Regenerate!

Amazingly, many start ups are asking for branding & design services. The big companies seem to be secure in the knowledge that they have big brands. But leaders of start ups are very careful and are willing to invest in branding.

Learning Leadership has coaching program for business owners. This executive coaching program covers preparation for branding & communications.

Yesterday I met a bright young man. He is remarkable in many ways. An NID (National Institute of Design) alumnus,  he runs a small outfit for conducting research in customer experiences. He has as his mentor (sort of) a senior business leader. This mentor of his had asked him to get in touch with me regarding some business idea that he had. ” Meet Hemant, he has done some very intersting work in user interfaces design ..”, his mentor had told him.

The young man said that he was approached by a reputed and well established company (not in customer research space) for setting up their customer research group. “should I take this up?”, he asked me.

Before this, he had told me his story. He wanted to be an artist, but his parents ‘pushed’ him into NID. As if that can be done! Any ways, once out of NID, he discovered that ‘design’ is subjective and clients put up only that much money as much they can without worrying about returns. He found that while many design firms talk about ‘researching customers’ mostly the design that they like are back fitted into the ‘research’.

He said that clients treat research as real and are willing to pay for it if done properly. That is the reason he focused on research.

Now about his proposal. I told him, ’since you believe in research and clients pay for it, the proposal should be pursued. ‘However, ‘ I cautioned him, ‘It will be good idea to decide what all you will not do and that can include design itself…. Also please find out whether the company is serious about it and that it is not just someone’s whim.’

He nodded.

You would have noticed many remarkable things about this young man. Remarkable indeed.

Think of the company which approached him. Isn’t the company also remarkable?

That is the point.  People like this young man and the company which approached him embody the changes.

“We are the best brand in this vertical for delivery of enterprise  computing and we have a global delivery model -this is what our VP told the that big prospective client. I was required to attend our presentation” Mitchell said sounding unhappy.  John nodded as he pressed the cappuccino button for her.

“Do you know what is so special about our brand?”

John looked bank. He said,” Mitchell, this is a typical elevator pitch”

“Is the elevator pitch valid only for the duration of the transit? I constantly get clients’ reminders for pending work and for fixing errors. It is very frustrating. I do not know what a brand means and I no longer wish to know”

It is just as well that the coffee machine capers are not heard in the elevators. For the VP has perhaps no clue to what a brand really stands for. His brand is the market leader so it has to be the best as far as he is concerned.

There are not many companies who can afford to be smug about their market leadership. There are none.

It takes a while to think and act on what a brand really means and how to get there.

Branding is what your customers think about you  and what they think about your market offerings in simple words (great \ so so \ mediocre \ very reliable  and  meticulous \etc). It is obvious that, what customers think flows directly from your offerings and their delivery processes and other customer touching processes.

If these processes are not lead by effective leaders and are not geared to fulfil your promises to customers, your brand value will start slipping and your people will not stand behind your brand.

Coffee machine capers are more potent than elevator pitches. Pay heed.

Learning Leadership offers e-learning and e-coaching services that help in dealing with above issues. Its Regenerative Leadership  model covers business process improvement competencies. On-site or face-to-face engagements are also available in the US and in India.

Leadership is not just about vision, values, and communication. Important though these are,  great leaders do much more -create brands, create great products, and achieve process breakthroughs. Here is an example. The Tata Swach. Design Directions, our associates, provided industrial design to Tata Chemicals for Swatch -water purifier based on nano technology and rice husk.

I work with Design Directions on several projects involving branding, user interface design, industrial design, and product design.  You get a lot with us… Leadership Learning, process breakthroughs, product, UI, and communication design!

Read on for more details….

First the disclosures: I am not an Apple user \ fan. But I admire ‘design’ aspects of the products.
Apple’s success is design led (with spend in tech to back that). Much has been written about this. To many it appears that Apple does not mind limitation on its market share (due to price levels and \ or proprietary nature) since it gets better margins.
Coming to its strategy I see following factors
1. Limited market share (premium - exclusive positioning) is great for branding and can be a valid strategy if you have ability to unleash product after product that users love.
2. This ability is by no means a given thing even if Steve Jobs is around.
3. Windows or MS is not a great factor -they might sink under the weight of their success.
4. Google docs \ Android or Linux may change landscape once again.
5. If Apple’s product creation waves peter out, it is in a dangerous game of having to fund your ‘attitude’
6. Who knows tide may turn against the current absurd patent regime (read a fortnightly in BS) due to shift of center of Gravity from western civilizations.
7.In any case today there are many non-Apple touch screen based devices and Apple’s uniqueness will wear off unless it keeps come up with something new.
8. It may be the sign of times that Apple had to open of API for Iphone to encourage third party applications. But according to some mobile application developers, it is a pain to deal with Apple.

