Corporate reorganisation and Brand Governance: how to protect identity and consistency when the organisation changes

A corporate reorganisation changes the organisational structure and, above all, the system through which decisions are made. Managers, delegated authority, business units, markets, reporting lines and centres of power all change.

Whenever who can decide changes, the way the brand is governed changes too. Many reorganisations leave precisely this step uncovered: the company redesigns structure and processes while identity, positioning and reputation continue to be managed under rules created for the previous organisation.

The phenomenon is common. A 2025 McKinsey survey of 2,000 executives across 16 sectors finds that around two thirds of leaders had experienced an operating model redesign in the previous two years and that 50% expect a further reorganisation in the following two years. McKinsey urges looking beyond the “boxes and lines” alone, including processes, people, responsibilities and decision-making in the redesign.

Meanwhile, the intangible assets these decisions affect continue to grow. The World Intangible Investment Highlights 2026 by WIPO and Luiss Business School estimates brand investment in the countries analysed at 1.4 trillion dollars in 2025, with average annual growth of 4.2% since 2015. The report treats brands as an investment category worth more than a trillion dollars.

For a CEO the consequence is practical: every major reorganisation should include a review of the system that governs the brand, because the organisation chart also determines who can act on promise, pricing, communications, customer experience and reputation.

A reorganisation also changes who governs the brand

A reorganisation can stem from very different needs: improving efficiency and margins, integrating an acquisition, creating new business units, decentralising, entering new markets or reducing dependence on certain individuals. In every case, some decisions change owner.

A new sales director may gain greater autonomy over pricing. A business unit may manage its own communications. A country organisation may choose agencies and partnerships locally. A newly appointed CMO may change priorities and tone. HR may take on a stronger role in the employer brand. Taken together, these choices shape a new system of brand governance.

A reorganisation can stem from very different needs: improving efficiency and margins, integrating an acquisition, creating new business units, decentralising or entering new markets. In some cases it also involves moving between different organisational models, for example from a functional structure to a divisional, matrix or more distributed one.

A necessary distinction between brand management and brand governance: the former coordinates the brand’s activities, the latter establishes who can decide, with what criteria, authority and controls.

The critical step is therefore to map, alongside the new organisation chart, which brand decisions change ownership and which must remain under central oversight.

The invisible risk: the organisation changes, the old rules remain

The first months of the new structure are often the most delicate. People take on different roles while procedures, approval matrices and repositories remain those of the past. Managers bring criteria developed elsewhere and local offices gain autonomy before it is clear which elements of the positioning can be adapted.

Redesigning the structure, however, does not mean the transformation is complete. Change Management governs the transition between the newly designed set-up and its adoption: new roles, responsibilities and decision-making criteria must become understandable and workable in day-to-day work.

Fragmentation tends to appear gradually. One business unit uses a different commercial promise, the sales team introduces discounts inconsistent with the positioning, HR describes the company in language far removed from the corporate voice, different agencies receive incompatible briefs and old materials stay in circulation alongside new ones.

Research on organisational identity helps explain why. A study by Riikka Harikkala-Laihinen of a company that moved from family ownership to a corporate investor shows that the organisation’s ability to signal continuity of identity influences how people interpret the transformation (Journal of Project Management).

Cloutier and Ravasi have also observed how certain elements of organisational identity carry different weight in determining continuity and change over the long term (Academy of Management Journal).

The brand comes in at this point because it makes visible the meanings the organisation wants to keep carrying into the market while structure, people and processes change.
Naturally, the same continuity must exist internally. Internal Branding translates brand identity, values and promise into people’s behaviour, a particularly delicate step when a reorganisation alters leadership, roles and ways of working together.

Why brand guidelines alone do not solve the problem

Guidelines mainly answer questions about the use of logos, colours, tone of voice, assets and applications. A reorganisation raises a prior question: who has the right to decide when exceptions, commercial tensions or cases the guidelines did not anticipate arise?

A document can set standards and principles. A conflict between corporate marketing and a business unit, the choice of a sensitive partnership or the degree of autonomy of a local market require clearly identifiable responsibilities and escalation thresholds.

Bain’s RAPID model addresses this need by distinguishing who recommends, who provides input, who must agree, who makes the final decision and who performs. The framework was designed precisely to make decision roles explicit. Each organisation may choose different tools; the principle remains useful when an important decision risks being simultaneously blocked or claimed by several functions.

Responsibilities and decision rights: what to redesign alongside the organisational chart

The first task is to build a map of the decisions that can materially alter the value or perception of the brand. The useful criterion is materiality: economic, reputational and strategic impact, and how difficult a decision is to reverse.

From the Board’s perspective, this approach is consistent with the G20/OECD Principles of Corporate Governance 2023, which assign the board responsibility for strategic guidance and for overseeing risk management systems. When reputation, positioning and brand equity are material, the decisions that affect them naturally fall within that scope of oversight.

Approval matrix: centralising the right decisions

When fragmentation increases, the simplest reaction is to pull every approval back to the centre. The organisational cost can become high: the CMO approves every piece of content, the CEO steps into every partnership and local offices wait on HQ for minor changes.

A good approval matrix separates at least three levels. Delegated decisions can be taken autonomously within clear criteria. Controlled decisions require specialist review. Strategic decisions go to the top because their impact on brand equity justifies escalation.

The question therefore becomes what the lowest level of authority is that can correctly take a specific decision. This approach preserves speed and accountability without leaving each area to interpret the brand from scratch.

Brand guardianship: transferring criteria along with roles

A reorganisation can formally transfer a role in a day. The criteria that person used to assess partnerships, exceptions, pricing or local adaptations required a longer handover.

This is where the brand’s Key Person Risk emerges. If one person intuitively knows which partnerships to turn down or when an adaptation goes beyond the acceptable limit, part of the system continues to live in their memory.

The handover should therefore turn tacit knowledge into criteria people can consult: principles, cases, exceptions, escalation thresholds, examples of past decisions, up-to-date repositories and training sessions. The aim is to give people enough knowledge to act autonomously while maintaining a common direction.

Brand KPIs during change: measuring before the market signals the problem

During a reorganisation, revenue, awareness and NPS can remain stable for months. Brand governance problems, by contrast, can surface earlier in decision flows and in the use of assets.

ISO 20671-1:2021 defines an integrated framework for brand evaluation through inputs, output dimensions and indicators. The standard applies to internal and external brand evaluations.

These indicators become most valuable when measured before the reorganisation, during the transition and once the new structure is fully operational.

During a reorganisation these indicators become valuable when measured before the change, during the transition and a few months after the new structure is fully operational. The baseline shows whether the new structure is genuinely improving the system.

When a Brand Governance Audit is needed

An audit is particularly useful when a reorganisation changes people, processes and decision-making powers at the same time. The most relevant signals are longer approval chains, recurring conflicts between sales and marketing, business units producing materials on their own, growing dependence on individual managers, local markets applying differing interpretations, and decisions already approved being reopened again and again.

In these cases an audit can capture the actual structure, the assets, the points of dispersion, the responsibilities and the mechanisms through which the brand is governed in the new organisation.

The useful output for management is a map of the points where the new structure risks creating inconsistency, slowdowns or reputational exposure, with associated priorities and responsibilities.

A reorganisation truly changes things when the way the company makes decisions changes. Brand Governance ensures that, within that new system, the brand keeps a recognisable direction.