A Körber perspective on amplifying your message and maximizing ROI through the power of integration. By Henriette Viebig.

Imagine a B2B company with dozens of brands, thousands of employees across continents, and an ambitious vision to lead in its heterogeneous markets through technology. Now imagine trying to tell one clear, compelling story to customers, talent, and the media – while keeping resources lean and impact high. Welcome to our world at Körber, where we’ve made integration of core disciplines for positioning a day-to-day business imperative.

When I started to lead Körber’s Brand & Communications team [in 2014], we faced a classic B2B challenge: a fragmented brand landscape, siloed communications, no links between communications and marketing teams and tight resources. Our answer – matching the ambitious business transformation plans – was bold: A shift from a holding structure of endorsed brands to a unified master-brand. A strong commitment to a one-team approach delivering more impact for our customers as their one-stop shop.

From the strategic evaluation of this move via implementation and now into the first refresh phase, we paired our endeavors with a fully integrated approach. Why? Because we trust in a simple rule: business strategy and objectives are the core for the brand positioning and strategy. They – together – inform an aligned strategy-set for corporate communications, marketing, sales, and HR to maximize impact for business success. The results speak for themselves: In the first year after switching to one brand we saw a triple-digit growth in digital reach, a surge in sales leads, multiplied applications and a brand-matching culture evolving where every colleague is clear about what it takes for him or her to contribute to turning our entrepreneurial thinking and technological power into customer success. We now have about 13K experts globally enabled to be brand ambassadors in the best business sense.

The business case: efficiency, effectiveness, and impact

In today’s B2B world, every euro (or dollar) and every minute count. According to Gartner, integrated campaigns across four or more channels outperform single or dual-channel efforts by 300% – and are 31% more effective at building brands (Kantar Millward Brown). Thus, for companies with limited resources, integration isn’t just nice to have; it’s the only scalable way to amplify your message and maximize ROI.

At Körber, we’ve seen firsthand how aligning internal communications, PR, digital, and marketing creates efficiencies of scale. Our teams align and co-create content, share analytics, and synchronize messaging for both external and internal audiences. The result? Fewer duplicated efforts, faster go-to-market, and a unified voice that resonates from the C-suite to the shop floor.

The secret sauce: cross-functional collaboration

Integration works best when it’s more than an org chart exercise. But many of you might have been in the place we were in at the start of becoming really one organization with one vision, one business strategy, one brand, and one culture: People who’ve been working in silos, often not even aware of what complementing functions were up to, stared at us in disbelief and fear. So, we took it upon us to share, create transparency, talk about benefits and celebrate successes jointly and regularly to overcome these fears.

Today our approach brings together brand & communications experts, strategic and operational marketeers, and HR as equal partners. For external audiences, this means PR activities and campaigns that blend thought leadership, product storytelling, and employer branding. For internal audiences, it means that every employee – from assembly operator to engineer to executive – understands and lives up to our brand purpose. Are we done yet? Of course not. But with tailwind from the past five years, we feel empowered and motivated to continue winning over new colleagues as fans of or contributors to for what Körber stands for, from their first touchpoint with us.

The AI advantage: consistency at scale

AI meanwhile is the ultimate enabler for integrated communications and marketing. At Körber, we are piloting AI-powered assistants as work buddies to ensure brand and messaging consistency across languages, markets, and channels. Whether supporting us in initial drafts of press releases, social posts, or internal updates, our AI assistant with the beautiful name “love-brand” helps us maintain our unique tone and style, personalizes content for different audiences, and accelerates asset production without sacrificing quality. With promising initial results within the top expert community, we look forward to expanding the user circle soon.

Research shows that AI-driven content generation can significantly enhance brand consistency and operational efficiency. We could not agree more. Being a brand consistency officer is not a fun job. It’s energy sapping. We have automated support in this nasty task and to focus on creating impact that amplifies the efforts of our sales teams as well as those of our recruiters. I am convinced this is critical for B2B firms – especially those mixed portfolio companies like Körber – who are managing complex technology stacks and industry environments and thus a diverse universe of stakeholders globally. The future – if not yet the present – of successful brand, marketing and communications is integrated, and it is the dream team human-plus-AI that eases this integration.

Measuring what matters: integrated brand value

Integration doesn’t end with execution; it extends to measurement. At Körber, we’ve developed a holistic communication dashboard that tracks relevant metrics (e.g. media coverage, digital engagement, reputation score) and – combined with a couple of other key business figures – shows the respective impact on the overall brand value. This measurement follows ISO 10668 standard, combining financial, legal, and behavioral (AI-driven reputation) factors. We are benchmarking ourselves against around 30 industry peers.

On top of this tool being an asset already, we can now prove the business value of what we do, and the results speak loud and clear:

• Körber’s brand value rose by 19% year-over-year in 2024, driven mainly by a significant improvement in reputation due to communication- and marketing-influenced activities.
• Körber’s brand is outperforming peers with higher revenue but lower brand efficiency.

The annual evaluation cycle enables continuous goal setting and adjustment, ensuring that our brand, marketing and communication strategies support long-term growth and align with business objectives.

What’s next? Off to increasing synergies

The old B2B playbook with separate teams, separate budgets, separate KPIs is obsolete in my humble opinion. The future belongs to companies that tear down boundaries and build joint taskforces out of brand-, communications-, marketing-, and those HR-teams that focus on culture, development and recruiting. Will this be easy? No. Will this be quick? Depends. The aspired integration starts with a fresh mindset. One is about seeing every touchpoint with humans – regardless of them being in- or outside the organization – as a chance to reinforce the unique brand story, engage people, and deliver value to customers. Or in short: build trust. All of this is core for successful business in a world that is ever more uncertain and unpredictable.

As communicators, we have a unique opportunity – and responsibility – to lead this transformation. We should always bravely speak up for what we understand to be the future. At Körber, we’re proud to be frontrunners and ambassadors for this truly integrated approach. The journey isn’t always a day at the beach, but the rewards – in efficiency, effectiveness, and brand impact – are worth every step.

Final thought: make it fun, keep it human

Integration is serious change, but it’s also a source of creativity and joy. Some of my best and most impactful ideas along the journey so far have come from spontaneous cross-team brainstorms, unexpected data insights, or a well-timed AI idea. The magic happens when people, processes, data, and technology come together for a shared vision.

So, let’s keep challenging boundaries, building bridges, and having fun along the way.

The author

Henriette Viebig is EVP Brand & Communications at Körber, where she oversees comprehensive internal and external communications together with the brand. With well over 25 years of experience in strategic corporate communications and brand management, she drives impactful storytelling and cultural transformation while pioneering excellence and adaptation of AI for professional communicators.

Photo credit: Markus Köller, 2024.

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