Bristol-Myers Squibb (NYSE: BMY) recently announced changes to its top management team, including key changes to its emerging markets leadership. The company was able to promote from within because, as CEO Lamberto Andreotti remarked, “a focus on developing talent at all levels is a key element of our Bristol-Myers Squibb culture.”

Many executives, when pressed to explain what differentiates their corporate culture from that of their competitors will say something along the lines of, “our company is like a family” or, “employees are attracted to our values.” At established offices in developed markets, where hundreds of long-time employees live and breathe the corporate culture, this ambiguous but definition may be sufficient.

In emerging markets, however, companies do not have this luxury. Very few employees in a local office will ever make the trip to headquarters to absorb and live that culture first-hand. Furthermore, as companies rapidly expand their local headcount, the ratio of “indoctrinated” employees to “un-indoctrinated” employees will become even more skewed. Some locations may get lucky, organically developing their own unique corporate culture in the local office that successfully engages talent and differentiates the work environment, but relying on luck is never a best practice.

The companies that have been most successful in attracting and retaining top talent have put in place formal processes for defining, differentiating, and instilling their corporate culture in their furthest-flung emerging market locations. One case study that Frontier Strategy Group recently developed highlights the three-part strategy implemented by a prominent beverages company. To briefly summarize, the company:

1. Conducted an internal assessment using an employee survey, focus groups, and one-on-one interviews to understand more specifically the key levers of employee engagement: Individual (how employees find personal meaning in their work), Team (understanding the optimal degree of non-work related interactions necessary to ensure open and honest communication), and Community (how to engage employees in issues that truly matter to them, their families, and their communities)
2. Evaluated and re-defined their incentive structure through three unique lenses: monetary, professional growth, and personal engagement
3. Provided front-line managers with tools, training, and incentives to align the day-to-day work environment to the defined vision

The process used to instill the corporate culture should reflect the company’s ethos and mission. The example above heavily reflects the profiled company’s roots as a marketing and consumer-oriented company; the strategy is designed to make current and former employees brand ambassadors. Another company FSG recently featured in a case study, a technology services provider, took a much more quantitative approach to defining and measuring a differentiated corporate culture. This approach was designed to reflect its very scientific and technical corporate mission, but the goal of defining and reinforcing a more concrete corporate culture to attract and retain talent remains the same.

The next post in this series will focus on the role of senior management in reducing attrition of top talent in emerging markets.