In 1998, Larry Weinbach joined Unisys from Anderson Worldwide. When he
joined Unisys, Weinbach immediately said that the Unisys
brand was
tarnished and decided to rebuild it.
The first stage of the 10-month repositioning project was global research.
Four types of research were conducted: theme analysis, customer perception
sampling, Unisys reputation tracking study, and fortune corporate equity
study. For example, the customer perception sampling research
team asked major worldwide customers
such questions as:
The results of the research were clear and consistent:
-
What customers valued most were the Unisys people they worked with to solve
their business problems.
-
Customers described Unisys as having three important characteristics. They
said Unisys people were (1)
, (2)
technology excellent in implementing them, and (3) tenacious in overcoming
obstacles on the way.
Customers liked very much the “can-do” attitude of the Unisys people
Customers said Unisys people were the kind that “rolled up their sleeves”
and worked alongside them to help them become more
competitive and successful.
Given these research results, there were four themes that Unisys though were
critical positions they could take: technical superiority, global, vertical
expertise, and people
positioning.
The project team developed a specific statement for each positioning theme
and tested the in focus groups around the world (in United States,
Australia, Brazil, China, and Japan). The result was that the people
positioning was the most attractive.
Finally, the project team developed formal internal and external statements
based of people positioning.
Internal Positioning: To large corporations that desire
long-term partnerships to realize business value from the application and
integration of information technology Unisys is thousands of highly skilled
team players and
alliance
partners who are willing to roll up their sleeves and work alongside
you, creating and applying technology until your business problem is solved.
External Positioning: Unisys is 40,000 creative, technically
excellent, tenacious people willing to roll up their sleeves and work
alongside you, creating and applying information technology to help you
solve your business problems. In more than 100 countries around the world,
leading financial services institutions, airlines, communications providers,
commercial
market leaders, and government
agencies rely on Unisys to help them become more competitive and successful.
