-By Swati Bhattacharya

Kriti and Sulekha have been on my case to submit like a million articles for the Corporate Reputation section of Potpourri!! The words have been bubbling around in my head, and my fingers tingling to write but, alas where's the time.

Today, I put it on my calendar, refused to accept meetings or calls, and sat down determinedly waiting for my fingers to fly over the keyboard, with all the thoughts that I've been thinking. I waited, and waited and waited, and guess what' Nada, zilch, nothing would come to my mind.

So I thought I'd start the first one telling you a little about my role. What would a typical Corporate Relations team take care of And hold your breath, (or actually don't) here I go. My role encompasses all of Industry relations, media relations, Government relations, Internal communications, customer events, corporate marketing, advertising, corporate social responsibility and any other and all branding related activities. Yes, that is a lot! And just as stressful as it sounds.

A role like this has actually been my dream role forever. Usually, in most organizations, they would have different people or teams to take care of internal communications, PR, 'advertising, and sometimes even a different team for CSR. I would think all this should roll under one person for the sake of consistency and the fact that all those activities complement each other.

I have worked with an Agency for a pretty long time, and I would find it so amusing, that among my clients, each of these teams would try so hard to outdo each other. Except ofcourse the advertising/marketing guys! They were the God's with their huge multi-million dollar budgets that everyone else had to tip toe around. They lorded it over the rest, while 'the rest' were always fighting to be heard above each other. I always wondered why they didn't all just become part of one large team, so they would see the same vision, buy in to the same strategy and work together, instead of each trying to prove a point. The big picture is important, and has to be the same jigsaw puzzle that each of them were trying to fit into solve.

Sometimes, its also different businesses of a diverse organization that run into similar issues. Each business does their own thing, and again end up losing, sight of the big picture. What's the corporate ethos, the culture, the values. How can people be passionate towards it, if you're tweaking it to suit your need as and when you feel like it.

Often it's also a question of ethics. I met with a senior director of the World Economic Forum recently, and he told me about this anti-corruption cell that they have. He said only 5 organisations in India had signed up for it, because they could not commit to the fact that they're organizations were completely non-corrupt! And mind it, these are large organizations! Well, you could feed a million economically disadvantaged children, build a zillion schools, train the differently abled or whatever else you want to do, but if everyone of your employees and leaders are not able to say with confidence that you are an ethical organization, then you will never be able to build a credible, socially responsible brand for yourself. Everything after all is not just about the outward sheen. Some things like ethics and values transcend everything. If organizations don't get that right, you can advertise and threaten your PR team to get you coverage, but one day it will all fall all around you. Branding is important, but some things are non-negotiable. They have to be inside out.