Executive summary and implications for managers and executives

Citation

(2007), "Executive summary and implications for managers and executives", Journal of Business & Industrial Marketing, Vol. 22 No. 6. https://doi.org/10.1108/jbim.2007.08022faf.001

Executive summary and implications for managers and executives

This summary has been provided to allow managers and executives a rapid appreciation of the content of the issue. Those with a particular interest in the topic may then read the issue in toto to take advantage of the more comprehensive description of the research undertaken and its results to get the full benefit of the material present.Branding is OK for business-to-consumer markets, but it’s wasted in business-to-business where buyers make their choices through objective decision-making processes which are totally rational and unemotional. Wrong!

In any case, a “brand” is simply a name and a logo on a product or service. Wrong!

And, even if we accept branding does have some relevance to B2B, it’s only a small subset of marketing management. Wrong!

Get the picture? Branding, being such an intangible concept, is often dangerously misunderstood. Evaluating and measuring brand and brand management success is difficult and controversial as it’s not always possible to attribute to them those hard facts and numbers that marketers prefer. But it is a concept organizations should ignore at their peril.

Hardly any company neglects the importance of brands in B2C. To do so in B2B could be a costly mistake. B2B branding and brand management will become increasingly important; the future of brands will be the future of business and probably the only major sustainable competitive advantage.

Watch for China leapfrogging into the world market with branding. For decades low-cost labour has given it a dominant place in world manufacturing, and now Chinese businesses are pursuing aggressive branding strategies involving internal growth or acquiring foreign brand icons and managing them. Both approaches could lead to world success.

Intel famously recognized the importance of B2B branding nearly 20 years ago when, because of the accelerating pace of technological change as well as constantly growing sales rates in the consumer market, the company decided to focus on end users. They realized that establishing a brand was the only way to stay ahead of competition.

Today, Intel is a leader in semiconductor manufacturing and technology, supported and powered by their strong brand, an almost unbeatable competitive advantage, due to the ingredient branding approach and the campaign: “Intel Inside”. An approach which will be important for the increasingly sophisticated customers. But why are so many other B2B companies not following good examples set by companies such as Intel, FedEx, Boeing, Microsoft and Siemens, which have some of the world’s strongest B2B brands?

In “Being known or being one of many: the need for brand management for business-to-business (B2B) companies”, Philip Kotler and Waldemar Pfoertsch say:

Companies that once measured their worth strictly in terms of tangibles such as factories, inventory, and cash have to revise their point of view and embrace brands as the valuable and moreover equally important assets they actually are (along with customers, patents, distribution, and human capital).

Companies can benefit tremendously from a vibrant brand and its implicit promise of quality since it can provide them with the power to command a premium price among customers and a premium stock price among investors. Not only can it boost your earnings and cushion cyclical downturns, it can even help you to become really special.

Brands serve exactly the same general purpose in B2B markets as they do in consumer markets: they facilitate the identification of products, services and businesses as well as differentiate them from the competition. They are an effective and compelling means to communicate the benefits and value a product or service can provide. They are a guarantee of quality, origin, and performance, thereby increasing the perceived value to the customer and reducing the risk and complexity involved in the buying decision.

Brands and brand management have spread far beyond the traditional view of consumer-goods marketers. Brands are increasingly important for companies in almost every industry. Why? For one thing, the explosion of choices in almost every area. Customers for everything from specialty steel to software now face an overwhelming number of potential suppliers. Too many to know them all, let alone to check them out thoroughly.

The array of choice is expanded further by the internet and, without trusted brands as touchstones, buyers would be overwhelmed by an overload of information no matter what they are looking for. But brands do not only offer orientation, they have various benefits and advantages for customers as well as the “brand parents”. They facilitate the access to new markets by acting as ambassadors in a global economy.

Another important aspect of B2B branding is that brands do not reach just your customers but all stakeholders – investors, employees, partners, suppliers, competitors, regulators, or members of your local community. Through a well-managed brand a company receives greater coverage and profile within the broker community.

Since a brand is reflected in everything the company does, a holistic branding approach requires a strategic perspective. This means that branding should always start at the top of your business. If your branding efforts are to be successful, it is not enough to assign a brand manager with a short-term job horizon within the company.

Building, championing, supporting and protecting strong brands is everyone’s job, starting with the CEO. Active participation of leaders is indispensable because they are the ones who ultimately will be driving the branding effort. Brands and brand equity need to be recognized as the strategic assets they really are, the basis of competitive advantage and long-term profitability. It is crucial to align brand and business strategy, something that can only effectively be done if the brand is monitored and championed closely by the top management of an organization.

