Any consulting company is eager to take the crown of "strategic planning". This feeling is like rushing into the harem of the world's top consulting companies such as McKinsey and accepting the charming eyes of clients' concubines full of envy and longing for love. The happy moment is like a crown turned into a cuckold husband on McKinsey's head. Any large enterprise also dreams of wearing the medal of "strategist" on its chest. That kind of feeling is the double experience of Zhuge Liang's feather fan and black silk scarf smiling at the enemy and Mao Zedong's nine-day lunar exploration to catch turtles all over the world. What is Welch at this moment?
However, business strategy brings more disappointment than expectation. The strategic planning of McKinsey's projects in Shida, Wangfujing, Beijing and Nanjing Road, Shanghai all proved to be a failure in the end. Lenovo and TCL's "strategists" are also facing unprecedented business difficulties. ...
Every fruit has a reason. What is the reason?
The reason is that times have changed, and the new rules of the new era are: brand strategy first, business strategy second!
Any business strategy is ineffective or even negative if it can't generate customer value. To generate customer value, business strategy must be led by brand strategy.
First, brand mission first, company mission second.
The primary task of enterprise strategy is to formulate a clear enterprise mission. Since tom peters discovered the magic of corporate mission in the pursuit of Excellence, corporate mission seems to be the only way to build a century-old golden signboard.
However, in today's branding, customers pay attention to, chase and buy brands. As long as the brand can bring the needed benefits, match the desired feelings and give them the desired status, they only have the brand without the company, and they never care whether the company behind the brand is a cat and a dog. For example, P&G has dozens of brands, so it is not worth competing with P&G's corporate mission to buy "Rejoice". For customers, the brand mission is more important than the company mission. The company operates in the background, and the brand is the window of its front desk. It is through the brand mission that customers know the mission of the company. If the brand mission is not attractive, no one will continue to look at the company mission!
Another problem is that corporate mission also needs branding. The corporate mission of many companies is internal-oriented, and its basic point is not customers, but themselves. So they are full of boasting and swaggering about "I am XXX" and "I want XXX". This kind of strong selfish departmentalism color does not pay attention to customer demand and customer value at all, and does not consider whether the enterprise mission has popularity and experience, so it is impossible. Finally, even inside the company, the company's mission is nonsense, which is why Lenovo changed its standards and launched its brand strategy three years ago, taking the brand declaration (that is, the mission of the brand company) as one of its core tasks.
Second, the brand portfolio comes first, and the business portfolio comes second.
An important part of business strategy is business portfolio management, that is, to determine the business scope and classify the business, with the aim of establishing a relatively balanced business cluster in terms of cash flow, growth and anti-risk ability. Boston matrix (Taurus business, star business, thin dog business and problem business) and McKinsey three-level (core business, future business and seed business) are the classic paradigms of business portfolio.
However, if the business combination is not based on the brand combination, it is doomed to failure. When Yang was in charge of Lenovo, he put forward a grand business combination strategy: Lenovo should transform from a simple PC business and develop strong business combinations such as IT services, Internet and 3C. But it turned out to be a bohemian fantasy, and now I have to return to the professional path of PC (the acquisition of IBM PC is to strengthen this point). The failure of Lenovo's business portfolio is largely caused by poor brand portfolio. The history and architecture of Lenovo's single brand (except FM365) are simply not enough to support such a completely different new business. How high-end IT services are, only IBM in the world can own such brand assets. Lenovo's brand equity is just the level of Geely. How can we produce Rolls Royce? Lenovo should consider introducing a new brand into IT services, just as Toyota developed Lexus in luxury car business and Marriott acquired Ritz-Carlton in high-end hotel business. The same is true of Lenovo's sluggish new mobile phone business. To run the mobile phone market with Sony's strength, we must rely on the joint brand Sony Ericsson. Strangely, Lenovo didn't fail in adopting a single brand. The correct strategy should be to take the joint brand route of Sony Ericsson. In the Internet business, Lenovo really knew that it lacked confidence and created a new brand FM365. But the problem is that this new brand has no brand equity and lacks distinctive brand recognition, and the development speed of the Internet industry is too fast for you to make up for it slowly. How is it possible to succeed? If we had bought one of the three major portal brands (Nasdaq is collapsing), we might be in a completely different situation today.
