I work for a screen printing and embroidery company and we base our color choices on pantone swatches. This usually isn't a problem for us but I have had the same issue twice in the last week and im not sure if it's the original designers problem or my problem.
In both of these scenarios I received a brand guideline with CMYK, RGB. And pantone color codes. And both times the pantone does not match the color shown on the screen. One instance the screen showed and off white/cream color while the pantone was just yellow. The second time the screen showed a light navy and the pantone was a deep purple. Not just a few shades off but completely different colors. Since I know the screen is not always right, I will pull a swatch from online of the pantone and compare to the digital document and they're even different colors there.
Why is this happening? Are the designers putting the brand guidelines together not familiar with pantone matching? Or are the colors coming out differently depending on which color workspace they are exporting from? And how do I decide which color to go with?