In an era where employees crave meaning over mandates and culture over command, purpose has emerged as the true north for organizations navigating a post-pandemic world. Yet for legacy institutions like NEC Corporation, with over 125 years of global history and a 70-year footprint in India, purpose wasn’t missing; it had simply faded into the background of day-to-day execution.
Recognizing this drift, NEC India made a conscious decision to realign its people with the company's foundational purpose. It was about helping them see the impact behind every line of code they wrote, every project they delivered, and every innovation they drove. The result was a cultural recalibration that brought the company's mission to life in deeply personal, tangible ways, fostering a high-retention, high-trust, high-performance culture.
From Campaigns to Culture: A Shift in Ownership
What makes NEC’s approach unique is actually the messengers. The Ikigai Program was initiated by the marketing function but was co-led by HR and fully embraced by leadership across regions and verticals. For modern CHROs and CMOs, this holds a key lesson: in order to shift culture, you must first shift language. NEC India built a visual and verbal identity around purpose, symbolised by a thumbprint logo that represents each employee’s unique role in collective progress. This was a nuanced, multi-phased, multi-location rollout that began with leaders and people managers, cascading across the entire workforce. Workshops, toolkits, digital stories, and environment branding, all served to make the purpose not just heard, but felt.
“Marketing today has evolved beyond visibility. It is upon them to provide coherence, and align what the brand says with how the organisation behaves. What we often forget is that there is an intrinsic relationship between ‘employee delight’, and ‘customer delight’. Our Ikigai Program helped bring this understanding to life. It became our internal compass, and in doing so, elevated marketing into a strategic lever for trust, collaboration and transformation.” said Arvind Saxena, Head, Chief Marketing Officer, NEC Corporation India
NEC’s purpose was treated as what Saxena calls a “cultural software.” And this shift has had a tangible impact. Employee engagement hit a record high of 75%, retention peaked at 92%, and participation in NEC’s global survey hit 97% — the highest across all NEC geographies.
HR + Marketing: A Culture Co-Ownership Model
While the role of marketing was foundational in shaping the brand voice of purpose, it was HR that ensured it translated into employee behaviour, rituals, and performance management. From onboarding programs with personalised welcome messages, to “Purpose Champions” awards and recognition platforms, the employee lifecycle was rewired to reflect purpose as a performance enabler. “In HR, purpose isn’t just a bridge, it’s the driving force that connects employee experience to organisational strategy. When people see purpose in their everyday work, retention and performance don’t need to be enforced, they become a natural expression of that meaning. Purpose gives us a common language and a shared lens, aligning HR, Marketing and Leadership to move with clarity and conviction toward one organisational vision”, said Kashish Daya Kapoor, Head – HR, NEC Corporation India. In essence, HR became the amplifier of what marketing designed. |
