An Outside-In View

Recently, I was speaking with a colleague who owns a strategic marketing/design firm. He shared with me some of the work he has done with privately held businesses to rebrand their organizations.

There are many reasons why businesses would look to do this. As they evolve and grow, they may find themselves offering a different set of products and services to their customers. Indeed, they may be serving different customers than they have in the past. They may acquire another business in their vertical and wish to reflect this in their brand. Maybe they were affiliated with another group and have broken away and are now going out on their own. In one case, a business developed some proprietary technology platforms which were so valuable, they decided to create a separate, branded business unit. While there are many reasons to rebrand one thing remains constant. There is more to this than a new name and logo. A lot more.

I asked him about the unique process he uses to accomplish a comprehensive rebranding assignment. I was not surprised to learn he begins by asking a lot of questions. I would not have guessed where those questions were directed.

He starts of course with the senior leadership team. He moves from there to five “stakeholder groups”:  employees, customers, suppliers, owners/investors and members of the broader community. These five groups are familiar to me as I work with businesses to establish a “stakeholder scorecard.” As I thought about it, it began to make perfect sense.

In developing a business strategy and related plan, beginning with a SWOT analysis (I prefer COS, Concerns, Opportunities and Strengths) we survey the senior team to populate these categories. The real fun starts when we ask the team to do this again, only this time, as they think members of each stakeholder group would. In other words, if our employees, customers, suppliers, investors and the broader community were to name our strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (or COS), what would they say? How would their lists align with and/or differ from ours? Then we add one more group: how do we believe our competitors would rate us in each of these categories?

Successful rebranding is no small task. Done right, it requires helpful guidance from a trusted, experienced source. The same can be said for strategy and planning. And in both cases, “outside in” thinking is an essential element not to be overlooked.

For more information on ways to better organize your strategy and planning, contact me at joe@ajstrategy.com.

The preceding content was provided by a contributor unaffiliated with Printing Impressions. The views expressed within may not directly reflect the thoughts or opinions of the staff of Printing Impressions.