To appoint a Vice President of Branding, someone who is responsible solely for brand management would be an important step. No matter what the actual title, this person should be the one person taking the required actions for keeping the brand in line.

Strong leaders demonstrate their foresight for the brand, make symbolic leadership gestures, and are prepared to involve their business in acts of world statesmanship that go beyond the short run, and therefore require the sort of total organizational commitment which only the CEO can lead.

No one can, however, guarantee that a business will realize immediate benefits after implementing an overall brand strategy. As branding needs a certain amount of investment, it is probable that there will be a decline in net profits in the short run. Branding is aimed at creating long-term, non-tangible assets, not for boosting short-term sales.

The common view that branding in consumer markets is based on emotional appeals, while logic and rationality provide that base in B2B markets, is also challenged by David Ballantyne and Robert Aitken in “Branding in B2B markets: insights from the service-dominant logic of marketing”, which says:

The idea that emotion as a social well-spring can be bracketed out of B2B marketing decisions seems extreme to us, especially when B2B marketing logic acknowledges the benefits of social relationships as a basis for generating trust and commitment with customers and other stakeholders.

Understanding the emotional and cognitive interplay that impacts on any brand image might be a matter of assessing the degrees of emotional relevance, rather than assuming that absolute rationality applies.

As it is possible to monitor and track brand image over time in terms of performance criteria, firms should test the validity of assumptions about the emotional appeal of brands in particular market contexts.

Exploring how the service-dominant (S-D) logic of marketing – in which goods essentially become services as customers judge the worth of the service they receive from those goods from “value in use”, Ballantyne and Aitken call for more rigour and clarity in the use of the term “brand”.

Under S-D logic not only does branding become a communicative interaction process, whereby firms attempt to support the intended meanings of their value propositions, brand value is confirmed or disconfirmed in use, at time of use, as customers confirm or disconfirm the value propositions in play.

While Kotler and Pfoertsch emphasize that brands cannot be built by merely creating some fancy advertising and that marketing promises must not be exaggerated, Ballantyne and Aitken note that customers will make their most important judgements of value received through direct service interactions with supplier firms and on service-ability of goods-in-use. Put another way, the time-logic of marketing exchange is open-ended, from pre-sale service interaction to post-sale value-in-use. This alone completely rearranges branding opportunities and possible impacts.

S-D logic further suggests that it is the service experiences of customers that most commonly impact on brand value, through brand awareness and brand memory. Indeed, given the potential longevity of brand preferences and brand memory derived from historical experience, the importance of the service-ability of goods becomes paramount in sustaining the life of a brand (in all meanings of the term).

All product experiences and service perceptions meld with brand associations over time, and this helps to consolidate the reputation of firms in both their internal (employee) and external (customer) markets. These dynamical changes also impact on the perceptions of the wider community of a firm’s stakeholders.

Consequently great customer service is a B2B firm’s principal branding opportunity. This comes in two forms: direct service interaction with a buyer company and indirect service interaction through goods-in-use. Media advertising should have a useful but support role in brand building in most B2B companies.

With S-D logic, the service experience of customers (direct or indirect) leads in varying degrees to positive or negative trust in the supplier firm and/or its goods and services. It follows that judgements of value-in-use and resultant word-of-mouth effects are the primary communicative sources of brand awareness and meaning. Notwithstanding, media advertising over the last 50 years has carried the weight of brand building, and still does today. This is the conventional branding logic, even to some extent for service.

However, B2B marketers should always explore the full range of branding opportunities from media messages to explanatory brochures and distinctive packaging through to communicative interaction in the form of trade fairs and other forms of dialogical interaction. That said, task capability seems to be uppermost in buyer consideration in many industrial markets rather more than developed product characteristics. That is to say, buyers make judgements about the future efficiencies, effectiveness, and networking competencies of various suppliers.

Traditionally, industrial markets have not shown much interest in developing brand communities of the consumer-based variety (like those of Harley-Davidson and Saab) even though the potential positive impact of encouraging web-based brand communities in industrial markets could be even greater than in consumer markets because business and professional users may have a more committed interest in exchanging product-related information with the supplier company and amongst themselves.

S-D logic offers opportunities to connect with customers in new ways, based on the specific use to which goods are put in a buyer’s value-creating processes. This could mean new dimensions of post-sale service and logistics service support.

