Effective Brand management with Anti-Counterfeiting Solutions

The business landscape with its technology enabled environment has provided enterprise

opportunities to expand globally and find a strong web footing. Through the process of building

their business, enterprises tend to create a relationship with their customers. By maintaining a

strong brand worldwide enterprise can maintain a strong customer base. As the brand is not just a

trademark or name but an enterprise’s identity, reflecting its intrinsic nature and character, every

enterprise needs to protect it. However, with the ever changing demands of the customers,

enterprises are challenged to upgrade the technology, products and services. Such environmental

changes pave the way for online frauds, copyright and patent thefts and counterfeiting activities.

Wikipedia defines branding as "the process of creating a relationship or a connection between a

company's product and emotional perception of the customer for the purpose of generating

segregation among the competition and building loyalty among customers”. Brand management

thus aims to create an emotional connection between products, enterprise and their customers.

However, when security threats loom large over the enterprises, it directly affects the brand.

Hence, while working towards successful brand management, enterprises need to understand the

type of threats and their origin.

Counterfeiting , a major threat that affects the brand reputation refers to the manufacturing and

selling of illegal imitation of products, brands, documents, software, works of art, trademarks,

patents and even currencies with an intention of deceiving the customers and making fast money.

In spite of strict regulations against counterfeiting, this parallel market still thrives, especially with

the advent of eCommerce. As per the study conducted by the Counterfeiting Intelligence Bureau

(CIB) of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC), the counterfeited goods have a 5 to 7%

market share that makes up for almost $700 billion a year

The wide use of the internet and e-commerce has further helped counterfeiters to sell their

products online. As this affects the bottom line of the enterprise, organizations need to invest in

anti-counterfeiting solutions to combat counterfeit threats. With brand management, promotion

and brand reputation playing a major role in the market place, anti-counterfeiting solutions will

facilitate enterprises to protect their brands, leading to increased market share and higher revenue

generation.

For effective brand management, there are a number of leading service providers who offer

anti-counterfeiting solutions incorporated with a number of quantitative methods. Such solutions

will not only protect the brands from fraudulent products but will also stop them from infringing on

the brand's reputation. Effective anti-counterfeiting solutions will identify the counterfeit copies

of any product that are sold illegally. Further by deploying intelligent practices these solutions can

not only identify violators but also assess the level of risk, monitor their activities in real-time

enabling enterprises to take up corrective measures.

Read More About: enterprise risk management, gray market