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Contn. Building The CEO Brand The Great Indian CEO Mart
In a country with a billion people, 28 states, and 1,652 dialects, it is only to be expected that Brand CEO will come in many hues. But, gosh, what an array this is. At one end of the spectrum are wannabe brands such as Rajeev Chandrasekhar and Sunil Mittal, followed by ''opaque'' brands such as Uday Kotak and Shiv Nadar, who rarely interface with their end customers, but, nevertheless, carry tremendous brand equity within industry. Next on the scale are Anand Mahindra and Vijay Mallya, who are bigger than their own corporate brands. But the pride of place on the brightest end of the brand spectrum is taken up by Ratan Tata, Rahul Bajaj, N.R. Narayana Murthy, Dhirubhai Ambani, and Kumar Mangalam Birla (not in any particular order, though). Each one of them carries a different brand image, and their positioning and missions are different, too. For example, Bajaj and Tata both evoke the solid, old-world corporate confidence; they are also embattled brands, but nonetheless respected internationally. For instance, the Tata group has partnered with some of the best brands internationally, and Bajaj, despite its strong swadeshi overtones, is synonymous with its products-especially the three wheeler-in export markets. In Indonesia, for instance, an autorickshaw is actually called a Bajaj. But in terms of perception the two brands couldn't be more divergent. While Bajaj is the outspoken and-in the past few years-the ''Indian'' face of corporates in the country, Tata represents the realist in India Inc.-less emotional about ownership, and unambiguous in his message to his executives: that globalisation is inevitable, and the corporate dharma is to deliver. Still, Tata's is not an actively cultivated brand like the Ambanis, who, in a sense, are a bigger brand than Reliance. As one Reliance insider wisecracks: ''Ambani is not synonymous but eponymous with Reliance.'' As brands, the two Ambani scions-Mukesh and Anil-have different, some say complementary, positionings. While Mukesh represents the strength of Reliance as a massive project builder, Anil is the suave external face of the group, articulate and media savvy. Back in 1996, patriarch Dhirubhai Ambani ushered in the concept of co-CEOs, where Anil (Wharton-educated) and Mukesh (Stanford) were both, along with Dhirubhai himself, joint decision makers on all major issues. If the issue is to raise huge sums to finance a project or hire key senior managers, all three co-CEOs ratify a decision. But once a decision is taken, the task is apportioned between the two brothers. ''Anil,'' says the Reliance insider, ''convinces investors that their money is in good hands, while Mukesh ensures that the projects their money funds come up in time.''
The 'Ambani' brand has other connotations, and many of them are derived from the founder of the group, Dhirubhai. On the stockmarkets, despite the flirtation with New Economy stocks, he is a cult figure, a brand that invokes admiration, awe as well as fear. In corporate India, it's a controversial brand too, reflecting Ambani's enormous clout and power to influence the environment-in government as well as political circles-to help Reliance's meteoric rise. Does Brand CEO India differ from its western counterpart? Not very much. For example, the top brands elsewhere (See The Best CEO Brands In Business) are, not so surprisingly, owner-managers. There is one critical difference, though, and that is in terms of brand compensation. Unlike the generous stock options that foreign CEOs are rewarded with for superlative performance, the Indian CEO must make do with (apart from salaries, etc) dividend income and appreciation in stock price. In terms of realisation, however, it is clear to India Inc. that while it is team work that pays, it is one face-the CEO brand-that sells the organisation. -Roshni Jayakar with Dilip Maitra, Venkatesha Babu, & Roop Karnani The Best CEO brands In Business
What makes the CEO brand? the organisation or the personality? We believe it is the personality. It is the John F. Welch imprint that General Electric carries, and not the other way round. Microsoft is the aggressive monopoly it is because there's one man sitting in the corner room who's relentlessly driving people and dreaming up new products. Virgin is the coolest brand in an otherwise uninspiring corporate Europe because the man who set it up, Richard Branson, doesn't hesitate to pose nude, ride a relief plane, and risk his neck on a precarious balloon. Even where the organisational brand is formidable, as in the case of the Federal Reserve in the US, the personality-in this case, Chairman Alan Greenspan-can give a whole new aura to the office. Not one of these Brand CEOs is happenstance. They are carefully built, continuously moulded, and perpetuated to maximise the enterprise value. Welch wasn't a brand when he took over the helm at GE 20 years ago. But the force with which he hit the scene made it easier for his image managers to create a high salience. For example, between 1981 and 1985, Welch cut 100,000 jobs-an act so painful that employees named