Domain Corporate Communications

Name of the Case: Building an organisation into a brand

Sponsor:

Introduction:
Many brands are defined and positioned on the basis of the organisation they come
from - Who makes it? eg. Virgin - all Virgin brands be it Atlantic, Galactic,
Mobile, Records, Holidays have an element of irreverence in their personality
which comes from the irreverence that is the cornerstone of the Virgin corporate
positioning. In order to build an organisation into a brand, strategists need to
consider the people, culture, values, and programmes of an organisation rather
than properties of any product.
Background:
The renowned management guru - David Aaker - believes that to build an organisation
into a brand one needs to consider organisational attributes like reputation for
innovation, commitment to technology, customer focus, trustworthiness, concern
for the environment and society.

There are organisations across the world which have been built into formidable
brands over the years. Organisational attributes are typically more stable than
product attributes, and harder for competitors to recreate. Therefore, if we can
build an organisation into a strong brand, its offerings are immediately
differentiated from competition. In a world where product differentiation is
becoming increasingly harder to achieve and sustain, differentiating at an
organisation level might hold the key to building strong product brands in the
future. The perception of the parent company has the potential to influence
consumer choice in favour of the product brand.
Problem Statement/Challenges Faced
To build an organisation into a brand, there is a set of inputs and a set of
outputs.
Inputs include but are not limited to the company’s Vision, Mission, Ambition,
Values, Ethics, Focus on customers, innovation, sustainability. Output includes
but is not limited to the tonality of messaging, choice of channels to disseminate
the message, platforms created to engage with stakeholder audiences,

The ask is to share a strategy to build Tata Steel into a strong organisation
brand. In order to arrive at the strategy, we’ll expect you to go through the
steps below:
1. scan the best practices of organisations which have helped build them into
strong brands - you will need to consider both legacy and new age companies
2. arrive at Tata Steel’s reason for being - the Brand Motivation. It’s why Tata
Steel, and the people behind it, does what it does. This is Tata Steel’s
commitment, its intentions, its passions. And it goes to the heart of why the
brand exists in the first place.
3. propose the Road Map to amplify the Brand Motivation among internal & external
audiences and, thereby, build Tata Steel into a strong organisation brand
among the various stakeholders [students, Tata Steel & Tata group employees,
potential employees, channel partners, institutional customers, vendors,
general public, the media, financial institutions & investors, NGOs, the Govt.]
- define the task by stakeholder, the channel(s) through which the task will
be addressed, the KPIs that will define success and the Focus areas/Talking
points/Engagement ideas for each task x channel
Critical Case Questions:

What are the best practices being adopted by legacy and new age companies that
are strong brands today? There is no format to be followed. Participants may
create a format of their own to present their secondary research.

What is Tata Steel’s Brand Motivation? The format to be followed is given

below:

Their needs, desires,

passions & ambitions

What is the proposed Road Map to best amplify the Brand Motivation and grow Tata
Steel into a formidable brand? The format to be followed is as follows:

 What are the specific tasks?

 Who is the audience i.e. stakeholder?

 In which channels will the task be addressed?

 What KPIs will define success?

 Focus areas Or Talking points or Engagement ideas