Power Shift - From Products to Brands and Services

Continuing my read of 'No Logo' and it rues the fact about how the business has changed over the years and how it is changing in the new economy. After the manufacturing age, where product was everything, the new business mantra is 'we are in the business of building brands'.

However, for some industries, there is another angle, which I want to explain here.
Emphasis on branding might look overkill and a misplaced business strategy and against the consumer's interests, but for software companies and many other businesses and their customers, this philosophy has done more good than harm. Branding has prompted organizations to think beyond selling the product and emphasise on the post sales relationship with their customers. A satisfied customer is pre-requisite to their branding efforts.

Think about the time when 'churn baby churn' was the only business strategy in software sector where the only aim was to release next version with more features ASAP, no matter how much testing has been done, no matter how much supportability has been built into the organization.

After the bubble burst in year 2000, things have changed. And the power has shifted from product to service. Because in their quest to build a better brand, companies are investing heavily in the service side of their business. So much so that product has been almost made redundant. Popularity of Linux and other open source as well as SaaS (Software as a Service)indicates a clear shift taking place from product to services. In fact SaaS makes the product irrelevant and the only thing a customer expects is service. And some business pundits are even forecasting that in few years time, software will be free of cost, it will only be the service that will earn revenue.

So it is not surprising that companies are aware of increasing importance of service in building their brands and hence branding is not that bad for either business or customers.

Social Impact of Superstore Economy

Just started reading this interesting book named 'No Logo' by Naomi Klein wherein she has written about how branding has become almost everything in today's corporate world and how these super brands are intruding into every aspects of our lives in order to sell more, at any cost.

While one may not agree with all what she has against branding, there are some compelling arguments which makes it a good read.
Out of I have read so far, one thing which has strike most to me is her argument about how the invent of superstores has changed the social fabric in every country. Now as the UK, where I am currently living, already had an established superstore culture when I came here, I cannot see what impact it has brought socially. However, being from India, where superstore culture has just caught up (in fact right now there all only malls which are not superstores in real sense, as their merchandise range is smaller to superstores and generally excludes grocery) I can see this happening, and there is a perceptible change in buying habits of people already.
People are buying more and impulsively, the buying decision making has shifted from only men to whole family including kids, and branding has become more important.

However, these are also a sign of rising income levels (though mall culture has a lot to take credit for all the changes in buying habits of people). But what can only be attributed to superstores (or malls in case of India, so far) is the changing patterns of social interactions.

Parks have been replaced by malls for whatever purpose there were used earlier - dating or for family outing on Sundays. The whole idea of weekend entertainment, which earlier meant visiting friends and relatives or fairs or watching a movie with whole family has been overturned and weekend has now come with in confines of malls.

There used to be a lot more time which could be spent on the shop on street corner, gossiping about and analysing every news broadcast on the radio. Now people prefer to spend their time on branded stores in these malls and finding out what's Britney Spears latest problem.
Time is always short on these malls.

This might be the phenomenon in metros as of now, but once these markets are saturated with enough malls and superstores, will it not be turn of smaller town and take this social shift to the next level?