of the global brand execution will benefit everybody in the chain, but if it's not done by an external vendor, only few individuals take on the burden of the actual project time costs. As its not in their job description, this becomes a side or extra project - in an organisation that already struggles with the amount of (though poorly organised) work.

As email is misused as a global branding execution software, wasting time and energy across the entire organisation, it creates another type of cost - cost of lost data. Problem of continuously using email as a combination of your communication and project management tool is that operational data in regards to the global brand execution is completely lost. Data about planned vs. realised dates, number of assets used, number of channels used, campaign turnaround time and many other useful process insights which can help identify and prevent bottlenecks and foster organisational learning and improvement are trapped in individual email inboxes. Without being done in a single technology platform environment global brand functional operational performance is impossible to measure, audit and improve.

Without being done in a single technology platform environment global brand functional operational performance is impossible to measure, audit and improve.

Last but not least, time - once lost is impossible to replace. Time lost is impossible to buy. Lost time means lost opportunities but it also has a clear monetary cost. Highly paid professionals are trapped in email micro-management of tasks instead of value adding strategic brand building activations. It is by far the biggest organisational waster of money but at the same time, the least accounted for.

4) Late or Last Minute Launches

Missing a global brand campaign launch date carries a large financial, external and internal cost, so most of activations muscled out the door on time. Being late with a global brand campaign activation across or within certain market(s) and/or across and within a certain retailer means direct lost revenue and lost opportunity, negative equity with retail partners and internal audiences and other departments. Namely, being late to deliver a campaign to a partner who already bought into your product assortment delivers a direct hit to his sell out potential and top line revenue. This is even more true knowing that for a lot of categories peak of sales is linked with most PR/marketing and awareness peak cycles.

To put it simply, you are set up to fail.

Being late with a global brand campaign activation or part of it will bring you in conflict with other internal audiences. Marketing/brand department is just the last link in the massively complex chain of people and teams who were set in motion for this launch and delivered on time - from product design, to supply chain operations and sales. If they delivered on time, with arguably much more complex tasks on hand, you'll have a hard time explaining internally how the brand campaign content didn't arrive on time to certain retailers doors or social media properties, web pages etc. Fear of internal expectations failure is the strongest driver why global brand professionals will spend weekdays days and weekends, both day and nights if needed, to muscle out campaigns that are chronically behind the normal schedule.

If you and your team are facing late or last minute launches more than once per calendar season, this means that your organisational campaign architecture is flawed by design.

If you and your team are facing late or last minute launches more than once per calendar season, this means that your organisational campaign architecture is flawed by design. No matter how much late nights you pull in and how many 'fires' you put out, if the global brand operating model is designed to create them in the first place, your efforts are futile. To put it simply, you are set up to fail. Given the size of both direct and indirect costs of late and last minute launches, creation of more sustainable model is a must. To get to it you need to audit your end-to-end campaign lifecycle workflows across all organisational levels involved and iterate to the more sustainable version - for everybody involved. Introspective is often easier and more objective with external help - so make sure to get some when time comes.

5) Assets and People Chases

One of most dreaded parts of global brand campaign execution is operational alignment between multiple stakeholders and organisational levels. Chasing right assets and chasing right people not only drains hours and weeks from execution but as it happens mostly over email aggravates the at least one additional symptom of global brand misalignment, in this case excessive emailing. The root of the problem lies in the misbalance between the pace of the marketing environment digitisation and internal - organisational digital capability creation, in terms of digital resources and more importantly digitised process. Disparity between the two creates a situation where digitally disabled global brand professionals professionals are trying to handle and serve an exponentially rising number of digital touch-points.

The root of the problem lies in the misbalance between the pace of the marketing environment digitisation and internal - organisational digital capability creation

Video explainer : How technology change in the external environment triggers the need for technology change in the internal - organisation environment - impacting how people create and deliver work

Change in technology triggered the change of consumer behaviour, digitising the consumers' paths-to-purchase and buying habits. At the same time, technology driven fragmentation of media landscape caused a proliferation of digital brand touchpoints and digital screens through which brands must reach customers. Speed of marketing environment digital transformation will continually outpace the speed at which organisations can transform their internal ways of working.

Some of the organisational challenges of digitising marketing environment have been solved by software solutions which simplify management of digital assets (DAM, PIM) etc. However, as DAM solutions are basically just digital warehouses - locations where your assets are stored, the global brand campaign process part - where and how those assets are used once they're outside of the DAM is still mostly via email. If mismanaged, DAM and other types of file asset management solutions like Box.com, also create a new type of problems - all assets get stored there but without proper classification, versioning and transparency on final / per market approved versions. Problem is that they often become a big digital assets dumpster - place where everybody and anybody puts the files and versions that have been adapted, WIP etc. effectively undermining the benefits they were supposed to create.

Problem is that they (DAMs, File asset management solutions etc) often become a big digital assets dumpster

Mismanaged file asset management solutions trigger the need for yet another round of people's feedback, query on opinions and approvals for usage. Again, done via email, aggravating all other symptoms of misaligned global brand function.

Multiple measures can be put in place to mitigate or prevent asset and people chases in global brand execution. Creation of specific brand content management roles and positions whose purpose will be to create more seamless content operations. Tiering of brand content support per market / access / channel will compartmentalise content demand and potential problems, making them simpler to solve. Brand & creative implementation directives as can be digitised removing the excess need for communication and people chases on the proper usage. And on top of all these smaller tactical improvements, complete tailored technology and resource solutions can be created and implemented for most demanding and most complex cases.

