Branding: The CEO's latest challenge.

Byline: Tina Arceo-Dumlao

THE BREAKING down of trade barriers and the influx of different goods from across the globe have made it more difficult for manufacturing and service firms to hold their customers.

In the world as we know it today, there are always new companies producing goods and enticing the consumer. Conversely, there are companies whose products become obsolete in a matter of weeks or months.

This phenomenon of increasingly finicky consumers and shorter life cycles of products have made brands more important to a company than ever before. For many companies, it has become the best way of keeping consumers into their fold, no matter what the other competitor says.

Branding …