We've uncovered a tight correlation between manufacturer and industrial player brand strength and the resulting revenue, margin and operating profit performance of a company (r-squared = 0.648 on a recent client assessment). And our peers at McKinsey, Deloitte and others have found similar correlations with financial performance in B2B segments, including direct links to EPS, a metric near-and-dear to the Boardroom. Our colleagues at B2B players should take a step back and think about whether their brand management activities simply consist of an amalgam of Marketing / PR efforts or whether they truly possess a coherent brand strategy...
For industrial technology manufacturers, it isn’t just about making physical products anymore. In most of the industrial manufacturing segments we’ve worked in, business as usual means assured obsolescence as low-cost new entrants that were previously an afterthought catch up in quality and legacy players innovate in an attempt to maintain differentiation and justify their price premium. While the headwinds are significant, there are three trends we see as transformative in 2016 and through the foreseeable future...
The best-in-class (only a small group of companies) conduct deep, forward-looking analysis of market dynamics (customer needs, competitor strategies, channel shifts, etc.) as a means to forecast where the market is headed over the mid- to long-term. They then set their multi-year strategies in order to catch the market at that identified future-state. Those are the companies that emerge as market leaders within an industry; they are seen as setting the tone and direction of a sector and are the ones that gain share and power...
