Lanka needs to develop nation brand

Ramani KANGARAARACHCHI

Sri Lanka must develop the nation brand leveraging on competitive advantages, Brand Finance PLC, UK, CEO David Haigh said.

David Haigh

Speaking at a CEOs Breakfast Forum on Business Value Creation Through Brands he said the role of the Government in building this value brand is very vital to capture a bigger share of the value chain.

He said intangible assets have tipped the scales over tangible assets to create value for companies the world over.

“But, the management paradigm has not shifted in tandem with the rising importance of intangible assets,” he said.

“One of the problems compounding this situation is the lack of widely recognized and understood methods for measuring brand value. CEOs have to understand the company heritage, needs, finance and personnel resources when doing brand valuation.

It has to come from business strategy via marketing to brand strategy,” Haigh said.

He emphasised on the role of CEOs in giving the strategic direction and setting overall business strategy in their organisations which is the basis for their brand strategy.

He said brands are the single largest category of intangible assets. Referring to the latest rankings of global brands he said that if not for proper valuation of intangible assets brands like Google could not have been the second most valued brand in the world, whose assets are largely intangible in nature.

He said new international standard, ISO 10668 is divided into three stages as legal analysis, behavioural analysis and financial analysis.

The brands are valuable assets and brand equity affects all stakeholders, therefore brand valuation reflects the future of the company.