That’s the way things appear to be at this time. What do you say?

Read my full article at ezinearticle.com

Leadership and branding are hot topics. Leadership development programs are quite popular. There are many conferences and seminars on the subject of branding. Leadership development and brand development consume a lot of resources of businesses.

Leadership means different things to different people. It means ability to inspire. Leadership is charisma, courage, and even sacrifice. Leadership requires vision. Leadership is talked about in rarefied atmosphere of CEO conferences, business schools, HR meets, and strategy meets. There seems to be an unstated and unanimous agreement that leadership is too important, too-sweeping-in-its-scope, too-good-to-be-described, and therefore too-complex-to-be-systematically-deployed concept. Everyone is convinced that such indescribable leadership must be good for any organization.

Branding too captures imagination of people. For some CEO s it is a reverential bowing item to be ticked off the agenda. For CFO s it is a black hole of cash. Sales people think it is a watering hole for unsuccessful ex-salesmen. For M & A specialists it is a valuation game. It is a playground of creativity for advertising agencies. It is PR first for PR agencies. For many, branding means eye catching, entertaining, beautiful visual and audio communications or smart copy. Everyone knows branding and everyone has definite opinions about it.

Is there then any connection between leadership and branding? Leaders are responsible for branding. But they are also responsible for many other things. Are there any fundamental linkages?

Read my full article at ezinearticle.com

My experience (founding a b2b company, establishing its brand, consulting to b2b companies including a packaging machinery company) shows that branding helps b2b companies in getting price and / or purchase preference.
-Looking from purchaser’s point of view branding helps in short-listing probable vendors -branding symbolizes some significant aspect (technology, service etc) of a usually complex offering -branding activities can go beyond the scope of market offerings and deliver some unpaid (usually) but significant benefits to purchasers like simplifying search and evaluation -branding can make it safe (less risky) to purchase complex equipment (no body got fired for deciding on IBM!)
Download my articles on b2b branding from our web site.

Hemant

On an off-beat note today…..

I found this about the WORD creator Charles. Innovation is a timid word…..

PC Worlds Techlog Microsoft Word Creator in Spaaaaaaaaace
I am finding myself oddly fascinated by the news that Charles Simonyi, the former Microsoft software architect and current billionaire, is now the fifth civilian ever to be rocketed into space. Hes on his way to the International Space Station onboard a Soyuz spacecraft that took off from Kazakhstan on Saturday.

And don’t forget to visit Charles in Space
What a delightful site!

Hemant

I came across this:

So let me tell you why. Designers suck because they are arrogant. The blogs and websites are full of designers shouting how awful it is that now, thanks to Macs, Web 2.0, even YouTube, EVERYONE is a designer. Core 77 recently ran an article on this backlash and so did we on our Innovation & Design site. Designers are saying that Design is everywhere, done by everyone. So Design is debased, eroded, insulted. The subtext, of course, is that Real design can only be done by great star designers.”

Full text at
Marketing & Strategy Innovation Blog: Designers Are The Enemy of Design

Now my experience is different. I work with Design Directions, Pune for brand & communications strategy. I do not find arrogance at all. I find openness and willingness to learn there.

But yes, I have come across designer gatherings where they have tended to be verbose (strange!) without getting anywhere.

But the blog makes more relevant point about need for design process to be democratic ( I prefer broad based).

Hemant

Innovation is strategic for India Inc.! That’s what this survey says. Read this

Far ahead of other developing and developed economies of the world, India Inc is assigning strategic priority to innovation. Around 91 per cent of the Senior Executives put innovation among the top 3 strategic priorities,” a joint India Innovation Survey by CII and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) revealed. more at
Innovation: Key for India Inc

Now what does that mean? They must have a comprehensive suite of processes to succeed with innovation. How should that suite look like?

Hemant