A company can be defined by many things: its products, services, leaders, profits. These tangible elements can build awareness, shape perception and contribute value to the company, its consumers and its investors. But how do companies define intangibles like culture? Is culture so important? MillerCoors would say “yes.”

For one thing, it can affect the bottom line. A strong culture can promote substantial increases in net income, revenue, employment and stock price, according to John Kotter, co-author of Corporate Culture and Performance, in a recent post on Forbes.com. In the long term, culture can build the foundation for what makes companies great — trust, drive and incredible talent willing to go above and beyond to provide the products and services that consumers love.

In 2008, when Miller Brewing Company and Coors Brewing Company came together as part of a joint venture, defining, creating and building a successful, unified company culture was essential. Creating a culture to build engagement, advance high performance and deliver on both the vision and the bottom line is challenging, and the process requires continual effort, analysis and development.

Miller and Coors took advantage of an opportunity to combine forces. The collaboration between the second and third largest American brewers would build market share and greater scale, develop a national brewery network to get beer closer to its customer base, and deliver significant annual savings.

The move saw quick returns, delivering substantial profit despite a weak industry environment. However, building the right culture and boosting employee engagement were necessary to drive and maintain sustainable success.

“Our goal was to take the best elements from Miller and Coors and create a new, universal MillerCoors culture,” said H. Muir, senior consultant of learning solutions at MillerCoors. “Two very distinct companies were coming together, so we looked to both commonality and best practices to develop behaviors and habits for the organization that drive our work, teams and culture.”

Starting out of the gate fast and seeing immediate positive impact were both crucial. Muir explains it as “not dropping a case of beer. Management and HR needed innovative ways to help our employees find clarity, understand the change, come together as new teams and execute their business objectives without surrendering any volume or share to the competition — and it had to happen quickly.”