Brand Building

Several times, company owners ask me questions related to Company Brand like:

1. How do we build our brand?

2. Who in the company should be responsible for brand building?

3. Which function should lead brand building? and so on.

Indian companies are competing with foreign brands, who are supposedly more powerful. In the engineering industry, the major reason for this is the sheer presence of foreign brands on this planet for a much longer duration. Of course, they also have done several other things right to build their brand.

Let us look at some aspects that Indian companies can focus on for building a strong brand value.

Quality There should be absolutely no compromise on this. In fact, this should be a GIVEN. Ensure that your product and service is ZERO DEFECT.

Promise Brand is a promise that you make, so promise what you can deliver and deliver on that promise.

Innovation It is seen that innovative companies have a higher brand preference. So, encourage the spirit of intrapreneurship in your company and invest in R & D to come up with creative solutions to solve customer problems.

Differentiation How are you different from competition? How strong is your value proposition?

Customer It is said that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, likewise it is the customer who decides the power of the brand. You have a choice to influence the experience a customer has at every single touch point. Ensure that it is always positive because customers will then drive your brand value upwards.

Stakeholders While customer is the most important stakeholder for any business, the perception of other stakeholders like suppliers, employees, board, government, and society is also important in creating a brand. This is what lends credibility to the brand. Management must ensure that all stakeholders have a positive image of the company.

Consistency All functions in a company are responsible for brand building because each function interacts with one stakeholder or the other. For a powerful brand, the functions responsible for delivery of value should ensure that every stakeholder has consistently superior experience, irrespective of the function they are engaging with.

People Development Take special efforts in recruiting the right people with the right attitude and more importantly work on developing their capabilities so they can deliver results as per their potential. Training & empowerment should be the mantra. It is the people who create the culture of an organization and this culture has a strong bearing on building the brand value of a company.

Marketing Marketing must lead the brand building initiative of a company. The investments are necessary to build your brand. When I started my sales career more than 3 decades ago, SALES was more important than MARKETING. Now, MARKETING has gained importance because customers want to know all about the company, products, and services before interacting with a salesperson.

As per the MASB value chain below, marketing investments build brand preference which influences customer decisions, leading to improved financial performance.

Finally

So why would you invest your resources, time, effort, and money in brand building? The answer is “profitability”.

We know that strong brands are much more profitable. As per the article “The Financial Power of Brand Preference” https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesinsights/2019/01/22/the-financial-power-of-brand-preference/#78c93d3b701b, brand preference creates firm value by measurably improving profits, cash flow, and share.

Happy Branding!