BRANDING

AND
TECHNOLOGY
MANAGEMENT

Presented by :AJAY KUMAR RATHORE (02MBA2013)

NATASHA THAKUR
(27MBA2013)
SIDHARTH GUPTA
(50MBA2013)
VISHAL GUPTA
(57MBA2013)

ABSTRACT
Globalization and the advance of technologies (particularly Internet) have
changed and will continue to change things like behaviors of customers as well
as the competition strategies of companies. The customers still ask for highquality and low-cost products/services.
Product life cycles are relentlessly shortened and the importance of new product
development has been recognized. The companies should response to these
changes in environment, should provide a suitable product variety in order to
survive and be competitive in the market.

 Thus "technology and its management" is considered to be the most valuable

competition weapon that adds value to the products. However, products are
nowadays become homogeneous in the eyes of customers, so there is a still
need for differentiation of technology products.
Today, the companies producing technology products really need "branding"
as a key weapon in order to differentiate themselves from their global
challengers.

One of the goals of the technology management is commercialization in

which inventions and innovations are converted into marketable products and
processes. Therefore, branding could be used as a reinforcing marketing
element in the technology management continuum.

1) why technology companies need "branding"/"brand management";

2) how "technology management" continuum benefits from "branding"/"brand
management";
3) how brand management is synchronized with the "technology management";
4) effect of brand naming; and
5) Effect of technological advances on the brand names

Technology

Brand name

Technology
effects

Branding

Brand
management
and
technology
benefits

INTRODUCTION
Branding has become one of the most important aspects of a marketing strategy.
Profitability is directly linked with an organizations ability to differentiate and
brand its products.
Brands become one of the key sources of a Sustainable Competitive Advantage.
Brand Management is no more restricted to Fast Moving Consumer Goods. In
order to stay competitive new sectors such as Industrial Goods Companies,
Media, Software, Banks, Insurance, Telecommunication, Retail and other
service industries need to build and manage brands.

 Managing brand is an important issue and thus software applications are now
available that can help you manage your brand right from your desktop. It is
easy to dismiss brand asset management software as yet another expense your
business could do without, but the brand is one of the most important
resources that your business should protect at all costs. And once your brand
becomes more exposed as it penetrates more markets - often on an
international scale - managing your brand's marketing becomes very important
indeed.
Mismanaging your brand can also have grave financial consequences. For
example, General Motors marketed its Nova model in Spain and South
America without a name change. Unfortunately, 'No va' means 'doesn't go' in
Spanish! A robust asset management system would have eliminated the risk of
this kind of mistake being made.

As Clare Millar, head of marketing for Company Net, explains, asset

management is now more important than ever: "Brand asset management
software - which uses technology to help organisations aggregate, store and
share information - can reduce costs and improve day-to-day marketing
operations.

 "Any marketer or brand manager understands the complexities and the time
involved in creating and managing assets such as graphics, images, audio,
video files, documents and style guidelines. The problem is that these assets are
created more quickly than they can be managed, and this can lead to a messy
and unstructured method of storing and accessing them."
According to industry research by Gistics, an average marketing professional
looks after 5000 brand assets in more than 400 different formats and performs
around 10 asset searches a day. Of these, around 35 per cent fail, and wastes
around 10 per cent of the practitioner's day. And replacing assets that are lost or
misplaced costs organisations a huge amount of money, year-on-year. Asset
management systems are now recognised as a way of saving time and money,
and with average return on investment of between seven and 15 times the costs
of the system, it's hugely appealing to brand-led organisations.

 Slow to catch on to the benefits of branding have been those companies that
are steeped in technology.
Even if they have been producing goods for public as opposed to business
consumption, they have showed some reticence in embarking on brand
investment.
Where it is commonplace to spend large amounts of money on plant and
capital equipment in technology-based industries, investing in brands has been
relatively ignored. As a result, there are few powerful technology brands, and
yet they would seem to be in desperate need of branding as a major tool in
order to differentiate themselves from all their competitors

WORLD OF PARITY
Perhaps one of the reasons why technology companies have not given
branding a high priority, is that technology product and service markets have
not been very cluttered until the last decade of the twentieth century.

