LEVI’S STARTED OFF MAKING JEANS FOR the gold prospectors during the Gold Rush back in 1853. Today it’s a global company with manufacturing in many lower cost countries and the brand is ever so popular the world over—including the U.S. and Europe. Like any successful business, Levi’s continues to innovate. Their manufacturing process has gone through the entire gamut of “onsite, offsite and offshore.” What has made Levi’s a successful company for over 150 years? What was that again? Did you say branding?

Several Taiwanese companies in past decades chose to just focus on manufacturing— without investing in building a brand name. They became the manufacturing arm for major U.S. and European companies in clothing, consumer electronics and computer peripherals. But the brand name companies can easily replace the Taiwanese manufacturing sources with even cheaper sources in Malaysia and elsewhere.

Many of the now well-known Japanese and South Korean companies did not follow the same path as their Taiwanese counterparts. They created their own strong and enduring brands—SONY, Panasonic, Toyota, GoldStar and Samsung to name a few. One thing we learn here is that brands endure—while manufacturing cost advantage alone will not stand the test of time.

In the late 1990s, with the “technology boom” or the “Silicon Valley Gold Rush” many companies emerged which helped brand name U.S. and European companies to subcontract their “manufacturing of processes, products and services.” Today the terms “onsite, offsite, offshore” can be heard in several areas—in Information Technology, Human Resource Management, Legal and patenting processes to name a few. The pool of low-cost, English speaking, educated “people talent” in India was instrumental in spawning this outsourcing business.

However these outsourcing contracts are “mobile” —as demand picks up for the Indian talent pool, supply will shrink over time and prices (labor costs) would eventually rise—leading to the migration of those contracts to another country with even lower costs. Some of the former Soviet /Eastern block countries also possess a huge talent pool. When China’s next generation of engineers comes into the work force—with state mandated compulsory education in English—it will become an even more formidable competitor. With China’s recently successful “man in space” project—and being only the 3rd country in the world to achieve this distinction—it has already set the stage to be perceived as among the world’s top technology leaders. In comparison, India has maintained a strongly independent technology policy, shown solid consistent achievements in many diverse fields and with a strong democratic and liberalized industrial policy is also well on it’s way to build on it’s innovative track record.

However, there are a few “branding” lessons to be learnt for “India Inc.”, for Indian companies—and specifically the Indian professionals the world over—who have achieved significant successes in a few short decades. In the world of Outsourcing, the challenge for Indian companies is to create a proper long term “Indian” Brand image—and set the course of a longer term “enduring” strategy—beyond the current essentially “cost-savings outsourcing” positioning that most Indian companies operate in. Otherwise, as the cost issue favors another region of the world, companies perceived to have only a “cost saving” brand image will falter.

Let’s examine what “Branding” really is, and what branding strategies a typical Indian company might pursue longer term: A textbook definition is “A Brand is a name, term, sign, symbol or design, or a combination of them, intended to identify the goods or services of one seller or group of sellers and to differentiate them from those of their competitors”.

What this translates in practice really is this: if we asked our customers what does ABC Inc. mean to them, the answers typically will bring out their collective impressions and experiences dealing with ABC. It will also bring out their biases, what they liked or disliked, and surprisingly if ABC Inc., has created a consistent message about itself over time that too would be expressed by the customer. Many times if that “message” about the company is close to the reality of the customers’ experience with ABC staff on projects (for an outsourcing company), it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

So what does a company achieve by developing a “Brand name”? Should companies create a “brand” name for themselves? The brand is essentially a seller’s promise to consistently deliver a specific set of features, benefits and services to the buyers. The best brands convey a warranty of quality. Having a consistent brand “promise” guides the internal company folks to “live by” that promise in dealing with their customers—and over time the consistent message conveys a certain sense of competence, trust, confidence or warranty of product or service from that seller.

Brand Advantages
Specifically there are five main advantages of branding
• A Brand name provides legal protection of “intellectual property”, unique product features or processes, which otherwise might be easily copied by competitors.
• Branding helps attract a loyal and profitable set of customers. Brand loyalty gives sellers some protection from competition and greater control in planning their marketing programs.
• Branding helps seller segment the marketplace, based on which “benefits” a particular customer segment desires.
• Good brands help build corporate image and advertise the quality and size more easily to potential customers
• Brand names make it easier for buyers to track down problems, process orders or identify competence in specific processes or products for future use.
Analyzing this further, a Brand is a complex composite symbol of various “meanings” to the customer. Typically a brand can convey up to six “levels of meaning” to a customer:
• Attributes: A brand brings to mind certain “attributes” to the customer’s mind. The fact that a seller is “less expensive” alone will not bode well for an outsourcing company long term.
• Benefits: Beyond a set of attributes, a customer is buying benefits: what you can do for them that others can’t.
• Values: A brand also says something about the producers’ values. Just as a brand like Mercedes Benz stands for prestige, high performance, safety, reliability etc. The brand marketer has to figure out the specific groups of buyers seeking that benefit.
• Culture: The brand may represent a certain culture. Again, Mercedes Benz represents a German culture—efficient, organized, high quality. This begs the question: what is a typical “Indian” image?
• Personality: If the brand were a person, animal or object—what would come to mind? Again, Mercedes Benz might convey a no-nonsense boss or a reigning lion. It might evoke the personality of an actual well-known person or spokesman.
• User: The brand suggests the kind of consumer who buys or uses the product. The users would be typically those who respect the values, culture and personality of the product.

One great example of a global brand is General Electric. Having consistently created the “We bring good things to life” message, and showing how that translates into diverse meanings for different range of products, peoples and groups GE has created a consistent & likeable brand aura or message. Their website clearly outlines their corporate proposition & mission – under “What can GE do for you”:

“From jet engines to power generation, financial services to plastics, and medical imaging to news and information, GE people worldwide are dedicated to turning imaginative ideas into leading products and services that help solve some of the world’s toughest problems.”

This thoughtful, strategic, empathic positioning permits GE to venture into almost any business with a respected, wholesome and friendly image. Let’s consider for a moment the scenario that GE has set up its own outsourcing facilities in India. It hires the engineers, MBAs and staff from the same talent pool in India. Given its numerous companies globally, the GE India operations could be it’s own captive customer. Also consider this—after being the support organization for internal GE divisions—if it approached other companies to outsource their processes would GE be able to build a business in outsourcing? Of course, yes! One can clearly see why that is so. Clearly it can be a reality because we all intrinsically “believe” in the strength, competence, innovativeness…and a whole host of positive attributes about the GE brand!

Suppose for a moment GE was competing with another well-known Indian outsourcing company—who might win that contract? Between the two, whom would an American or European client trust more? I leave that to your imagination!

In order to create a long term sustaining advantage, many of our Indian companies might want to consider developing a clear branding strategy—in their client host countries. Like the famous man said, “Branding like Beauty is in the eye of the Beholder!”

Datta Nadkarni has 19 years of senior marketing experience managing global brands like Farmers Insurance, LensCrafters, Vision Express, Philips Electronics and Coca-Cola /Parle Beverages. At Farmers, Nadkarni was VP of E-Business & Alliances and developed digital transformation strategies and led a team of senior executives in exploring corporate ventures and alliances. He has an M.S. in Advertising from Northwestern University, an MBA from University of Cincinnati and MMS from University of Bombay (Bajaj). He is an Adjunct MBA faculty of Marketing at USF, UC Berkeley, St. Mary’s College, Golden Gate University and Stanford . He can be reached at nadkarnid@sbcglobal.net.