Brand Value, Differentiation and Value

According to the interviews, the CC brand creates value and differentiates itself mainly with:

• Integration skills

• Experience and references

• Performance, quality and control system

• Wide range of offerings

Integration skills (n=13) refer to the ability to integrate together almost any set of machine tools into a working entity including huge amount of competence especially in software engineering. In practice, this means that the solutions are highly customized according to the customer needs. One manager explains the integrator policy:

“We are not committed to any machine tool brand but we have over 60, it think closer to 70 machine tool brands which we have integrated into these systems.”

Later on the same manager continued to explain how the integrator policy differentiates the company:

“…plus the factor that in our automation system many machine tools from different manufactures can be combined. Nobody does that. I mean nobody. We have done many of them. Additionally to our system one can integrate materials and these machine tool pallets and different size of pallets. -- Another differentiating factor is of course our control [system].”

The experience and amount of references was mentioned by most of the respondents (n=12) as a differentiating factor. The long history of the company in addition of being the largest player in the FMS-integration business contributes to a high degree of experience and eventually reliability. The long history and references provide a trustworthy position for the company:

“If we now think about things in the corporate level, we have long history in FMS, maybe in robotics [we are] not as prominent but in the FMS now over 31 years.

And then the amount of references. With different machines.”

In practice the large number of references ensures the customer that the risks involved are under control as explained by one manager:

“…and then solutions already carried out at least one or multiple times which ensure the customer that the risk is under control and there is no fear that the system would not do what it was supposed to.”

The perceived size of the company is also quite important factor creating reliability as another respondent stated:

“In the eyes of many customers CC is a lot bigger player than it actually is -- It is a differentiating factor because, as we spoke earlier about how important, how critical these investments are to the customers so that if one thinks that it [CC] is big in terms of finances and resources and also in other ways a supplier who can a) provide what it has committed to and b) react in an efficient way when there are some problems.”

The performance, quality and control of the systems (n=9) was addressed by many managers. This category consists of references to the mechanical quality and performance of the solutions but also to the control system as explained by one respondent:

“Even if one had the finest software to control this system but if the mechanical performance and mechanical reliability is not at its right place so, in the end, it does not support the value sought after – CC has succeeded to position [itself] in a way that what has been delivered in terms of mechanics and technology it has been robust and functional.”

In the automation solutions, control system is nowadays very prominent part creating a competitive advantage in many ways as explained by one manager while discussing how the control system can be used as a differentiator:

“Well, today the value of the control system is more often in major role because there is a need to connect together even more complicated systems and there is a need to get more information out of the system. -- Using the system should be

relatively easy that it is not like that you need a university degree for using it -- If you can create that kind of control system that the customer finds easy to use, it is a hit.”

Furthermore, many respondents (n=7) also explicitly mentioned the wide range of offerings as a differentiating factor. One manager eagerly praised the range of offerings being a unique factor:

“And another thing is this scope: no one has this kind of range of offerings, I mean as wide as ours.”

The main perspectives of which the managers believe customers are interested in CC’s systems are presented below. These views are supposed to reflect the customer needs and eventually also how the brand creates value:

• Reliability and competence

• Payback-time and pricing

• Technical quality and performance

• Fits customer needs

• Ease of use

• Commissioning (delivery)

• Enhance production

The subject of reliability was mentioned by almost every respondent in some form (n=17) including references to company competences which ultimately drives the reliability. The second common subject (n=6) is finances referring the length of payback period and sometimes the investment price. With equal amount of mentions followed the technical quality and performance of the system including also mentions about software or filling the specifications. The suitability and ease of use received 5 mentions, respectively. Ease of use refers for example to user interface and appears as simplicity. The two last perspectives were the commissioning and enhancement of production capacity meaning that the commissioning has to be reliable and in schedule and the system has to provide the value it is promising: increasing production capability and flexibility. Thus the summarized view is to understand that reliability is present in every part of the solution with major focus on technical quality, fulfilling customer needs by increasing production capacity and flexibility (profitable small batch size

production). Additionally the system has to have a relatively short paypack-period, commissioned on time and it needs to be easy to use.