BRANDING ACROSS BORDERS
Indian companies are consciously trying to globalise their image, while global firms Indianise theirs, in order to connect to the talent pool. Jhinuk Chowdhury reports...
Being conspicuous in a crowd is never an easy task, since the danger of slipping into oblivion always looms large. No wonder, then, that organisations across the world and in India are constantly striving to achieve ‘boundary-less branding’ in order to attain top recall value as employers. This refers to a situation where Indian companies internationalise their image and global companies localise theirs in order to match candidate expectations. Companies have realised the importance of getting local as well as international flavours in their brands, since this reflects the values and the mores of an enterprise.
THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL
‘Think global, act local’ is a critical strategy for most global companies and modifying one’s core business culture and practices to suit a new market is the key to survival. That’s what UTStarcom Inc., a US-based global provider of telecommunications solutions believes. Rachana Panda, Head – Marketing & Communications, UTStarcom - South Asia, says, “It is perhaps unrealistic to expect that a brand is decoded in a similar way the world over. So, to be able to reach out to relevant audiences - be it customers, employees, partners or consumers - we need to put things in a way that they are comfortable with and in a form which is acceptable. Every brand has to have local alignment.”
Nabanita Phukan, Head-HR, Red Hat India, agrees that employees always look for a global image with localised systems. Along with country-specific legal and statutory variations, culture also varies. For any organisation to be successful in a particular geography, brand positioning needs to be sensitive to these differences. Corporates struggle to control the veil between the brand and the target audience.
For Xansa (India), a company that operates in the IT-ITES space, localising communication is significant, since the services and standards it maintains are global. Representatives from Xansa UK visit India and participate in various CSR and other culture events that Xansa organises in India. Explains Sanjiv Tandon, Centre Head, Xansa (India) Ltd., “Indian society is fundamentally less individualistic than its western counterparts. Therefore, global brands must appeal to the Indian audience’s sense of values, culture and bonding. If a brand desires universal acceptance, then it must define itself in human terms.”
THE ‘FIRANG’ PULL
Branding, they say, is all about meeting people’s aspirations. If so, then with the kind of Westernisation that has swept the country, does it mean Western firms find it easier to build a brand in India? Most certainly, says Achal Khanna, Country GM, Kelly Services India Ltd, adding, “While, Indianising a brand does not attract or detract talent, brand globalisation attracts higher-end talent, due to the growing desire of the Indian middle class to be viewed as ‘hot and happening’.” Phukan concurs that global companies leverage their global image and at the same time, customise their policies to Indian conditions, “We identify with the global brand and at the same time, customise policies with the Indian scenario by offering global careers which, in itself, is a very strong pull factor.”
However, Panda feels that it is a challenge to achieve some sort of balance between an organisation’s conflicting identities, “We need to retain the international look and feel, yet adapt to the Indian market. The mix has to be perfect for the right image to be projected. The value proposition of global brands may be both strong as well as entrenched in the Indian mind, but making the proposition relevant to that same target might prove to be another matter altogether. Local needs and global brand images do not
necessarily operate on mutually exclusive terms.”
THE GLOBAL INDIAN ENTERPRISE
A classic example of how Indian companies globalise themselves would be that of Wipro Infotech. A major part of Wipro Infotech’s operations are based in the Middle East, South Asia and Australia. These countries, although closer than North America or Europe, are culturally extremely different from India. “The first barrier is language and culture,” says Tapan Bhat, VP-HR, Resourcing & Talent Transformation, Wipro Infotech. So the company has appointed local people in client-facing roles like project managers and sales and business professionals. “This puts the clients at ease. We can move people from India, but there’s a time lag that happens. When customers demand quick turnarounds, transporting people from India in large numbers is not possible; lots of issues creep in. So it is always prudent to deploy locals. For one, there’s continuity because of the native country factor, which is a must in client interface. Retaining locals is also easy as there’s no pressure to move back to any other country of origin,” says Bhat.
For enterprises like Wipro Infotech, it is the ‘India’ branding that helps pull local talent. Bhat explains, “Given the kind of visibility that the Indian software industry has today, people abroad like to be a part of it, and experience Indian offshoring. Any CEO or CTO of a global organisation needs to have an understanding of how Indian IT works.”
It is a good combination of factors such as the employer brand, job profile and compensation that appeals the most to candidates. Industry watchers note that there’s a silent shift happening in people’s workplace preferences. People respond more positively to organisations they can relate to, be it in terms or behaviour, values, language, etc. It therefore makes eminent sense to localise. For global firms, it is about reconciling the seeming contradiction of a universal meaning and local expression, which allows them to factor in local imperatives while keeping the brand’s ‘globalness’intact.
N S Rajan, National Conference Convener, NHRDN (and Partner, Human Capital, Ernst & Young India), on boundary-less branding:
“The concept of boundary-less branding comes as a result of globalisation. The economic cycle can be fragmented into three parts – in the first phase, countries were moving out to different parts of the world. Then in the second phase, i.e. in the post-World War II era, MNCs were moving out, taking their own people wherever they moved. The third era is the current one, wherein companies operate in a fully flat world, with enterprises across the world moving to different parts of the globe, both Eastern and Western. And wherever they are going, they are sourcing talent from local countries. Today, employers look for a global workforce, so that wherever you come from, you can be seamlessly stationed anywhere in the world. So when the audience is global, a company’s branding business model should transform to the extent that the core of the message (read value proposition) remains universal, but the way of communicating the same alters according to local standing.”
