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Global Summit of Women 2008
PROTECTING YOUR BRAND: IT AND BEYOND
PHAN THI HOA Chairman & General Director South Trading & Bridge Highway Building Construction Company Limited Phuong nam Co., Ltd Everyone can be a King or Queen In “SOUTHERN PALACE” Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, I would like to express my sincere thanks to Madam Chair, Mrs. Irene Natividad for giving me an opportunity to give speech on a very important and interesting topic “Protecting your Brand”. I started my business early as a trading company specializing in import of raw materials of chemical plastics, cements, fertilizers and motorbikes. Then it was financial crisis in Asia by the 1997 – 1998 (ten years ago). I decided to move into real estate business. I have always a thought how to make my business different from other. There is a boom in construction in Viet Nam. There are a lot of high buildings, villas, new cities everywhere.
What make the life in this building or villas different from other? I was born in a poor family. I have worked very hard since I was a young girl. But from a childhood I have already had a dream of being dressed as a Queen, running in the Royal garden and sleeping in a beautiful bed. I do not think that people dislike luxury even if they are poor. The ideas come up: Why we do not build Royal luxury villas, apartments awarding to people who are intelligent ad working hard. The idea was supported by many of my friends as they have also the same dreams like me. Thus, the Royal Villas and Apartments have been built in the “Southern Palace” high-rise building. All of them were brought within 04 years from the moment of announcement and the Southern Palace become a famous Brand. When you make a tour to some King or Queen palaces (in almost every country), you may be allowed to sit in Queen’s char just a while for a photo to show that you have been a “Queen”/”King”. You can not sit there forever. But living in the Southern Palace, you can sit in the “Queen”/”King'’'s chair for your whole life. However, to allow my clients sitting in the “Queen”/”King”’s chair for their whole life, I have to learning and innovating how to protect and manage well the brand “Southern Palace”. I have 6 lessons that I would like to share with you. It is no doubt that the first thing we have to do is registration of your Brand so that your brand can be protected by the laws. This seems to very obvious and is easily understood , but in emerging economy like Viet Nam, not all of us have been fully aware about that. If you do not register your brand, your ownership will be not recognized by the laws, and your business can be in danger. You may lose not only brand, but also money. Normally, since some businessmen have not understood fully (building a brand). They merely thought as a Logo for brand and posted everywhere or presented on Internet it’s enough; I want to say that: Brand is required safe protection by its own terms for appearing on our Website on purpose of affirming our brand by the law’s barrier as the most safety so that the competitors cannot think to photocopying our brand.
The second: Building a team to manage the Brand. You can do it by yourself or authorize someone. In my case, brand is very important; I am managing it by myself. I create a special corporate culture in the Southern Palace. Our staff understands clearly the meanings behind the Brand and its value: - Both clients and staff are living and working in high intelligent and cultural atmosphere. - Our clients are proud of living in the Southern Palace. - Our staff is proud of having such clients.
Thirdly, keep loyalty to the Brand. We need to maintain and improve the quality of product and services so that the clients have an absolute trust on the “Southern Palace”. I like Japanese style because they have always placed 100% good quality at the top. We always concentrate on the needs of clients for services just right as the standards. For example: All our clients are intelligent people, reading a lot of books. We are responding to their needs by building in the Southern Palace a library. They need green gardens in their house; we make it readily though the building is the center of city. We always tell the truth to the clients, if we do not believe on our brand, we can not expect other people believe on it. We always fulfill the Brand commitments. We are easy to “hurt” the Brand, if we can not fulfill committed product/services, even when it happens only one time to the clients at any time.
Fourth, we continuously create new ideas and innovate product and services. We supply new design, products of better quality than what we advertised. Our competitor can not guess how good the quality of our products is, but we always receive satisfaction from the clients.
Fifth, hearing prudentially feedback of the clients: - We take care on every clients and get feedback from them regularly. - We pay attention on every detail of needs. - We are hearing what people think and talk about our Brand. - We carried out assessment on current brand as needs of the clients are changed. In our plan, we will build more buildings under the “Southern Palace” name to respond on these changed needs.
Sixth, promotion activities need to carried out steadily and consistently. - Use every promotion channels: TV, Newspapers, special event and etc…
Finally, always be responsible to society: \In Viet Nam, there is saying: “The soul can defeat the beauty”. We are building a beautiful and luxurious houses, but we’ve never forgotten that there are still many poor people in the country. The “Southern Palace” spends hundreds thousand USD to help poor and disable people. The “Southern Palace“ awards scholarships to talent young students so that they will help us to protect the brand when they graduate. The “Southern Palace“ donates to the cultural events, making contribution to raising the cultural level of people so that many people can have opportunities to live in nice houses.
I am sure that you will agree with me that development of Brand is easy but it will be more difficult to protect it. That’s why we are here and I much appreciate any lesson and experience from you. Thank you very much for your attention.
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