The Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) in collaboration with Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) organised a training programme on ‘power of branding for SMEs’. Tahir Chaudhry, Management Consultant, gave a detailed presentation to the SMEs on the importance of branding for achieving a better growth.
It was stressed that the SMEs were playing a key role in economic development of Pakistan as they constituted about 98 per cent of the total 3.2 million business entities, employed 78 per cent of non-agricultural labour force, contributed 40 per cent to the GDP and promoted 30 per cent of manufactured sector exports of the country, therefore, it was high time that they should focus on developing strong brands to compete more effectively in the highly competitive business environment. This way they will get better penetration in the local and international markets.
It was highlighted that world’s top 250 brands amounted to over US$ 2 trillion while the world’s most valuable brand Coca-Cola had a brand value of over US$ 43 billion. SMEs were apprised that they could achieve many benefits by building brands as good brands tend to add more value to the products, strengthen employees’ loyalty, attract more clients, keep current relationships strong, build confidence, create long-term positive relationship with the customers and enable organisations to achieve sustainable growth.
Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry President AtifIkram Sheikh in his message said that their SMEs were producing many products including sports items, pharmaceuticals, surgical instruments, textile products, engineering goods, leather products, IT & IT enabled products and food products. However, due to lack of branding, many SMEs were not able to get real value of their products in international market while third parties by adding their own labels to their products were achieving better results.
He stressed that SMEDA should facilitate and support SMEs in setting up benchmarks to build brands that could make their mark in the international market. He said the government should provide financial support to SMEs in building strong brands as lack of required capital was a major issues for SMEs in realising these goals. He said more such training programmes should be organised for small and medium enterprises throughout the country which would help SMEs to focus on branding of their products.
