Research Questions: How do consulting companies work to strengthen the brand's structure?What impact does brand equity and its components have on consulting firms? Purpose: The purpose of this study is to contribute with new knowledge as well as increase the understanding of brand equity and how its components contribute to strengthening the consultancy's brand. The study also aims to explore how companies create competitive advantages in a constantly evolving market.                                                                                                                              Method: Qualitative method with four semi-structured interviews. Conclusion: The result of this study show that the consulting companies are activelyworking with three aspects within the company in order to strengthen the brand and its structure. All aspects are about the company being innovative, working on and completing internal factors that develop the corporate culture and its values for them to be reflected externally as well as how the companies meet the customers’ needs in terms of results and performance. The result also show that the researched consulting companies work around strengthening the brand structure by taking into account of aspects that also are found in Keller’s Customer Based Brand Equity Model (CBBE Model). / Frågeställning: Hur arbetar konsultföretag med att stärka varumärkets uppbyggnad?Vilken inverkan har brand equity och dess komponenter på konsultföretag? Syfte: Syftet med denna undersökning är att med ny kunskap bidra samt öka förståelsen om brand equity och hur dess komponenter bidrar till att stärka konsultföretagens varumärke. Studien ämnar även till att undersöka hur företagen kan skapa konkurrensfördelar i en ständigt utvecklande marknad. Metod: Studien är av kvalitativ metod där fyra semistrukturerade intervjuer utförts i syfte att besvara forskningsfrågan, som vidare analyserades genom tematisk metod. Slutsats: Resultaten av denna studie visar att konsultföretagen aktivt arbetar kring tre aspekter i syfte till att stärka varumärket och dess uppbyggnad. Samtliga handlar om att företaget ska vara innovativt, att bearbeta och komplettera interna faktorer som utvecklar företagskulturen och dess värderingar för dessa att speglas externt och om hur företagen uppfyller kundernas behov i form av resultat och prestationer. Resultaten visar även på att de undersökta konsultföretagen arbetar kring att stärka varumärkesuppbyggnaden genom att de tar hänsyn till aspekter som också återfinns i Keller´s Customer Based Brand Equity Model.

In the business-to-business sector, the brand owner´s employees are increasingly playing a key role in terms of representing the brand to existing and potential customer. The role of a well-established internal brand equity can give a business-to Business Company the edge it needs in the market today. Internal branding has recently emerged as an important issue in industrial market. This study aims to find out how internal brand equity and its determinants affect the external brand equity of business-to-business companies. This study is based on previous research of internal brand equity in business-to-business setting. In this study four hypothesis were tested. Surveys were conducted among manufacturing and promotional companies in Sweden and Latvia, which resulted in 94 complete and useful response with a response-rate of 28.3%. The findings offer evidence, that internal brand equity with determinants have a great impact on the external brand equity of a firm.