In1990's many consumer goods market reached the stage of maturity where
they were at bursting point with a proliferation of products, technology has
only recently become so.

 But now the world of parity has hit technology markets as well. And it is
technology itself that has hastened this adverse situation. In the twenty first
century, it is so much easier to copy a competitor's products, services,
systems and so on, that the name of the game has now become how to
stand out from the crowd.

Technology is becoming a commodity business, and the relatively

established hi-tech companies that find themselves being sucked in to the
commodity trap, such as Sun Microsystems, are now realizing the role
branding plays in staying out of it

SHORTER LIFE CYCLE

Another factor that has awoken technology companies to the fact that branding
is important is the relentless decline of product life cycles, which have now
reduced to a matter of weeks from what used to be years.
In fact, some Japanese companies are now working on product life cycles of 68 weeks. Faced with such frightening product change and with competitors
continuously bringing new products to market and enhancing others, brands are
literally the only thing that represents stability to both companies and
consumers.
In fact, there is a dawning realization now amongst technology companies that
brands need not have life cycles - that they can last indefinitely. This is a
massive attraction.

CONVERGING AND NEW TECHNOLOGY

As if product proliferation and life cycle decompression were not enough,
technology companies now find themselves surrounded by collapsing
market boundaries, driven by the convergence of technologies.
Companies can leap industries by simply acquiring the necessary
technology, and where companies thought they understood the nature of the
competition, they can be astonished by how quickly things can change.
Ten years ago, companies such as Time Warner would never have
envisaged merging with Internet-based companies such as AOL.

The Internet was just not in the public domain then. But it is the powerful
brands that always win the battle for market dominance in this fast
changing world.

RETURN ON INVESTMENT
Pouring money into technology can be the wrong move unless you have a
brand that really stands for something in the minds of consumers, and
technology investment demands high returns.
The powerful brands provide both consumer trust and high returns.
Consumers will not buy from companies that do not have a good brand image,
particularly in technology markets where the products are relatively complex
and often not fully understood and will only buy trusted brands.

Developing a brand is not cheap, but the returns can be spectacular.

Strong brands can command premium prices wherever they choose to go, and
can often be worth more than the net asset value of the business enterprise.

BRANDING IS MORE IMPORTANT FOR HITECH COMPANIES

Three problems are faced by tech- based companies nowadays :

Technology-based companies are faced with perpetual change, and this

seemingly goes against the whole basis of branding, which is consistency.

Secondly, there is product parity, any products physical form can be copied,
consequently traditional unique selling proposition fails.

Lastly, the cautious nature of consumer decision-making with regard to

technology products makes it more difficult when trying to persuade them to
buy.

 The approach and philosophy of communications is based on the premise

that building a technology brand is not same as building consumer
brand.
A techno-brand cannot be created without understanding of consumer's
approach. Therefore first step to be applied is understanding consumer's
perception. Consequently, producers should be technology driven but
focus should be kept on consumer perceived benefits.

Percieved
Benifit
Model

 Technology companies are mostly technology driven and do not focus on

the most critical thing in marketing - "what the customers want". The
technology is meaningless if the consumers don't have real advantage out
of it.

MOTOROLA is one of the examples of violation of this rule. Motorola had

the excellent technology in cellular phone segment but it made tactical
mistake staying with technology-driven brand figure when most of the new
customers cared less about that and more about fashion and reliability.
On the other hand, Nokia used the slogan of "Nokia, Connecting People",
that is emphasizing the product's ease of use. Nokia worked on designing,
aesthetic aspects and other features like inbuilt games, directory, calendar,
and regional language interface.

