Corporate Identity
A Company’s reputation is heavily dependent on its corporate identity, image and relation with its specific stakeholders. Identity of a corporate institution can be manifested in various ways including its name, logo, products, services and more. These tangible aspects of a Company’s organizational processes communicate with the specific stakeholders of the organization and determine the perception of the latter (Lim, Machado & Iglesias, 2015). This study chooses The Bluestone Lane of Australia, a leading brand in the hospitality industry, to conduct a detailed identity and reputation audit, which is essential in order to improve their image and reputation in the corresponding business market.
The Bluestone Lane is a well-established chain of coffee shops and cafes in the well-known coffee culture hub of Melbourne, Australia. Business operations of the Bluestone Lane include Australian cafe and coffee fare, wholesale distribution processes, roaster of coffee beans and much more.
The primary vision of the Bluestone Lane is to look after the satisfactory returns of its specific shareholders. Sustainability in success has been another vital organizational vision that set the brand apart from its contemporaries and led to an all-round development of revenues, brand image and establishing corporate identity (Jones, Hillier & Comfort, 2016). The organization especially emphasizes on the culture of coffee-consumption, cultivation as well as safety of workplace and employees; thus prioritizing the specific needs of its stakeholders.
The Bluestone Lane’s strong organizational culture has remained a valued asset as it helped the organization to survive massive transformations of the external business environment.
In order to maintain the respective identity of products amongst all their channels of production, the Company makes sure that each of these functional units works in close proximity with the original brand, in terms of visual representation, logos and names (Sageder, Mitter & Feldbauer?Durstmüller, 2018).
Based in Australia, The Bluestone Lane is one of the most popular providers of artisanal coffee and food with first-class service, spread out extensively over the international business market at large. The Company puts up a significant effort in providing the products of the various outlets a sense of brand identity, by maintaining a valuable point of difference from its parent organization (Koskinen, 2016).
Consistency and coherence amongst the organization’s objectives, policies, functioning and outlook is essential for the preservation of the brand’s identity and exclusivity (Xu, Chen & Whinston, 2015). As the Bluestone Lane organization has broadly declared that their primary mission is to protect the satisfaction of the stakeholders, it has to consistently manifest this objective through all its identifying elements, including organizational culture, workplace safety policies, protection of employee rights, logos and more.
The corporate policies of the Bluestone Lane are strictly centred round the benefits of respective stakeholders. The Company’s efforts to achieve corporate responsibilities regarding protection of the environment are visible amongst its production as well as functional processes.
The Corporate Image depicts the particular ways the stakeholders of the organization perceive the output performance of the organization (Lievens, 2017). The Bluestone Lane’s brand image directly reflects the Australian coffee culture, rich and detailed. The organization makes it a point to mirror their organizational culture and visions through their tangible functional outputs, like ambience, packaging, service-delivery, pricing and much more.
Names and Logos
The most important part of building a brand strategy is to connect the original organizational objectives with the various tangible functional units of the organization (Balmer, 2015). The Australian founder of the Bluestone Cafe declared his primary interest in preaching the exporting the exclusive Australian premium coffee culture as well as enhancing interactions and experiences in a working space. In order to incorporate both the requirements, the brand signifies a much more personal and informal relationship with its direct consumers. As their most treasured stakeholder, the brand’s objective is to involve their customers as ‘locals’ instead of establishing a business oriented relationship with them. By rejecting the homogeneous, impersonal and transactional nature of customers, the organization first created space for the diverse multitude by being inclusive of their responses and reactions (Mwarehwa, 2016). Not only does the brand emphasize on restoring human connection, it actively participates in providing a safe and comfortable space for its audience.
The corporate image of the Bluestone Lane does not only uphold the organization’s initial objectives of restoring Australia’s refined coffee culture, it also signifies diversity, dynamicity and emotions of consumers as vital stakeholders (Furlan & Faggion, 2016). The Company’s constant emphasis on restoring human connection also embarks on the failing human relationships and connections, gradually pushing people to the farthest and loneliest corners. Being able to connect to the vision of the Company is hardly difficult in today’s fast-changing landscapes. The Company’s contribution towards the preservation of the environment can also be found in various organizational processes like awareness programs, sustainable business practices, adequate nurturing of the immediate environment and more. The consumers of the organization are charged extra amount on every billing that goes to the fund of employee healthcare and other health related necessities. This practice not only ensures a satisfied employee base, but also emphasizes on the culture of sharing and caring. Therefore, the Bluestone Lane enjoys an appropriate brand identity, complemented by suitable functional processes and relevant production of products and services.
The Bluestone Lane organization recognizes value in their production output and service delivery and as a consumer-satisfaction oriented organization, emphasizes on improving stakeholder relationships for the smooth delivery of services. Understanding the perception of the stakeholders of the Company is an essential step in avoiding risks related to false or faulty presumptions (Giesinger, Hamilton, Erschbamer, Jost, & Giesinger, 2015). In order to maintain the reputation of the organization, constant measures need to be taken in respect of securing stakeholders’ demands and satisfaction. In a perfectly competitive business environment, it is challenging for the Bluestone Lane Company to successfully export and popularise a foreign culture. The coffee culture of New York is booming in its own, but the Bluestone Lane aims to bring the processes to a more personal level by emphasizing not only on the consumption of caffeine, but how it is presented, the ambience, the cultivation and delivery processes and more (Sunder M, 2016).