The central S-D logic idea of goods as service applications means that tracking the service experience of customers over time and contributing additional service support is an open-ended opportunity. These ideas are not new in service industries but are less common in B2B contexts.

The relationship between a supplier and a customer or another stakeholder evolves around a mutual and reciprocal understanding of where value resides. Value is mutual when it has benefits for all involved and reciprocal when value is co-created. S-D logic lends itself to all forms of value creation through co-operation, such as through co-design, co-production, co-delivery and, in the context of this article, especially co-branding. The opportunity for a more integrated communication approach is thus broadened and deepened. This in turn supports the development of an enhanced brand image.

While deliberate and mutually-beneficial co-operation can lead to enhanced brand-awareness and positive responses from buyers – as in the Intel experience, dependence and reliance on partner firms have potentially critical managerial implications for a focal firm which has little control over its partners’ actions.

It is therefore important to have information about what factors can be controlled in moderating a relationship in which your organization’s reputation can be harmed. In “Branding implications of partner firm-focal firm relationships in business-to-business service networks”, Felicia Morgan, Dawn Deeter-Schmelz and Christopher R. Moberg say:

For consumers, the notion of network coheres around an “experience”. The primary question is whether the service network experience will cohere in a B2B context. Will the buying firm perceive the network as a whole and interpret the co-produced service as a single process representative of a single brand?Or will the industrial buying firm recognize outsourced processes as representative of separate brands? One can imagine a situation in which a retailer purchases a manufacturer’s product from a distributor and receives that product from a third-party transportation firm. Does the retail buyer interpret this purchase as an experience or as a series of separate activities provided by separate firms?

It is a question which has resonance with David Ballantyne’s and Robert Aitken’s explanation of the blurring of the differences between the experiences of buying goods and services. Morgan et al. say that, while a customer buying a computer from Dell will have interactions with third-party providers such as UPS and after-sales service people, in a B2B environment the process is more complex. The selling firm may work with multiple members of a buying centre rather than a single customer. Once a buyer and seller have entered into an arrangement, customer satisfaction largely depends on the service provided after the purchase or during the term of the contract.

Much of the B2B buyer’s evaluation will be related to logistics and customer service activities such as warehousing, order fulfilment, order tracking, delivering the right product at the right time, smooth installation, and accurate billing. Product support in the forms of general service, warranties, provision of spare parts, expert assistance, online assistance, and field service is also more critical in a B2B environment in which customers are dependent on suppliers to deliver the services needed to operate.

The increased complexity of this process highlights time as a potential difference between B2C and B2B, i.e. the total time for delivering a co-produced B2B service is likely to be longer than that for delivering a co-produced service in a consumer setting.

Drawing attention to moderating effects of partner firm-focal firm relationships, Morgan et al. say that, if partner firm performance influences customer evaluations of a focal firm in a B2B environment, as evidence suggests it does in B2C, then selling firms would be advised to consider partner firms carefully, keeping in mind that each brand touchpoint affects the focal brand. Firms with similar cultures that demonstrate a willingness to cooperate and coordinate activities to achieve network goals would be good candidates.

Practitioners should also recognize the important role customer contact personnel play in brand image and equity development, whether those contact personnel be from the focal firm or a partner firm. Practitioners representing the focal firm could, for example, share hiring criteria and training modules with partner firms as a means of ensuring more consistent service delivery.

The authors’ proposed model highlights the importance of a strong brand name, particularly if partner firms under-perform. Certainly a strong brand name can be crucial to organizational success, regardless of context. Still, the strength of the brand takes on greater importance when that brand could be affected by a partner firm. Industrial organizations participating in service networks are therefore advised to be aware of the brand image and the strength of that image, and to consider likely ramifications if a partner firm delivers poor service to a customer.

The focal firm also needs to be aware of the strength of the brand relationships with partner firms. If the focal firm has faith in the partner firm and customers perceive the link is weak, the focal firm might take steps to build that relationship. On the other hand, if the focal firm has less confidence in the partner firm, the focal firm may wish to keep the relationship weak and/or find a new partner firm.

Practitioners will also need a clear understanding of which services are perceived important by their customers – possibly an expectation of good service from an outsourced service call centre. By focusing on those service elements most important to customers, the focal firm will be in a better position to manage brand strength and brand image effectively.