 All this time Motorola was still busy for developing and hunting for new
technology, while Nokia increased its touch with customers by heavy
advertising, movie tie-ins, sponsoring sports events.
With 50 to 60 software companies starting up each month in Silicon Valley
alone, and over 10 million web-sites out there in cyberspace, hi-tech
marketplace is becoming a crowded road and Only a strong brand will help
hi-tech companies to survive through immediate and lasting
differentiation

Philips : Brand That Matters

Philips was a major manufacturing presence by the turn of the century and a
clear innovator throughout Europes industrial revolution.
It is based in the Netherlands and boasting a 115,000+ multinational workforce
across 60 countries.
Its global reach to date includes sales of EUR 26 billion in 2008, a brand that
spans 100 countries, a base of 50,000 products, and a foundation of multilingual
product content available across 57 countries and translated in 35+ languages
Royal Philips Electronics has been regularly innovative and evolutionary,
resulting in a global brand foundation that has stood the test of
time and disruption in the form of economic, technological, and
consumer empowerment trends in the healthcare, lifestyle and
lighting industries

Philips is a market leader in medical diagnostic imaging, patient monitoring

systems, energy efficient lighting solutions, and lifestyle solutions for personal
well-being.

Philips gets that brand matters and it takes the mission to a higher level by
understanding that people matter.

Thus, the belief that the consumers need relevant propositions and information
to obtain better healthcare, be energy efficient, and empower their own wellbeing prevails.

Understanding the inherent relationship between content and brand enables

Philips to successfully position itself as a market-driven, people-centric company.

We empower people to benefit from innovation by delivering on our brand promise of

sense and simplicity. This brand promise encapsulates our commitment to deliver
solutions that are advanced, easy to use, and designed around the needs of all our users
~ Philips

CONTINUED.
Content consistency is also an important aspect.

Producer's objectives, missions and visions should be considered for this

consistency. It must be ensured that every aspect of the organization, from
marketing materials and etc.
Factors considered for techno-branding steps are :A.
B.
C.
D.
E.
F.

Measure target consumer's perception of technology

Create a differentiating unique image
Think web technology as a part brand
Materialize the vision, mission and quality
Insert message into brand (avoid dictating and be consistent with existing
assets)
Construct a branding strategy for long horizon and then a plan for the
shorter terms

G. Revise and reposition the brand according to the changes (to not
deviate that will create dilemmas)
H. Materialize the vision, mission and quality
I.

Insert message into brand (avoid dictating or being didactic and, be

consistent with existing assets)

J.

Construct a branding strategy for long horizon and then a planfor the
shorter terms

K.

Revise and reposition the brand according to the changes (to not
deviate that will create dilemmas)

Brand naming/Brand logo

Brand naming/ logo designng is a creative process, Some companies
prefer reflecting their technologies in their branding strategy.
An advanced automatic focusing camera introduced by Canon with the
name of "Intelligent Focus or a
brand called Technanology gives
us an idea about the products.
It is important to create brand names
and logos that make sense for average
consumers. Technology emphasis
sometimes may not work because
of lack of consumer's knowledge
about the technology.

Conclusion
Branding is so important to differentiate the products in the competitive
global environment even though Branding has a specific and special
meaning in technology products.
The accelerating and chaotic nature of technological change causes
problems for those trying to establish, develop and manage their brands.
Another issue making techno-brands such as critical is the realty of long
term existence of brands whenever compared to the product life cycles.
Thus, instead of the term "branding", "brand building" has been started to
be used, which is more than naming; it is being realized under a strategy.
Moreover, in techno-branding, technology management must be
synchronized with branding strategy.

 Perception of the consumers is one of the essential issues that should be

considered in branding. Therefore, analysis of the customer perception
should be studied.
The brand should define the producer uniquely and should distinguish it
from others. Consistency of the message created must be constructed
upon the base of producer's long-term assets. As it can be concluded from
the case study, especially the national brands' message focusing on being
a global brand is going ahead from their competitors.

THANK YOU