Branding and technology management

Abstract

Globalization and the advance of technologies (particularly Internet) have changed and will continue to change things like behaviors of customers as well as the competition strategies of companies. The competition by classical strategies (i.e., low cost, high quality, etc) has become impossible. The customers still ask for high-quality and low-cost products/services; however, their needs are now rapidly changing, highly specific and customized. Product life cycles are relentlessly shortened and the importance of new product development has been recognized. The companies should response to these changes in environment, should provide a suitable product variety in order to survive and be competitive in the market. They are looking for powerful competition strategies. It is well worth to pointing out that "technology and its management" is considered to be the most valuable competition weapon that adds value to the products. However, products are nowadays become homogeneous in the eyes of customers, so there is a still need for differentiation of technology products, which can be achieved through an effective branding strategy. The companies which have not realized the role of brands in global competition for the past two decades has lost some of their market power. Today, the companies producing technology products really need "branding" as a key weapon in order to differentiate themselves from their global challengers. Therefore, the companies focusing on producing innovative and technology products should invest on "branding" and should implement an effective "brand management" strategy along with "technology management" continuum, of course, without diminishing the quality dimension which is essential to survive. One of the goals of the technology management is commercialization in which inventions and innovations are converted into marketable products and processes. Therefore, branding could be used as a reinforcing marketing element in the technology management continuum. The paper will underline the following issues: • why technology companies need "branding"/"brand management" • how "technology management" continuum benefits from "branding"/"brand management" • how brand management is synchronized with the "technology management" • effect of brand naming • effect of technological advances on the brand names