Third, brand advantage comes first, and competitive advantage comes second.
Obtaining competitive advantage through competitive strategy is the basic content of business strategy, and the importance of competitive advantage is well known. But few people know that if there is no pre-requisite brand advantage, no matter what competitive strategy or competitive advantage, there is no possibility of success.
Changhong is a typical example of pursuing cost leadership strategy. In the middle and late last century, Changhong successfully ascended the throne of China color TV industry through several large-scale price wars by virtue of its cost advantage. However, since the beginning of the new century, this sharp weapon that once frightened the governors from all walks of life seems to be eclipsed. Not only can it not replicate its previous success, but it has gone from bad to worse, and "strategist" Ni Fengrun has resigned. Changhong's original sharp-edged cost leadership strategy failed because of the constant erosion of its brand image. The author once did a household appliance brand scanning project. Changhong's brand image is described by customers as "overbearing old village party secretary", and the typical "farmer brand" will inevitably lose the urban market. Once the core market is lost, it is difficult for catfish to turn over.
Yangshengtang is a master of differentiation strategy. Its Nongfu Spring stands out in the highly competitive bottled water market with "a little sweetness" as its selling point, and its Nongfu Orchard is a latecomer in the juice market, holding a strong hand. Other product brands such as "Duoer" and "Qingzui" are also remarkable in their differentiation strategies. Generally speaking, Yangshengtang is almost the only one who can be selected as one of the "Top Ten Classic Marketing Cases" every year. However, in recent years, the scenery of Yangshengtang is no longer, and brand assets are constantly losing. What is the reason? The same lies in brand strategy. Yangshengtang excessively pursues multi-brands, so that it ignores the construction of corporate brands, fails to recognize the strategic significance of corporate brands, fails to carefully design corporate brand logos, fails to clarify the relationship between corporate brands and product brands, and has no special corporate brand promotion activities and budgets. You know, one of Guo Shina's core strategies to revitalize IBM is to attach importance to corporate brands, and increase the budget allocation ratio of IBM brands from 10% to 50% from the beginning of getting off the bus. Another brand strategy mistake is to ignore the construction of wide-area brand platform. Every brand of Yangshengtang is narrow-minded. Once entering a new category, it is necessary to develop new brands, resulting in brand duplication and waste of resources. In fact, Yangshengtang should consider developing some product brands into a wide-area brand platform, such as Dove of Unilever, which carries many categories from soap, shower gel, deodorant to shampoo, and make full use of brand assets to build brand advantages.
Fourth, brand synergy comes first and business synergy comes second.
For the group's business strategy, it may be the most important to carry out relevant management and pursue synergy. Any group company will pursue business cooperation in production, technology, procurement, marketing, infrastructure and other aspects among its subordinate business units, which makes the group become a close family rather than a scattered salon.