6) Executional Ambiguity

Global brand execution relies on the perfect alignment of multiple teams and individuals located at different organisational levels and geographical locations. Acting as one, these teams need to translate general global creative and messaging into impactful local activations that will leverage both global and local aspects of their brands. To achieve this all of them rely on each other - to act and behave in a pre-defined way that assumes deep brand understanding and knowledge inherent to the requirement of their positions as brand directors, managers, specialists etc.

The timeliness and quality of global brand execution relies on people and their knowledge of steps and procedures that need to be taken to launch a global brand campaign across multiple markets. This by itself, as mentioned previously, requires multiple upstream and downstream alignments between HQ and countries and implies a mutual agreement on best practices for implementation in all phases of the campaign - from planning to execution. Teams that work together for a longer period of time develop a cross-organisational know-how which they leverage to work as a team and deliver results.

Problem of global brand management lies in the ambiguity of the execution.

Problem of global brand management lies in the ambiguity of the execution. Namely, branding management, branding execution and branding function in most if not all global organisations is a highly non-process driven function. Unmanaged as an organisational assets, branding knowhow and key expertise which exists in organisations in the shape of heuristics, or tacit knowledge of highly paid senior staff, is actually sole ownership of those individuals and employees, not organisations who invested heavily into creation and maintenance of those brands. Brand development, brand management and especially branding execution, in terms of process steps, that will lead to a desired brand expression exists only in the form of heuristics - tacit knowledge of selected individuals. Meaning, that key brand development, brand implementation and general branding execution knowledge, leaves the organisation when these specific employees leave the organisation.

Brand development, brand management and especially branding execution, in terms of process steps, that will lead to a desired brand expression exists only in the form of heuristics - tacit knowledge of selected individuals.

Without being codified within softwares or other types of documented processes, brand building knowledge, and especially branding execution methodologies, tactics, processes, and steps drip away from the organisation with each employee that leaves. What happens is that knowledge is either replenished with new sources of tacit individual knowledge (new professionals hired), though inevitably different and varying form one already present, sometimes even completely non-matching, or simply deteriorates as interpersonal transfer of knowledge was biased and incomplete to begin with. This is how branding practices and brand expressions organisationally deteriorate and become inconsistent. As when key personnel leaves the organisation the practical knowledge, the knowhow of branding execution leaves with employees.

If there is no documented, codified or digitised process knowhow about global brand execution, with inevitable staff turnover, global branding execution is condemned to continuous ambiguity.

Knowledge about a business processes is one of the most important assets of a modern organisation today. Current process management practices reveal problems regarding process knowledge (e.g. the process owner doesn’t know the skills of the activity performer, management is not familiar with the flexibility of organisational processes, best practices/benchmarks are not accessible or are unknown). Organisations have to deal with distributed, undocumented, contradictory, misunderstood, and often inaccessible process knowledge. The consequences are higher costs, poorer performance and quality, unfulfilled requirements and, in the end, unsatisfied internal and external customers.

If there is no documented, codified or digitised process knowhow about global brand execution, with inevitable staff turnover, global branding execution is condemned to continuous ambiguity. If you or your teams experience continuous and repetitive alignment on execution methodology and best practices due to frequently changing global brand execution team members, you're effectively experiencing a systemic and organisation wide functional execution ambiguity.

6) Digitally Disabled Teams

The seductive promise of double digit growth, made many brands discount serious organisational adjustments needed to be made, before venturing into new digital channels. To ensure proper and consistent brand translation to digital one needs more than digital ambition. Without a support system built on tools, processes and resources your digital brand will never take off. Organisational design and workflows - how people work, collaborate and communicate across teams was and is set up for much slower pace of work. Keeping brands alive in minds of customers mean keeping them alive in social feeds. 'Feeding the feed' requirement created the need for accelerated communication, brand content creation and (daily) distribution capability.

Growing digital brands means growing digital pains. One of biggest ones is an excel sheets entrapment. If you keep track of your campaign execution elements such as consumer journeys, brand assets, media formats, partner specs, languages, copy and CTA-s across excel sheets, online or even worse offline, you are definitely digitally disabled and set up to fail.

If you spend more time aligning your digital agencies, with your partners, acting most of the time as human email forwarder, than strategising on your brand and keeping in loop with market innovations, you're falling behind.

Nothing sends a clearer signal of future failure than inability to effectively and productively do your work. This is especially true when the workload is ever increasing and your human, work, capability remains constant - such 40 hours workweek. Without meticulously selected and well used technology global brand professionals are set up to fail.

Instead of being focused on strategic brand management and activations, you waste time and days in micro-management of digital brand production. If spend more time aligning your digital agencies, with your partners, acting most of the time as human email forwarder, than strategising on your brand and keeping in loop with market innovations, you're falling behind.

Sure, campaign have timelines and strict deadlines to meet, and every now and then, things may not be going as smoothly as possible. But, if your every digital activation is a stressor and you're putting out fires just to get them out the door, something is not right. While you may muscle your way out for some time, in long term or your team will have a burn-out while your activations quality and performance will worsen.

Empowering teams to make necessary organisational changes through tailored digital solutions, processes and resources, while removing bottlenecks identified through an objective analysis of current state of branding capabilities, is at the core of our digital brand enablement framework.

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Andrei Perumal, Stephen Wilson "Wilson Perumal & Company, Inc.", Multiple articles on www.wilsonperumal.com, Books : Growth in the Age of Complexity and Waging War on Complexity Costs (McGraw-Hill)

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Anne-Wil Harzing "An Empirical Analysis and Extension of the Bartlett and Ghoshal Typology of Multinational Companies."

Dr. Michael Bloom and Michael Grant The Conference Board of Canada: "Valuing Headquarters (HQs): Analysis of the Role, Value and Benefit of HQs in Global Value Chains"