Great brands use brand as business to re-ignite their organizations and create real business value in four ways.
• To expose new growth opportunities . Brand as business reframes what business the company is really in. By considering the bundle of values and attributes that comprise the value delivered to customers, the brand-as-business approach provides new innovation guardrails and a fresh perspective on potential areas for expansion, mergers, and acquisitions.
Consider how the multibillion-dollar online retailer Zappos started as an online shoe retailer, but because its leadership defined its brand more broadly (“a service company that happens to sell shoes”), its operating model has proven flexible enough to embrace a broad range of products. The company has successfully extended its offering into apparel, accessories, and even sporting goods and sporting gear.
• To shape business objectives and strategies . Brand as business uses brand positioning to evaluate current performance and prioritize possible new directions. Disparate groups can draw on their unified, well-defined culture and practices to develop a shared understanding of what needs to be done to achieve a stronger competitive position.
• To create unified, focused, and integrated teams . Brand as business encourages the use of the brand ’s values to inform and influence employee recruiting, training, development, and compensation and reward programs. Not only does this reduce operating costs through better employee selection and retention, it contributes to the development of high-performing teams. Better decisions are made more quickly and executed with excellence.
