Brand Musings

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Branding for Small and Medium Businesses

- February 28, 2018

Small Business, Big Brand Small and Medium Businesses (SMBs) form a major part of India’s industry as well as employ the largest number of the country’s workforce. Yet the contribution of SMBs to overall GDP remains small largely because SMBs have so far focused on serving local markets without aiming to expand markets and grow. With liberalisation of the Indian economy many multinational companies as well as imports from China and South East Asia have entered domestic markets. How does this bode for SMBs in general? Why do they need to focus on building their brands now more than ever? And what can they do? Leveraging their strengths Branding is a long-term and ongoing process. Ideally, the process of creating and building a brand should begin at the stage when the business is conceptualized. However, it is never too late for existing businesses. SMBs benefit from simpler decision making processes compared to larger corporations making the process of brand development much f

What is wrong with customer experience in the Indian retail industry?

- January 24, 2018

What is wrong with customer experience in the Indian retail industry? There is no doubt that the growth of e-commerce has affected the traditional brick and mortar retail industry. Retailers in India haven’t begun closing down physical stores like JC Penney’s have done in the US but there is no denying that a big chunk of retail business has moved online. It is not just the better discounts that are attracting customers to e-commerce. In India, more and more customers are beginning to shop online without comparing prices. The main reasons for this are the convenience and the customer experience. Yet, it is surprising to see how little importance is paid to customer experience by Indian offline retailers still. Forrester’s India Customer Experience Index 2017 shows that customer experience has improved in comparison to the report of 2016. However, that improvement has largely been in the banks and financial institutions. In the traditional retailers category most retail

The importance of customer experience to the brand

- January 23, 2018

The importance of customer experience to the brand Early last month, Interbrand released its rankings of India’s most valuable brands. But in today’s business scenario are these rankings relevant? Some of the biggest brands in Indian industry are on that list, and yet they are not necessarily brands that customers would associate as the best. In 2016 brand valuation specialists, Markables, reported that between 2003 and 2015, the contribution of brand valuation to the total valuation of a company had come down by as much as 50%. In that period the value of customer relationships more than doubled. The study covered mergers & acquisitions over the period and compared the respective values of brands (trademarks) and customer relationships to the total value of the companies. What this means is that enterprises seeking to merge with or acquire other enterprises now place much greater value on the customer relationships the enterprise has than the value of its brand

Brand Cochin

- October 13, 2015

Over the years, the city I have made my home has grown on me. Having lived in bigger cities like Delhi and Bangalore, the idea of living in Cochin took time getting used to. But today when I think about it there are probably very few places that can boast of the benefits that Cochin has. A recent news article on the branding of Cochin’s current pet peeve, the Metro, came practically alongside an article that mentioned Cochin as Kerala’s choice for the Indian government’s smart cities project and the selection of an agency to develop the detailed project report. The two articles together got me thinking on the opportunities that Cochin had to project its unique character and position itself as an attractive destination for tourists and residents. What Cochin needs, I feel, is to brand itself. In today’s globalized world cities compete with each other to attract investment, tourism and people – trade, tourism and talent, so to speak – because cities prosper when its citizens prosper

iPhone 5S, 5C and all that

- September 11, 2013

That Apple has launched a new pair of iPhones yesterday is now old news. As far as the launch goes, I am of the opinion it was much less a launch of new phone models and more of a launch of the new iOS7. There are a number of articles in the media on the launch and a point that I have frequently come across is the disappointment that people have with the cost of the iPhone5C. Apple was widely expected to launch a cheaper version of the iPhone to win back the market share it lost to a slew of Korean and Chinese Android powered phones. There were many who thought that iPhone would now be as affordable as these phones. But the launch came with a bit of a rude shock for them. At US$550 for the 5C (that's around Rs. 35,000 here in India though the actual price in Indian stores hasn't been announced as yet), it is just 100 dollars cheaper than the other new phone, the premium 5S and in no way as cheap as many Android phones. I have read blogs and articles that have bemoaned why t

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