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Positioning - What SMEs can learn from Big Brands -12 Zodiac Archetypes

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Looking out into the world today, it's easy to see why brands are more important now than at any time in the past 100 years. Brands are psychology and science brought together as a promise mark as opposed to a trademark. Products have life cycles. Brands outlive products. Brands convey a uniform quality, credibility and experience. Brands are valuable and needs to be built. SME's in India are the back bone of the fast expanding economy. Scores of these companies are collectively emerging as an engine of growth. Many of these SME companies provide great investment and employment opportunities. However, most of them seem to be unknown and what they need to proactively do to put themselves on a higher pedestal is to strongly focus on brand building, marketing & communication and------Innovation. In a fast changing world its not enough to be good at manufacturing, operations and sales alone. We need to be equally good at innovating and problem solving. In a highly competit

Is your SME Business IPO ready?

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There are significant benefits to becoming a listed company, including access to public market capital to fund growth, research and development, new product introductions, and acquisition opportunities. An initial public offering (IPO) can also have a significant impact on your company’s brand and ability to compete in the marketplace. However, ensuring you are actually ready to operate as public company is critical before making the leap. With regards to main board IPO the conventional wisdom says that growth companies get ready to go public when they reach a certain revenue threshold in annualized sales and has at least few years and quarters of profitability under their belts. This theory is based on the idea that a company must be large enough to both: (a) withstand competitive pressures and (b) earn a large enough market value to enable the company to sell enough stock to institutional buyers in its IPO, without suffering massive dilution in the process.   However, wi

Why and How PR deals with Corporate Reputation, Image, Positioning and Identity.?

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Every organization in today’s IT led world is witnessing unforeseen levels of competition for clients, customers, capital, talent, resources and space in media for message communication & coverage. Combine it with various challenges and uncertainty in business and economic environment, it’s not easy for your organization to maintain desired level of goodwill, reputation and growth.    To prevail these situations reputation becomes one of your most crucial assets and a critical factor for success. Your organization can actively plan and build a good reputation through Public Relations and effective Message Communication. Public Relations is about reputation — the result of what you do; what you say and what others say about you. Public Relations is the discipline which looks after reputation with the aim of earning understanding, support and influencing opinion and behavior. Drivers of Good Reputation. Business wisdom says that businesses can be built overnight, but re

Why you should start your PR today to become Distinct Corporate Brand?

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Bill Gates was once quoted famously saying “If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on Public Relations ” If the richest man on Earth values PR so much, why many of us still take a myopic view of the discipline that has been part of human evolution journey. PR is all about relationships and without it human evolution would have not been possible. We have often come across public relations function treated as an insignificant cousin of marketing or corporate strategy. We are often the first consultants on the chopping block when a share price takes a nose dive and cash flow is under the microscope. However, the good thing is this reality is slowly and steadily changing. There are scores of company directors today who take opposing view and understand that when the going gets tough – that is the time you need PR the most. It is the time you need solidarity, support and solution to deal with adverse situation.  You see when it comes to PR – it’s all about laying the gro

How PR helps SMEs add value to their business and reputation?

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I ndia is country of 1.4 million small and medium enterprise (SME) businesses. As of now there are over 300 companies listed on the SME platform of Bombay Stock Exchange and National Stock Exchange and several hundred companies are expected to list in the near future. I happen to interact with the top management of many SME companies and majority of them were confused about the value PR can bring to their businesses and reputation.   Although most big companies today understand public relations is important, but for SMEs PR is still an obscure concept. The question SMEs often ask is how will PR help me take my business to the next level? The simple answer is when it comes to modern organisations business plans, public relations (PR) represent an important tool in the marketing mix, actively and continuously differentiating brands from the competition and speaking directly to audiences. Here are just a few reasons why PR is a must-have for every SME communication strategy:

Integrated Marketing Communication (IMC) takes you beyond basic communications tools.

Integrated Marketing Communications is a simple concept. It ensures that all forms of communications and messages are carefully linked together. At its most basic level, Integrated Marketing Communications, or IMC, as we'll call it, means integrating all the promotional tools, so that they work together in harmony. Promotion is one of the Ps in the marketing mix. Promotions has its own mix of communications tools. All of these communications tools work better if they work together in harmony rather than in isolation. Their sum is greater than their parts - providing they speak consistently with one voice all the time, every time. This is enhanced when integration goes beyond just the basic communications tools. There are other levels of integration such as Horizontal, Vertical, Internal, External and Data integration. Here is how they help to strengthen Integrated Communications. Horizontal Integration occurs across the marketing mix and acros