How your organization's corporate culture influences market perception

Corporate culture directly influences how customers perceive the brand in the marketplace. When pharmaceutical brands can be worth tens of billions of dollars, brand managers need to be vigilant about anything that can impact that value.

Understanding the value of pharmaceutical brands

Brands, like products and services, have value. In the pharmaceutical arena, the value of a brand can reach figures well over a billion dollars. In fact, a 2016 report from InterbrandHealth estimated the value of the Pfizer brand at around $20 billion. Furthermore, the top seven pharma brands had valuations of over $10 billion. Remember, these figures only value the brand, not the companies' products services or resources. According to InterbrandHealth, strong brands are able to influence customer loyalty and choice, lower the cost of financing and improve talent attraction and retention.

Though a company's brand is often thought of as an external representation, the values it presents to customers are directly impacted by the organization's internal culture.

Your brand's reputation proceeds its sales reps. Do you know what doctors think of your organization?

Finding parallels between internal culture and external brand

The values a brand promotes externally should be a reflection of the values it holds internally. For example, an organization that treats its employees with respect and values them as people before company resources, is more likely to display a similar sentiment in the public eye. Essentially, an organization is like a person - if it's filled with negativity, that will seep out into its public persona.

Reputation plays an important role here, too. Pharmaceutical companies must convince health groups and physicians of the value of their products. Before a company representative even talks with a client, the company's reputation proceeds him or her. If the client already has a bad impression of the organization, why would they give the representative of that company the time of day?

Jeanne Ryan, a growth strategist, told ZS that pharma brands should not hesitate to invest in reputation management. Doing so can have a substantial, positive impact on the business.

"[W]hat type of experience is the company delivering to physicians?" Ryan said. "Our oncology survey found that physicians are 70% more likely to prescribe drugs from companies that deliver a positive experience than those that don't. More companies need to think about the experience that physicians have and think about what services are missing that could make the experience more positive."

Essentially, pharma brands need to control the narrative of their brand if they want to manage their reputation and perception in the marketplace effectively.

Managing brand reputation on a global scale

Pharma brands that operate on a global scale will have some understandable challenges when it comes to reputation management. After all, how does one entity create a consistent brand experience within multiple regulatory environments? It all comes back to internal culture.

Controlling brand perception is difficult, but molding corporate culture is easier, because it doesn't involve the general public. Managers can speak with their employees, learn about their concerns, needs, desires and use that information to craft a positive corporate culture. Over time, that culture will inform the organization's outreach efforts.

Managing your organization's reputation within the medical community is key to the growth of your organization. By advertising in a respected peer-reviewed, journal, pharma brands link their organizations with a source of information trusted by practicing physicians.

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