Corporate & Professional - How do I give this identity to my organisation?

When an organization truly competes the characteristics of its line business, in a more transparent way, it could be called a professional entity. When an organization defines its business objectives in clear terms duly indicating the strategy and the delivery mechanism, it paves way for professional development. We could enumerate the following aspects in an enterprise to understand the level of professionalism adopted by it.

• Scope and clarity in service offerings
• Vision & Mission
• Culture, values and ethics
• Strategy & Planning to achieve its Vision
• Brand conscious and brand positioning measures
  
• HR and Communication flow in the organization
• Policy provisions and delivery mechanism to achieve organizational productivity
• Implementation of Best Practices and Certification standards in the functional areas
• Transparency while dealing the issues of discrimination, grievance, disputes
• Implementation of technology
  
• Statutory identities
• Clean financial and taxation system
• Social accountability
  

Further professionalism is more of an accountability and transparency. It is possible to achieve these aspects when an organization deploys related processes to implement the above provisions. Let us understand process as any given transaction or task to be achieved in the functional or departmental context. For example, performance appraisal of human resources is a process, raising an invoice is a process, quality check list is a process, exit formality is a process, and any report document is a process. At this reckon there will be hundreds and thousands of processes that an organization has to effectively deliver in order to achieve the true performance levels.

The process could be a hard copy format or a digital document. Organizations inevitably follow both the formats as total automation and paperless environment is still not feasible in our business environment. As an example for digital processes, any CRM application at the minimum shall have numerous processes related to sales and after sales support. An ERP application is the true mirror of enterprise-wide processes.

Further, every process should be flexible for due customization. The technology tools like ERP application invariably enable deployment of a given process, modification of the same with due controls, monitoring and measuring it for performance. Still an ERP application enables to integrate the enterprise wide functions and processes so that enterprise productivity and performance is reckoned periodically by the top management with due checks and controls.

Finally beyond all the above, it is the conduct, attitude, accountability and commitment of employees that brings in right identity to the organization as a whole. Hence, in today's business the HR development is given top priority to match to the organizational vision and mission. Employees should also realize that the positive identity and values achieved by an organization shall invariably enhance the professional value of their individual profiles.

Professional identity and corporate culture brings in stakeholder loyalty (employees, vendors, suppliers, customers, partners ...), creates brand value and develops business. Thus any investments made in this direction shall bring in the Returns on Investment (ROI).