him ''Neutron Jack'' after the nuclear bomb that vaporizes people but leaves buildings intact. Once GE started delivering results, its and Welch's image started changing for the better. The $500 billion that his ruthless and no-nonsense attitude has generated has made him America's-many say, the 20th century's-biggest CEO brand. When he retires at the end of 2001, he will leave behind a very difficult act for his successor Jeffrey R. Immelt to follow. But there's little doubt that Immelt and his team will have the brand legacy protecting GE like an umbrella at least for some time. That a CEO brand can protect an organisation is not in doubt. Take, for example, Amazon.com. The story at the online retailer may have been very different following the dot crash had it not been for its founder Jeff Bezos. Miffed as Wall Street is with Amazon's cash burn and a lack of profitability, it isn't taking the e-tailer off its radar. Why? Simply because it believes that a man who wrote the blueprint for his dream on a laptop while driving across the US and made Internet commercially relevant to consumers, may yet deliver. Time magazine thought Bezos important enough to put him on the cover and call him Person of the Year in 1999. ''Bezos is a person who not only changed the way we do things, but helped pave the way for the future,'' said Time managing editor Walter Isaacson, explaining the magazine's choice. Another corporation that has been saved from near death by-to no small extent-its CEO brand is Microsoft. Sure, Bill Gates' critics could say that the reason why the software giant got into trouble at all in the first place was the CEO brand. But in a country that so loves its dreamer-entrepreneurs, it helped that it was Gates fighting the Justice Department, and painting it as the black villain of free enterprise. The image that is sold to customers is not one of a corporate pugilist or, indeed, a businessman, but of a technology whiz. Go to the official Bill Gates website and you'll find a picture of Gates lying on a couch, his fingers interlocked, thinking. Scattered around him on the ground and in a waste paper basket are bulbs-some extinguished, and the others on. No wonder, he's the guy people like Rupert Murdoch (of NewsCorp), Mike Ovitz (ex-Walt Disney) and Gerald Levin (Chairman and CEO, Time Warner) turn to for advice on new media. One CEO brand that has actually managed to gain currency quite literally is Richard Branson's. Flamboyant, loud, but extremely media-savvy, the London-based entrepreneur is Europe's biggest CEO brand. He launched Virgin Cola to take on Coca-Cola, he follows a philosophy of ''branded venture capital'', where he lends himself and the Virgin name to diverse ventures in exchange for-note this-a controlling stake. Do you still doubt the power of Brand CEO? "The CEO Walks And Talks The Corporation" John Williamson is a Director and Partner at Wolff Olins, Omnicom Group's major brand consultancy based in London. He is a widely acknowledged brand-strategist, and some of his clients include Lufthansa, Audi, Panasonic, and Shell. In an e-mail interview to BT's Seema Shukla, Williamson shared his perspectives on Brand CEO. Excerpts:
A CEO's brand is the personification of abstract ideas-the CEO walks and talks the corporation. If a business is undergoing change, the new CEO will be the agent of change. The CEO brand will galvanise the organisation-as Steve Jobs did with Apple. His own brand becomes the corporate brand. On CEO's Brand Responsibility: When the brand is the principal asset of a business, the CEO not only leads the organisation but also has the crucial role of 'brand champion'. The corporate brand is the CEO's responsibility, not the marketing department's. On Promoter-CEO Brand: In a founder's business, the founder is the personification of the brand-the likes of Bill Gates, and Anita Roddick. A successful company is one where the business and the CEO's brand personality are indistinguishable from each other. They are not contradictory they are one and the same. On Corporate & CEO Brand Conflict: There must be a coherent relationship between the two. If a CEO's brand dominates the corporation, then when he leaves, a problem ensues. This didn't not occur when Hans Snook left Orange. The brand was much stronger than him. On Building Brand CEO: You do it by telling stories. Like Jack Welch's 'bear pit', where junior managers are encouraged to challenge senior management, bringing the organisation's values to life. This kind of activity is explicit. It brings the leadership role of the CEO brand to life. It builds the 'myth', the story around the organisation. There is no room for blandness in a CEO brand. On Strategy for Brand CEO: If the CEO's brand isn't true it will fail. A CEO's role is to make people do what they don't want to do. It's about truth and inspiring faith. A CEO's brand must have a viewpoint. A strong CEO brand shrinks the hierarchy of an organisation, it brings people at the lower end of the organisation closer to the idea that drives the CEO, and it empowers the people within the organisation. |
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On CEO As A Brand: