CORPORATE BRAND MANAGEMENT IN THE CONTEXT OF SMEs

This study seeks to better understand corporate branding in the context of SMEs (small and medium sized enterprises) and examines different concepts related to this topic. Even though corporate branding in the context of large organizations is a well-researched topic, significant research gab still exists in the field of branding studies related to SMEs, even though using a corporate brand in the formulation of the SME strategy increases the organization’s ability to compete and generate growth and profitability. This paper is fully focusing to investigate the topic of corporate brand management, not product branding. Corporate branding is a topic closely attached to the latest, since it has the same goal of generating differentiation and preference in the mind of the customer. However, the corporate branding process can be seen as more complex since it is conducted at an organizational level, not at the level of a single product or service, and due to this the process requires dealings with various company levels and stakeholders. This study seeks to find out answers to three main research questions being: How brand orientated are SMEs, or do they even have a brand? How do SMEs differentiate their corporate brand? What brand management barriers do SMEs face?fi=Opinnäytetyö kokotekstinä PDF-muodossa.|en=Thesis fulltext in PDF format.|sv=Lärdomsprov tillgängligt som fulltext i PDF-format