Branding an SAP Project

Managers of successful IT projects are often those who bring brand recognition to their project. Successful IT projects have managers that understand the value of communicating regularly to business stakeholders.

The science of brand management brings many marketing communication skills to the arena of project management in order to establish and keep at the forefront the value of the SAP project being engaged in.

Branding has been around for ages. To see branding, we simply have to look at the logos on our favorite products or the slogans, names and colors that are associated our favorite sports teams. These images, colors and phrases are all ways of branding. The purpose is to impress components of your brand – certain colors, key phrases, shapes, images and sounds —into your audience’s mind repeatedly.

SAP Project Branding is to imbue the project with certain qualities or characteristics that make it special or unique. A brand image may be developed by attributing a "personality" to or associating an "image" with a project, whereby the personality or image can be "branded" into the consciousness of End-users.

Not all projects will benefit from branding. If your SAP project is very short-lived or will not have a significant impact on a large number of people, the time and thought spent on branding may be wasted. In order for a brand to be effective, it must have a target upon which to land and the value of the project must merit the effort to brand. In addition, value can be a primary concept conveyed by the brand.

Your SAP project brand will require words, color, and design upon which your communication team will agree. You may require senior management buy in for your brand, to ensure it is in keeping with overarching corporate goals and standards. An ideal brand name or slogan will convey some of the project benefits, thereby reinforcing the project value whenever the brand is used.

As communication experts, your team should be fully competent in the skills required to do so. They’ll include developing style guidelines for your various project communications as well as planning the frequency and scope of such communications so that they are correctly targeted and memorable to those who receive them. Project newsletters, websites, logos, stylized graphics and icons are all vehicles for reinforcing your SAP project brand.

If you think the ideal brand name is SAP ERP Implementation. You should develop your brand around that. Many companies develop a obscure name for example "Vision 2020" and put it on T-shirts the problem is the first question everybody asks is what is "vision 2020" and you have to tell them it's an SAP ERP Implementation. Remember you are not marketing a new car you are marketing an internal IT project. Keep it simple.