By Mahadhir Monihuldin
GOMBAK, 6 May 2018: Malaysian companies are highly advised to adapt their corporate branding strategies to the new business climate brought about by Industry 4.0.
This message was emphasised by co-founder of Fusionbrand, Marcus Osborne, who delivered a talk titled “Branding in the Era of Industry 4.0” on Thursday (3 May) at IIUM campus here.
Fusionbrand is a brand consultancy firm which provides branding services for their clients.
The talk saw Marcus sharing six essential attributes which Malaysian companies need to brand themselves successfully to consumers in Industry 4.0.
These six brand attributes which Marcus stated were: Warmth, Humility, Integrity, Competence, Accessibility, Transparency.
To best exemplify how these attributes would apply to companies is when their CEOs demonstrate their human side by going on the ground after tragedies and crying with relatives of the victims. This act would not affect their companies’ bottom line, but companies that were impersonal with the family of victims after tragedies would see their bottom line affected and difficult to recover.
Marcus shared that branding is now a very significant aspect for any Malaysian company to embrace as the recent growth of Malaysia’s economy has attracted many foreign parties to invest.
“Malaysia has grown hugely in the past 20 to 30 years. We haven’t really had to build brands in the past. Now, it’s a much more mature economy and international parties want a piece of the Malaysian action,” Marcus shared.
The talk which Marcus delivered was branding in the context of Industry 4.0, by which automation and data exchange are heavily integrated into the heart of the production and manufacturing systems of companies.***