Courtesy >> Times of India (1st November 2006)
Indian companies are consciously trying to globalise their image, while global firms Indianise theirs, in order to connect to the talent pool. Jhinuk Chowdhury reports...
Being conspicuous in a crowd is never an easy task, since the danger of slipping into oblivion always looms large. No wonder, then, that organisations across the world and in India are constantly striving to achieve ‘boundary-less branding’ in order to attain top recall value as employers. This refers to a situation where Indian companies internationalise their image and global companies localise theirs in order to match candidate expectations. Companies have realised the importance of getting local as well as international flavours in their brands, since this reflects the values and the mores of an enterprise.
THINK GLOBAL, ACT LOCAL
‘Think global, act local’ is a critical strategy for most global companies and modifying one’s core business culture and practices to suit a new market is the key to survival. That’s what UTStarcom Inc., a US-based global provider of telecommunications solutions believes. Rachana Panda, Head – Marketing & Communications, UTStarcom - South Asia, says, “It is perhaps unrealistic to expect that a brand is decoded in a similar way the world over. So, to be able to reach out to relevant audiences - be it customers, employees, partners or consumers - we need to put things in a way that they are comfortable with and in a form which is acceptable. Every brand has to have local alignment.”
Nabanita Phukan, Head-HR, Red Hat India, agrees that employees always look for a global image with localised systems. Along with country-specific legal and statutory variations, culture also varies. For any organisation to be successful in a particular geography, brand positioning needs to be sensitive to these differences. Corporates struggle to control the veil between the brand and the target audience.
For Xansa (India), a company that operates in the IT-ITES space, localising communication is significant, since the services and standards it maintains are global. Representatives from Xansa UK visit India and participate in various CSR and other culture events that Xansa organises in India. Explains Sanjiv Tandon, Centre Head, Xansa (India) Ltd., “Indian society is fundamentally less individualistic than its western counterparts. Therefore, global brands must appeal to the Indian audience’s sense of values, culture and bonding. If a brand desires universal acceptance, then it must define itself in human terms.”
THE ‘FIRANG’ PULL
Branding, they say, is all about meeting people’s aspirations. If so, then with the kind of Westernisation that has swept the country, does it mean Western firms find it easier to build a brand in India? Most certainly, says Achal Khanna, Country GM, Kelly Services India Ltd, adding, “While, Indianising a brand does not attract or detract talent, brand globalisation attracts higher-end talent, due to the growing desire of the Indian middle class to be viewed as ‘hot and happening’.” Phukan concurs that global companies leverage their global image and at the same time, customise their policies to Indian conditions, “We identify with the global brand and at the same time, customise policies with the Indian scenario by offering global careers which, in itself, is a very strong pull factor.”
However, Panda feels that it is a challenge to achieve some sort of balance between an organisation’s conflicting identities, “We need to retain the international look and feel, yet adapt to the Indian market. The mix has to be perfect for the right image to be projected. The value proposition of global brands may be both strong as well as entrenched in the Indian mind, but making the proposition relevant to that same target might prove to be another matter altogether. Local needs and global brand images do not
necessarily operate on mutually exclusive terms.”
THE GLOBAL INDIAN ENTERPRISE
A classic example of how Indian companies globalise themselves would be that of Wipro Infotech. A major part of Wipro Infotech’s operations are based in the Middle East, South Asia and Australia. These countries, although closer than North America or Europe, are culturally extremely different from India. “The first barrier is language and culture,” says Tapan Bhat, VP-HR, Resourcing & Talent Transformation, Wipro Infotech. So the company has appointed local people in client-facing roles like project managers and sales and business professionals. “This puts the clients at ease. We can move people from India, but there’s a time lag that happens. When customers demand quick turnarounds, transporting people from India in large numbers is not possible; lots of issues creep in. So it is always prudent to deploy locals. For one, there’s continuity because of the native country factor, which is a must in client interface. Retaining locals is also easy as there’s no pressure to move back to any other country of origin,” says Bhat.
For enterprises like Wipro Infotech, it is the ‘India’ branding that helps pull local talent. Bhat explains, “Given the kind of visibility that the Indian software industry has today, people abroad like to be a part of it, and experience Indian offshoring. Any CEO or CTO of a global organisation needs to have an understanding of how Indian IT works.”
It is a good combination of factors such as the employer brand, job profile and compensation that appeals the most to candidates. Industry watchers note that there’s a silent shift happening in people’s workplace preferences. People respond more positively to organisations they can relate to, be it in terms or behaviour, values, language, etc. It therefore makes eminent sense to localise. For global firms, it is about reconciling the seeming contradiction of a universal meaning and local expression, which allows them to factor in local imperatives while keeping the brand’s ‘globalness’intact.
N S Rajan, National Conference Convener, NHRDN (and Partner, Human Capital, Ernst & Young India), on boundary-less branding:
“The concept of boundary-less branding comes as a result of globalisation. The economic cycle can be fragmented into three parts – in the first phase, countries were moving out to different parts of the world. Then in the second phase, i.e. in the post-World War II era, MNCs were moving out, taking their own people wherever they moved. The third era is the current one, wherein companies operate in a fully flat world, with enterprises across the world moving to different parts of the globe, both Eastern and Western. And wherever they are going, they are sourcing talent from local countries. Today, employers look for a global workforce, so that wherever you come from, you can be seamlessly stationed anywhere in the world. So when the audience is global, a company’s branding business model should transform to the extent that the core of the message (read value proposition) remains universal, but the way of communicating the same alters according to local standing.”
Courtesy >> Times of India (1st November 2006)
