7‘S’ Model of Business Branding

Abstract

Branding is extremely vital in the B2B marketing, where businesses have to differentiate themselves from the competitors, not only on the basis of their product but also on aspects such as management competencies, technologies, services and infrastructure. Branding of businesses is equally important as in consumer products though the number of customers may be much less. Industrial product firms have to target not only the buyers but also the users, deciders and influencers in the buying organizations. Each of the buying unit member involved in industrial buying may be having different perception about the product, service or the suppliers. The marketers are therefore required to package, position and promote their offerings to satisfy each of them. Earlier, industrial marketer usually considered branding as expensive and irrelevant because selling was mostly to the businesses, which were located within a small geographical area or industry. However sourcing and manufacturing activities are these days carried out across the world and immense business opportunities exist for the B2B firms. With growing global competition, expanding markets and technological advancements, consumers have become more informative these days. Industrial product marketers, whether large or small therefore need to formulate their branding strategies effectively in order to compete with the global competitors. The present paper shall briefly discuss the branding strategies of few Indian and foreign firms. It shall also investigate the issues involved in the branding of B2B organizations. Paper shall finally conclude by proposing the strategies and a model for business branding in the contemporary global environment. Paper is based on secondary information sources from print as well as electronic medium.

Keywords: Branding, B2B, Global, Strategies, industrial product, marketer