NASSCOM EMERGE Community Catalyst for Growth of Emerging & Start-Up companies

Branding for SME is very important as it helps to differentiate its services and makes the organization stand out in the crowd. It goes a long way to create a positive image and perception in the eyes of the customer. My organization,Avasant, which was ranked as the No:1 BPO advisory firm by Black Book Of Outsourcing specializes in creating "Go To Market" strategies for SME in IT/ITESW sector. We have worked with quite a few Chinese companies who are agressively trying to create a beach head in the western market.

Brand has no direct linkage with scale . In fact Brand helps you in creating scale. All leading brands were created when the organization it represents was small, but had visionary leadership.

I endorse Pradeep's viewpoint.

Branding for the SME is extremely crucial. A SME stuck at certain revenue levels to scale up, would have to cautiously work upon targeting and segmentation, and then build its brand around the data and facts collected from the market research!

A small example being Nasscom, in this case, emerging companies to work for, listed with Nasscom, today are using the platform to their brand advantage:)

Putting their innovations at the forefront, branding helps the SME to connect with the future clients. Being a Consultant into Innovative Solutions for Emerging Businesses, with a global team of experts, backing me, my view of branding for the SME is completely different from what would deem right for a large conglomerate.

2. Scale - (to keep it short and simple) Well, branding helps you to scale up!

Brand value is always associated with scalable & successful EXPERIENCE maximized by little bit of hype. Emerging companies may not have high brand value but they are (or should be) in the process of building one.

For startups & Emerging companies - EXECUTION is the Brand! 

Good execution consistently delivered leads to "Popular" Brand. Otherwise, we can say "execution is a process of building a brand (branding)". Only when the good experience and feelings go into the minds of many, the brand become popular or more valuable - that's what matters to succeed and grow. Good experience and feelings is not attributed "only" to the product. Sometimes, branding is emotional tricks!

Execution is important factor for Branding. But it is not the sole driver. Brand means a lot to how you are perceived in the environment- by clients,suppliers,employees, general public at large. Each is important in one way or the other..

For example , if brand is strong, and there is a perceived status in being associated with a brand, one experiences lower attrition. Even family members pressurise the employee to continue association with the brand. Strong brand attracts best of talent into organization sometime at  lower cost.. 

Branding has a lot to do with market focus and market positioning. The message that the organization delivers in the market. Obviously the message has to be supported by strong delivery capabilities. Innovative and Visionary leadership is very important. They form the face of the organization. In the initial years, for an emerging company, its brand cannot be differentiated from the image/branding of its thought leadership. Narayan Murthy set tone for Infosys, Soota & Bagchi for Mindtree,Raman Roy for Spectramind.... 

Lastly brand has to be tested in client market/geography...It is not enough to have a good brand India, whereas all your clients are based in US.....

Pradeep,

I meant for emerging companies - EXECUTION is the first brand that one needs to depend the most. From there the conventional brand building still needs to follow as you scale, no second thoughts about it! In fact, I feel that scale, as in adding more customers, is a function of EXECUTION for emerging companies.

Thanks,
Suresh

I love the burgers in Burger King when I was a non-vegetarian. But I can't win when my two sons decided to negotiate with us and take us to McDonals where they get free toys with a costly burger. Now when I visit Singapore, I "desperately" look for McDonals to plug my Laptop to the WiFi there and I take orange juice while working there.

Now am a pure-vegetarian and am happy with Indian bun with a cutlet combination. Poor Indian restaurants doesn't have the strategic thinking, execution capability, fund and most importantly the patience to create a brand for their delicious burgers. Good to see some improvements now.

Kumbakonam degree coffee is great for our taste buds but where are we when compared to starbucks where (in Singapore) I spent more than 300 hours to capture and discuss our business ideas in 2000 and 2001. Many times I have spent more than six hours continuously there. How do you explain to a coffee shop with great coffee to think and execute like starbucks, make customers to "perceive" it as a meeting place and to become popular across the globe.

Perception: In other way, we can call it emotions or lack of it.

Branding simply means "Commitment to Excellence" in whatever we do , whatever deliver. Service is always have expereinced unlike producst which customers can use it. In services companies , the first branding that everone need to create "Commitment to Excellence". This philosophy must be perculated across the organization. This covers all aspects of service delivery.

IMHO, a "brand" is largely perception, like Lakshman says. That perception can be of many things - for example, of a company that executes well, as Suresh points out. So the "brand" triggers a few easily-remembered "brand values" that prospects associate with it. I have to admit, though, that I have rarely seen "execution" as such a brand-value. Comfort, stability, etc. are typically what brands "speak" about. These are largely emotional, so it is not surprising that we SMEs find it hard to identifity with them. I believe, though, that SMEs intrinsically have brand-values that we can leverage - innovation of service/product, speed of response, willingness to be different, flexibility, etc. Prospects that consider buying from SMEs automatically expect to see these things. Most of us walk away from those values, though, in trying to fight more entrenched competition. Maybe it'd be better to stand true and say, up front, that we're different because <whatever we want to say>! And that automatically goes to building the SME's brand.

Related article on Branding from the Expert - http://www.sun.com/solutions/smb/guest.jsp?blog=brandpersonality. But nothing specific to SME.

Link for your reading: http://www.forbes.com/2009/05/15/marketing-google-twitter-entrepreneurs-sales-marketing-lewis.html

Great topic! Guess I'm late into this discussion, and many pertinent views have been shared on this subject although some thoughts on brand and branding are if I can say so, a bit mixed up. Brand and branding are two different things.

Brand is how the customer knows you (name) and what the customer thinks of you/ your business (values).

Branding on the other hand, is the 'process' of influencing that thinking - through the use of visual identity (logo, colours, imagery, typography), communications (ads, PR, blogs, websites, brochures, sales people, online forums) and behaviour (quality of relationships with society, customers, business partners, employees, government/ law). So branding isn't about visual presence and colourful ads. alone. Yes big ad campiagns can create the perception of big brand but 'behaviour' actually shows up the real size of the brand.

So to put it simply, 'brand' is perception and 'branding' is the process of creating, nurturing, maintaining and growing that perception.

As Dr. Mukherjee says branding 'suggests', 'promises' or 'proposes' differentiation or unique value. The company's behaviour - how it upholds and strengthens that promise through its day-to-day interactions then 'validates' and 'strengthens' that differentiation. Ex: ICICI Bank promises 'hum hain na' but when you deal with the bank (especially its call centre) you realize what a right royal mess it is...lots of brand 'activity' but failed branding! On the other hand, JustDial promises instant information and it surely does!

If one took the above perspective of branding, scale and size is irrelevant.

Any business, any size that is serious about staying in business and growing must engage in branding. SME, MSME, MNC, Goverment agency, the neighborhood restuarant - all need branding. For emerging businesses and SMEs especially those in the b2b domain, branding is core to the design of a successful business. And no it isn't about big budget visibility campaigns.

Lets remember that Google, Microsoft and the legions of big brands we know all started small (were SMEs). They all had one thing in common though: an uncommon point of view, a differentiation which they nurtured through their behaviour - reinforcing their promise of innovation, convenience, 'cool', different - over time.

So is branding for SMEs? YES!

Is brand linked to scale? YES! It's what paves the path for scale.