Building distinctive brands has never been this difficult or resource consuming. The bar has risen and customers are exposed to ever increasing numbers of touch-points. New thinking has emerged about branding and there is a movement toward corporate branding rather than product line branding as more and more people believe a sustainable competitive advantage is that of an appropriate brand-driven organizational culture reflecting the aggregate values of managers and employees. Historically, a company’s marketing department could create the brand strategy in isolation with other departments. In today’s environment, brand strategy can no longer be created and managed solely by marketing and brand managers and the whole organization must collaborate from strategy development to execution. Go-it-alone brand efforts will most likely fail. We must take a fundamentally new approach to brand building in order to close this gap. We must not wait for CRM technologies to fulfill the promise. What is required is an integrated cross-functional approach to brand strategy development that fuses deep customer insights and segmentation, evolving business economics and service capability. Companies must direct their resources to these efforts to win in these hyper-competitive markets.

Ashton Brand Group BGDI Strategic Brand Solutions Futurebrand Interbrand Prophet In a world oversupplied by brand gurus, Idris manages the difficult (and rare) trick of combining genuine strategic insight with practical advice on how to improve your brand performance. His global credentials are based on his very extensive contact with a wide range of international markets, and an expert's understanding of how to win in a hyper-competitive environment. - John Alexander CEO DBS Ventures Partners