For unrelated diversified enterprises, business collaboration is weak or almost non-existent, which is also the reason why diversification has been strongly criticized in China and regarded as a fear of the road. Fortunately, if we rely on the strength of brand synergy, we can survive the crisis without diversification. GE is a typical diversified enterprise, from aviation, electrician, electric power, medical care to finance, and has achieved amazing success by virtue of the synergistic effect of brand assets generated by a single brand structure. What is even more outrageous is Virgin, from music, radio, express delivery, railway, aviation, drinks and even condoms, and then the "miscellaneous army". however
OCT is a typical diversified operation in China, spanning tourism, real estate, home appliances, culture and other fields. OCT makes wise use of brand synergy, especially between theme parks and real estate. This brand synergy makes OCT Real Estate have an important differentiated identity-"tourism real estate", which is the brand equity advantage that Wang Shi's Vanke and Pan Shiyi's SOHO do not have. OCT has further strengthened this advantage by developing new theme parks in Beijing and Shanghai. However, OCT is not doing well enough. OCT is more reflected in commercial brands, especially theme parks (diluting the strength of sub-brands such as Window of the World and Happy Valley) and real estate, rather than strong corporate brands. If we don't focus on improving the popularity of corporate brands in the future, the existing brand synergy will be weakened. In addition, it may be necessary to strengthen the brand relationship between OCT and Konka. Konka has always been an independent brand platform under OCT, which is responsible for 3C business such as home appliances and mobile phones, and has nothing to do with OCT's brand assets. Of course, this multi-brand structure was successful in the past (making Konka have professional associations), but we can imagine that if OCT becomes Konka's endorsement brand, not only OCT's brand will be unusually strengthened because of the customer experience in the new product market (at least, OCT's brand awareness assets can no longer be much lower than Konka's), but more importantly, Konka, which has been lacking differentiation, can be activated by injecting new brand recognition. In particular, Konka's dying mobile phone business can even consider a new category of "travel mobile phone" (since there are travel clothes, electrical appliances and personal belongings, why can't there be a travel mobile phone? ), directly adopt OCT (perhaps Happy Valley is more suitable) as the main brand of category operation. Since Disney can make mobile phones, why can't OCT, which is also a theme park? Since "tourism real estate" can be successful, why does "travel mobile phone" have no prospect?
Verb (abbreviation of verb) brand control first, company control second.
Business strategy requires the realization of company control. If the company is unable to control its subordinate business units, then the best strategy is just to draw cakes to satisfy hunger. However, Chinese enterprises are weak in the management and control of group companies, and they are still in the dilemma of "death if caught, chaos if released". Decentralization will become a "salon club" of public institutions, and centralization will become a "prison labor camp" of public institutions, so they are both big but not strong.
One of the main reasons for this phenomenon is that it pays too much attention to internal-oriented enterprise control, such as strategic control, organizational control, process control, budget control, financial control and personnel control, while ignoring brand control. However, these measures often have policies at the top and countermeasures at the bottom. More importantly, they don't really address the "crux".
Brand management is not like this. At present, the subordinate business units of most companies have been "branded" or quasi-branded. For them, the brand is the enterprise, the brand is the product, the brand is the customer, the brand is the relationship, the brand is the leader, and the brand has become their past achievement, today's glory and tomorrow's dream. Brand is everything! Without brand, institutions are like dehydrated fish, and there is no possibility of survival. As the saying goes, if a company can exert strong control over the brands of its subordinate enterprises, it will actually control life, sunshine, air and water, which is the way to cure the problem.
Putian has been facing the problem of management and control, and it has not been solved until today. When Putian Group was founded, there were many famous brands under it. Mobile phone business alone includes Bird, Shouxin and Eastcom, so it is very difficult to integrate them. Putian has been committed to the management and control of governance structure, strategic planning, organizational structure, financial system and human resources, but it has achieved little. Why? In fact, the most powerful asset of subordinate units is the brand. Putian is not committed to controlling the brand, and it will definitely cure the symptoms, and the result is empty. Putian has never considered strengthening the company brand-"Putian". Let's imagine, when the brand of the division far exceeds the brand of the group company, which eye will the division use to look at the group company? Who are you to lead me? It was not until the last two years that Putian was launched as the main brand, but a wretched product was used!
In addition, Putian did not merge strategic brands and retained too many acquired brands, which invisibly increased the difficulty of control. HP would never do that. HP has acquired hundreds of brands. No matter what kind of customer relationship these brands have and how important their brand assets are, HP will cancel them and only keep its own main brand, which will eventually make HP extremely powerful. Taking the mobile phone business as an example, Putian wants to merge three well-known brands strategically and consider retaining the Bird brand. Because it has always been the leader of domestic mobile phones, the brand values of Eastcom and Shouxin are quite limited, and there is really no reservation value. We can consider merging the endorsement brands into joint brands, then to the main and deputy brands, and finally to absorb them into a single Putian brand, which not only strengthens Putian's corporate brand, but also makes the original chaotic brand structure simple and clear.
Only brand strategy is the real strategy.