The Hindu Business Line : Services branding: Now it’s ‘core values’

Chennai, March 27 At a time when the IT (information technology) industry is facing many challenges, the way companies can differentiate themselves from competition is to stick to their core values, says Mr Raghu B. Vishwanath, Managing Director, Vertebrand Management Consulting Pvt Ltd, Bangalore. “IT companies would need to consistently communicate a uniform brand identity, because the earlier differentiator of ‘people’ is no longer valid.”

With attrition rates high in the IT industry, it is not possible for a company to claim credibility through its people assets alone, he adds, speaking to Business Line. “In today’s world, especially in the services sector, brand value is about building reputation, not just about driving recognition. And reputation, in turn, is a reflection of how fundamentally strong the value proposition of the business is.” The traditional ‘body shopping’ end of the IT and ITeS (IT enabled services) industry is set for extinction, foresees Mr Vishwanath. “The industry, hence, has to reinvent itself and move into the knowledge plane. Each business must be able to harness its core values.”

Value DNA

What goes into the core values? “It is by and large the DNA and the value system of the original promoters,” he explains. “Like human beings, every business brand will have an innate intelligence as well as depict a certain personality. While intelligence determines ‘what’ a brand should or should not do, personality determines ‘how’ a brand does what it does.”

Apart from IT/ITeS, the other services that are facing exponential growth, according to Mr Vishwanath, are retail, healthcare, and infrastructure/hospitality. “However, it is unfortunate that very few of the players in these sectors look at branding as a priority,” he rues.

Brand essence

Mr Vishwanath’s prescription for businesses is to look at strategic branding first even before they spend the big bucks on their visual identity. Conventional branding, where the emphasis is on name, logo, signage, packaging and visual merchandising, is dead, he declares, because these are no longer sustainable differentiators.

“What is here to stay is strategic branding, with focus on brand experience, which is a function of emotional and self-expressive value proposition,” says Mr Vishwanath. “Most businesses in the services sector today are not laying sufficient emphasis on unearthing this ‘brand essence’, which will differentiate them from competition.”

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