With farmers having a reputation for being careful with their money (“How many farmers does it take to change a lightbulb? First you have to find a farmer who admits he can afford a spare lightbulb”) it might be reasonable to suppose that price, rather than brand name, would be the more important factor in buying a tractor.

But you could be wrong. In “The importance of brand in the industrial purchase decision: a case study of the UK tractor market”, Keith Walley, Paul Custance, Sam Taylor, Adam Lindgreen and Martin Hingley discovered that brand name was a purchasing factor significantly ahead of price, proximity of dealer and the quality of the dealer service.

A conclusion to draw is that manufacturers and distributors need to maintain a strong image – something they might help to pay for with the revenue from higher prices for the product.

Analyzing responses from UK farmers and farm contractors, all three of the authors’ hypotheses (brand name is not an important factor in the choice of tractors by UK farmers and contractors; UK tractor buyers are not brand loyal; and the major tractor brands available in the UK are perceived in a relatively similar way) were rejected.

It is quite likely, however, that the high importance rating given to “brand name” could be a result of “inertia” – farmers familiar with a brand, satisfied with the product’s performance, and consequently a decision to buy the same brand being seen as a safe option. Closely related to buying products on the basis of “inertia” is risk reduction, which is generally believed to be a key factor in industrial purchase decisions. Indeed, it is likely that the common practice in industrial markets of using the manufacturer or company name as the brand, with products being identified by sub-brand names or numerical designations, is intended to reassure prospective customers.

With regard to brand loyalty, with the exception of respondents who owned Massey-Ferguson models, the tractor owners awarded the highest utility scores to the brand that they owned, which suggests they are brand-loyal. The strong positive utility scores attached to the John Deere brand by all groups of respondents suggest that this is the “Rolls Royce” brand of the tractor market and provides support to the contention that in industrial markets there is often one brand that achieves a significant competitive advantage on the basis of branding.

The anomaly concerning Massey-Ferguson could be explained by a number of factors including reliability problems, negative publicity surrounding the closure of the AGCO manufacturing plant where they are made, and the fact that Massey-Ferguson tractors were market leaders in the 1990s means that there are still large numbers on farms despite farmers having bought other types of tractor more recently. As such, respondents to the survey might be classified as Massey-Ferguson owners even though they would have scored the brand bought more recently better than the Massey-Ferguson tractor.

Significantly, the two brands with the highest utility ratings from their owner groups (John Deere and Valtra) also achieved the highest re-buy scores in a 2001 survey, further supporting the contention that tractor buyers are brand loyal.

While for some customers price is the most important purchase factor, for most it is not, so manufacturers and distributors may be able to exploit this via higher prices, particularly given the wide range of prices charged for the various products.

Prior experience of a product through ownership can be critical when a product is being considered for purchase. Manufacturers and distributors are therefore advised to market their current offerings to existing customers and develop marketing strategies that will give potential new customers experience of their product offerings. One example of an experiential type marketing strategy is the on-farm demonstrations that some manufacturers and dealers already undertake.

While brand image, price, and brand loyalty play the key roles in many tractor purchase decisions manufacturers and distributors should note that dealers may act as important intervening factors. Both the location of the dealership and the quality of the service provided can enter into a customer’s purchase decision and serve as important influencing factors.

Lastly, while these results apply to the purchase of agricultural tractors, it would appear reasonable to assume that this case is reasonably representative of industrial markets in general and that the findings may be applied on a more general basis. As such, it would appear possible to conclude that branding can play an important role in industrial purchase decisions.

Supporting a view that what farmers think about when they buy a tractor holds true for other business-to-business transactions, in “Branding the business marketing offer: exploring brand attributes in business markets” Michael Beverland, Julie Napoli, and Raisa Yakimova confirm that, when brand equity is high, customers are often more prepared to pay a price premium for the product and are more likely to engage in favourable word-of-mouth communications regarding the firm and its brands.

They also dismiss the belief that, because industrial customers are thought to be more rational than end consumers, and demand greater customization, brand programmes are of little use to business marketers. On the contrary, such programmes are crucial for corporate performance as branded industrial products can provide firms with cash-flow benefits and increased network power, while enhancing corporate reputation and raising barriers to entry.

Such strategies can establish points-of-difference for industrial firms that help reflect the offer’s economic and functional features, including quality, reliability and performance, and salient intangible associations, such as expertise and trustworthiness including a reputation for “being world class”, “technical leadership”, and a “global presence”. Furthermore, strategies to build brand image and company reputation can enhance business customers’ perception of product and service quality and value, thereby increasing loyalty.