As a leading coffee culture in New York, the Bluestone Lane brands its services by presenting a completely new and unique air of coffee-consuming experience. The Company has various stakeholder ties with professional coffee plantations like Rainforest Alliance, coffee artisans in Brooklyn for the premium roasting of beans, the American coffee-drinkers who take special interest in the consumption process of the product and the cultural ambience, and more. Steady relationships with each of these stakeholders have been achieved by looking after and satisfying their specific needs and requirements. The Company now takes responsibility for their employees’ health and well-being (Sallis, Owen & Fisher, 2015). In order to compensate the added costs, it started a new system of optionally charging their customers a small amount for every bill, which goes direct to the fund for their employees’ well-being. Not only are they promoting employee health as basic human right, it can also be regarded as another attempt at establishing human connection and the culture of sharing, coffee as well as responsibilities.
Consistency in Self-Presentation
With globalization and cross-cultural exchange, foreign cultures got imported and exported throughout the continents of the world. The owner of Bluestone Lane, an Australian ex-footballer, declared that his original intention of starting a cafe in New York was because he missed Australia’s culture of coffee production and consumption and wanted to export the coffee-drinking experiences to a busier market of USA. Though New York enjoys a specialty coffee culture, the American coffee is more of a go-by street beverage and not like Australia’s indoor-ambience coffee consuming experiences (AlBattat, Som & Helalat, 2014). The Bluestone Lane claimed to change the American culture of coffee consumption and introduced a more intimate experience of enjoying premium brewed coffee in an indoor space, a culture directly exported from the bluestone lane of Australia. The Bluestone Cafe, when it was first started, served Australian style coffee and breakfast of avocado smash and Vegemite toast, which are two mandatory items of Australian menu. Therefore, it is apparent that the organization did not simply start of coffee-cafe, but made an attempt to introduce a new culture that’s new and fascinating to the specialty coffee market of New York.
The business strategies used by the Bluestone Lane organization for survival in the American business market and consumption culture, were also adapted from the Australian culture of coffee production and consumption. The Australian coffee culture is not just about the taste and quality of coffee, rather it emphasizes on the all-round experience of consumption; which in turn is a key element in achieving loyalty of customers, stability in the relationships shared with other stakeholders and enhancing sustainability abilities of the organization (Takahashi & Todo, 2017). However, the Company also recognizes the importance of securing employee rights, goodwill and sustainability initiatives, which are key elements in determination of Company reputation in the international market. Failing to achieve successful stakeholder relationships may lead to further crucial risks that would affect the Company’s reputation.
The Bluestone Lane is the fastest growing coffee and cafe brand, which has more than 13 outlets successfully running and seven more under construction. As one of the major leading hospitality and lifestyle brand, the key success factor of the organization was its uniqueness and originality in providing premium cafe experiences for its clients. The lack of options in the American coffee market was something that was experienced by the founder and that spurred him to embark on a venture of exporting the premium Australian coffee experience. The various success factors of the Bluestone Lane are briefly discussed below:
- Quality of Products: The chief success factor of the organization is its extraordinary quality of coffee brewing, influenced by Australia’s flat white double espresso with a dash of milky froth on top. This style of coffee made a huge global impact and was taken up by Starbucks in their menu.
- Customer Service: The most important element of the Bluestone Lane was restoring the culture of indoor coffee consumption and enhancing engagement with customers. The emphasis or building a personal engagement with each of the customers is one of the strongest factors ensuring loyalty and success(Ting & Thurasamy, 2016).
- Organizational culture: The organizational culture of Bluestone Lane is directly connected with its primary objective and vision that is, adding value to their products and services. The originality and uniqueness of the culture is not only attractive but also customer-satisfaction oriented.
- Sustainability initiatives: The Bluestone Lane takes necessary initiatives in order to restore the environmental health that is being consistently hampered in the process of business interaction. Sustainability initiatives include reducing over consumption of resources, working for the betterment of coffee plantations, conducting awareness programs for environment-friendly business interactions and more (Levy, Reinecke & Manning, 2016). Emerging as a conscious and sustainable business force in the international market is one of its most essential success factors.
Conclusion
To conclude, the image and reputation of a business enterprise is heavily dependent on its business practices, organizational culture, management of processes and presentation. The Bluestone Lane Company has been investigated to conduct a reputation and identity audit that would help in understanding how these aspects are inter-related with each other. The study used a triangular model of research, which emphasizes on using various research methods and models including case studies, theorized literature and other information sources like newspaper articles and journals to provide a comprehensive understanding of the relationship between the various business aspects.
As a leading brand in the hospitality industry, the Bluestone Lane caters to the specialty coffee culture practised in New York. Maintaining stakeholder relationships is one of the crucial areas for maintaining brand image and reputation. As newer establishments take space in the coffee consumption business market, it is necessary for the organization to look after the interests of its important stakeholders like the consumers, suppliers, coffee plantation owners, partners and more, in order to avoid losing credibility and loyalty.
References
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