This milestone shows that Bruneian companies are serious about engaging their staff in building sustainable brand cultures to enhance their business advantage.
Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei Darussalam (29/07/2011) – As DST, Brunei’s leader in telecommunications and media services, today launched its new brand identity and experience, it became the country’s first homegrown company to complete a comprehensive organisational branding exercise.
Unlike cosmetic branding that stopped at the development of a new logo, the exercise conducted by Consulus Sdn Bhd, an organisational brand consultancy in Asia, required an in-depth study involving business processes, workplace dynamics and customer relationships in order to forge an enduring internal brand culture that fosters interdependence and innovation from the inside out.
“It was an intense process. We’ve done similar exercises in other countries, but this was the first that we completed in Brunei. To do a 360-degree business study, our management consultants had to ask many difficult questions, but the top management were very open and committed to the process. They made a personal effort to explain the new brand strategy to the staff, which I believe helped to ensure buy-in from the 600 in the company,” Lawrence Chong, Director for Strategy at Consulus, said.
Apart from developing new purpose, vision and mission statements and a brand model to guide the strategy and culture at DST, designers from Consulus worked together to develop a unique visual identity for the brand. As the designers were involved right from the business research phase, they were able to draw inspiration from not only the DST staff but also Bruneian culture.
The new visual identity built on the simpur flower, which had been part of the DSTCom logo. The kaleidoscope effect reflected DST’s purpose of being the catalyst in Brunei’s ICT industry, while the five letter Ds expressed the unity of the DST family in delivering a cohesive experience.
“It’s always tough to create a logo that has to stand for many things. In this case we had to consider symbols of both DST and Brunei. At the same time we needed something fresh to represent technology, something that would inspire the staff. Everyone in DST loved it. I am glad our team got it right,” Rawi Ahmed, Director at Consulus, said.
The rebranding launch was but the first step. Over the coming months DST will introduce a series of activities to keep the momentum. These include the Future Fund, a CSR initiative that aims to nurture promising Bruneian ICT companies, which Consulus also helped to develop.
“We are increasing our commitments in Brunei, as the market is growing. We’ve been fortunate to work on very interesting projects here, from the Wish Campaign with Bank Islam Brunei Darussalam (BIBD) to Serijunjung. That’s why we decided to set up an office in Brunei in 2010 after being here for more than four years. We intend to do our best to help Bruneian companies build their brands from the inside out to become global players,” Florence Oh, Chairman at Consulus, said.
Visit the DST website for more information.
