Better the devil you know

Even the smallest companies prefer international brands.

Today's customers have a greater understanding of products and technology than ever before, and this has led to greater expectations of the services that suppliers offer.

Consequently, customers want a working relationship with their suppliers, not just the provision of product or service. This means it's important for suppliers to distinguish themselves from others, and having a strong brand is one of the best ways to achieve this.

In Sage's experience, even the smallest companies prefer to buy strong international brands - it reassures customers and promotes sales. But suppliers must recognise the importance of brand values across all their channels, particularly in their reseller operations.

Suppliers and resellers are effectively partners, working towards similar goals and promoting a corporate image, so it is important that resellers understand, represent and promote the same brand values as their suppliers.

You wouldn't provide an after-sales service through an external call centre, for example, without carefully managing the image being pushed by your call centre partner. This means suppliers must ensure that their channel partners understand the brand messages and are supported in promoting them to customers.

At Sage, as at other companies, this is achieved through a range of reseller support services - from regular roadshows and workshops to newsletters, development toolkits and reseller conferences. All of these devices help ensure that resellers have the necessary knowledge and tools to promote the core brand values.

As consumers tend to buy brand name products, Sage has recently removed the traditional product names Sterling and Sovereign and replaced them with Sage Line 50 and Sage Line 100. This will further strengthen our brand and effect the customer's decision.

Branding also simplifies the sales process for resellers that can choose the right product for their customers' business needs.

The relationship between brand and sales is perhaps the most immediate and obvious benefit of branding to resellers, but it is not the only one.

From the reseller's perspective, a strong brand provides benefits across the full range of their activities. For instance, marketing new products and services under a brand becomes easier because customers are already familiar with the image and values it represents. Resellers, in turn, could become part of a high-profile brand, associating their own services with branded services. Strong branding therefore provides the opportunity for resellers to branch out into new areas of business. This has played an important role in allowing resellers to develop year 2000, internet, e-commerce and other services.

Strategic partnerships are another important brand-driven benefit for resellers, because a strong brand attracts interest from other leading suppliers. Through partnerships with key industry leaders such as Microsoft, IBM and Novell, resellers benefit from the knowledge companies have of a partner's product development strategy. Additionally, resellers can be sure that they receive product, technical and other information from vendors and its strategic partners since it is close to the source. This in turn brings additional benefits in customer service and allows them to bring valuable expertise and assurance to their customers.

Resellers' promotional activities are similarly supported by strong branding.

Association with a strong brand creates the opportunity for companies to maximise the overall impact as well as the results of promotional activity, by linking into existing local, national and international campaigns.

Resellers can run press campaigns in conjunction with suppliers to generate customer interest at a local level. They can use branded logos on stationery, mailshots and other literature to immediately inform customers.

Whatever your brand, resellers are central to the process of promoting it to market - and with the right support, both sides of the supplier/reseller partnership stand to benefit immeasurably from the added value a strong international brand offers.

Graham Wylie is managing director of Sagesoft.