Almost 21 per cent of North American business marketers were focusing primarily on building brand awareness in 2006 – up from 17.5 per cent in 2005, yet insufficient consideration has been given to what attributes business marketers can use to build a strong brand identity.

Five pillars that underpin brand identity in industrial markets are product, service and logistics (three core components which are often imitable by competitors) and adaptation and advice, which are difficult to imitate and reflect the intangible capabilities of the firm.

For industrial brands, a strong identity can be established based around an individual element of the business market offer or, alternatively, built using any combination of the five components. The latter situation may provide a brand with a more flexible and adaptable positioning, which can readily be modified to meet the needs of different buyer segments.

Brand identity decisions should be made with consideration to the type of customer using the firm’s products and services, as well as the type of buying situation they face. As a customer’s level of involvement in a buying situation increases and the purchase decision becomes more complex, the basis on which brand identity is built shifts from the tangible, product-related benefits of the business marketing offer to the more intangible, abstract associations.

Consequently, industrial marketers need to track the evolution of their customers’ needs and purchase requirements over time and ensure that the prevailing brand identity reflects customer expectations.

The decision of whether to brand at the corporate or individual product level is closely intertwined with the selection of a suitable basis on which to establish brand identity. As brand identity becomes more abstract – that is, emphasis is placed on the intangible components of the business offer – it becomes necessary for managers to draw upon a host of products and services from within the firm to deliver upon the brand promise.

Rather than develop a separate identity for each of the individual brands offered by the firm, it may be more effective to establish these abstract associations at the corporate level and leverage them across to individual products within the portfolio. In doing so, a rich and robust brand identity can be created that helps reinforce a firm’s position as a “solutions provider”.

Future research may be directed toward understanding the antecedents to the development of a corporate versus individual product brand identity in an industrial business context, taking into consideration organizational, market, product, and customer-related factors, and its consequences.

That necessity for manufacturers’ marketers to track and monitor the evolution of their customers’ needs is clearly an important factor of the business between manufacturers and resellers – in the packaged goods retail sector for instance, where actions leading to potential benefits for either party in this interdependent and often complex relationship need to be recognized and understood.

Benefits involve not only a linkage between manufacturers and resellers, but also the end-customer who is the focus of both manufacturer brand support and reseller marketing.

In “Sources of brand benefits in manufacturer-reseller B2B relationships”, Mark S. Glynn, Judy Motion and Roderick J. Brodie say the benefits manufacturer brands provide to resellers reflect not only a manufacturer’s brand-name strength, but the additional resources associated with the brand such as advertising, promotional support and category development.

While resellers need good relationships with manufacturers to tap into their marketing expertise and budgets, manufacturers need to develop good relationships with resellers whose buying power has increased in recent years. Another challenge for manufacturers in countering reseller power is to differentiate their brands.

Conclusions were that reseller relationship outcomes for a manufacturer’s brand are optimized when:

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  resellers fully utilize the financial benefits associated with that brand such as pricing and margins;

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  there are high levels of managerial benefits including category development, consumer brand support, support of the reseller’s promotions and marketing expertise associated with that brand;

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  a reseller successfully meets the end-customer demand associated with that brand; and

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  resellers fully utilize combinations of the financial, managerial and consumer benefits associated with that brand.

Additionally, a brand’s market share will moderate the effect of the manufacturer brand benefits on reseller relationship outcomes.

The first brand benefit is financial and, while all suppliers potentially offer this benefit, its realization depends on how well the reseller uses pricing and margins associated with the brand. The second brand benefit focuses on how resellers use the manufacturer resources (category development, advertising, etc.) and the third relates to the end-customer’s expectations of the reseller in terms of the assortment and the brands themselves.

Manufacturers are concerned with the strategic value of brands and recognize that good relationships with resellers are necessary in realizing the value of the product offering. A further implication is that these “sources of brand benefits” influence the relationship outcomes for resellers. Brand benefits can enhance a reseller’s satisfaction, trust and commitment to the brand. Resellers also need to cooperate with manufacturers to realize the benefits. By focusing on such brand benefits to resellers, manufacturers can enhance a buyer-seller relationship and use their market-based assets to obtain a competitive advantage.

In terms of the manufacturer-reseller relationship, brands are regarded as market-based assets by resellers. There is also substantial knowledge exchange between manufacturers and resellers of market information and category expertise.

The authors discovered that minor brands are also very important to resellers not only in terms of the assortment, but in countering the strength of major brands within the product category. Also that, in the packaged goods sector, brands are a key part of the B2B relationship between manufacturer and reseller. Moreover, resellers too have an active role in brand management, rather than just being one of passive support.

Retail buyers and store managers who participated in the study considered that the main financial benefit for resellers was to provide a good margin. They also reported that low pricing often altered consumers’ expectations, so that a return to the “normal” price resulted in decreased sales. There were benefits in charging a premium for higher-status, minor brands and particular variants in the brand’s range. Variants offered a means to improve financial returns.

In balancing the need to optimize profit and satisfy their customers’ demands, one telling comment was that:

Brands are actually what they [manufacturers] do, whereas we retail. We try to meet the needs of our customers and buy whatever they really want. If we’re looking at our products, we also look at the total market to see what we’re missing out on. We make sure that we’ve got all the top-selling lines, so we don’t just look internally, at our own range; we look outside and benchmark against other ranges, make sure we’ve got the top lines.

This emphasizes the importance of assessing brand availability and how this compares with competitors’ offerings.

Managerial benefits reflected the benefits of manufacturer brands to enhance the operational aspects of the reseller’s business, excluding the financial or the reseller’s customer benefits. The key themes identified were the manufacturer development within the category, brand support, support of the reseller’s promotional programme and other areas of collaboration such as the sharing of manufacturer brand expertise. Resellers regarded manufacturer product development as a long-term benefit.

Although resellers regarded innovation within the category as beyond their expertise, they were prepared to support the manufacturer’s marketing activity. Lack of manufacturer support was viewed as detrimental in terms of maintaining market size and the interests of the end-customer.

Resellers’ store promotional programmes were important and manufacturers were expected to contribute to these. Resellers considered this type of support a necessity and that the manufacturer’s cooperative advertising payment was tied to the brand’s market share. The manufacturer’s salesforce also provided product assistance in the form of shelf layouts and the sharing of market information.

Despite the availability of scanner-based market information for resellers, they often relied on the manufacturer for the interpretation of market trends and also collaborated with manufacturers to optimize store shelf layouts for a brand.

Harmonious relationships with customers are also important for developing B2B service brands – as is service quality competence. In nearly all studies of industrial buying, reputation usually appears as a top-four selection criterion. The inference being that, although B2B literature in the past might have made little explicit reference to branding, it has always played a prominent implicit role via reputation.

In “Multiple roles of brands in business-to-business services”, Jane Roberts and Bill Merrilees focus on leasing mall space to retail tenants and emphasize that B2B firms must build trust with their customers as responsive behaviour and empowerment are seen as critical factors.

Key constructs of the study related to brand, empowerment, trust, service quality, responsive behaviour and lease contract renewal.

Brand relates to the overall performance and image of the centre. It considers the consumer perspective in relation to the centre brand, particularly, in the way consumers identify the special or unique characteristics of the centre brand itself and the strength in which they then feel the brand performs.

Empowerment relates to the way in which one party feels able to direct their own actions towards a desirable outcome – whether tenants feel they have some power in their dealings with centre management and have a chance to have their concerns heard.

Trust is generated when both parties can anticipate a consistent level of performance and behaviour from each other. It would mean that both parties would be satisfied that the behaviour of the other party’s service quality dimensions are met, that communication is open, relevant and timely, that any disputes are dealt with appropriately and that any power potential is used without any undue coercion.

Service quality relates to how well the core services undertaken by one partner in the relationship are actually performed compared with the expectation of how well the service should be performed. The core services in the shopping centre context relate to the performance of tangible measures such as the landlord’s responsibility to maintain and promote the centre, and provide an attractive retail mix.

Responsive behaviour reflects the way the landlord responds to issues, provides information, consults and seeks feedback, and the timeliness and relevance of the information provided. A large component of responsiveness is the way both parties are able to communicate their needs. However, communicating is one step. Being available for meaningful communication to take place, responding to the issues raised and following through with any commitments made, is as essential as the communication itself. Responsiveness also relates to the way in which centre management actively promotes the relationship between itself and the tenants. It considers whether centre management encourages positive suggestions from tenants, nurtures and develops the relationship and provides ongoing assistance to tenants.

Lease contract renewal relates to the strength of positive feeling towards the centre, which is demonstrated through a willingness to continue the relationship. This has most often been measured in terms of intention for a consumer to purchase a product from the same retailer/supplier again.

The results show that service quality is the most important determinant of brand attitudes in the sample examined. Consequently, companies wishing to build strong B2B service brands should focus on delivering high levels of (appropriate) service quality.

Branding had a major contribution to the renewal of contract decision. In fact, strong brands were the most important factor in the intended contract renewal decision and the authors say that perhaps the most critical practical implication of the study is the advocating of brand as the centrepiece of any major customer retention programme.

Continuous B2B service relationships are likely to depend on the service quality provided by the supplier. Service quality was the main determinant of retail business tenants having a positive brand attitude of the mall. Mall services generally are provided on the basis of a long-term relationship, embedded in a contract that is renegotiated every three to five years.

The contract provides a stable base to form such a long-term relationship. Service quality reflects what can be considered to be a competency capability on the part of the mall manager. It is a core production skill that is essential for any service provider. In this particular case it is the quality of services, such as maintenance and promotion, which drive the favourable (brand) attitudes that the tenants have of the mall.

Companies need to have suitable metrics for understanding their brand strength and to continuously monitor this over time. Strong brands appear to be the most powerful way of maximizing customer retention. However, trust also contributes to B2B service contract renewals. B2B service firms can therefore supplement brand building with trust building in a combined way to retain customers.

As if understanding the business customer, and understanding how your brand and brand image can influence the customer into doing business with you, weren’t difficult enough, spare a thought for those organizations whose market offering is defined and designed by their customers.

Those organizations that, in essence, have no products of their own, but make things according to buyers’ specifications. Those organizations who do not know exactly what they are selling until a buyer has asked for it and who don’t have anything tangible of their own on which to stick a brand name or logo.

How can these firms – subcontractors – set themselves apart and succeed in becoming and retaining their position as someone else’s selected suppliers? In “The role of corporate brand image in the selection of new subcontractors”, Anna Blombäck and Björn Axelsson suggest that increased efforts to develop firm capabilities, combined with a strong focus on branding could be part of the answer.

Two sets of factors are important to the subcontractor in terms of corporate brands and the potential for being selected. First, there are the factors that are essential to being considered in the first place (e.g. size, location, machines and materials). Second, there are factors that can give the subcontractor a competitive edge among rival firms (e.g. production records, reference customers, visual impressions and behaviour).

Faced with the need to identify and select a new supplier of parts, buyers often have many alternatives and cannot pursue and assess them all. They need to rely partly on established corporate images. Consequently, subcontractors cannot be content with simply having a characteristic or a capability. They must practically illustrate or otherwise make apparent their abilities through various types of communication efforts.

In the early stage of a selection process, buyers can be influenced by impressions from salespersons, trade fairs, advertisements and the internet. With several equally qualified suppliers, it can be difficult for buyers to stick to straightforward quantitative parameters in their selection. Consequently, subcontractors need to get noticed.

Price can often be a relatively minor issue when buyers evaluate suppliers of components and complex products, with quality, delivery and performance history being the more important criteria. Buyers need security when planning long-term contracts, implying that the buyer’s image of a supplier can influence a decision regardless of the current offer. However, price can be significant in the final selection.

Corporate image and, thus, corporate brands can have a salient role in the selection of subcontractors. One could say, however, that customers are primarily concerned with the product and its functionalities. They want the right quantity and quality at the right price and at the right time. However, due to difficulties in verifying some of these aspects in a straightforward manner, a supplier’s corporate image can vouch for its abilities in these areas. The ways in which perceptions of subcontractors (and their brands) are formed result in the following four conclusions:

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  The fact that there is a choice to make between similar suppliers results in a stepwise selection process in which various types of communication can play a role. In the early phases, a poor appearance may exclude even a very qualified supplier.

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  The fact that buyers have limited resources allows reputation, product-peripheral factors and impressions to function as substitutes for more objective measures of subcontractors’ abilities.

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  The fact that buyers perceive risk increases the significance of impressions and emotions related to the subcontracting company as a whole during the selection process.

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  The fact that companies consist of human beings and that the selection process is only partly formalized allows individual ideas and impressions to influence the selection of subcontractors.

A conclusion that takes us right back to that initial statement about business buyers making their choices through objective decision-making processes which are totally rational and unemotional. Wrong again!(A précis of the special issue “Branding in industrial markets”. Supplied by Marketing Consultants for Emerald.)