Building Brand Trust in Global Markets: A Strategic Study on B2B Import-Export Businesses

This paper presented an investigation to look into the relationship between brand trust in B2B import-export business and it investigated the main factors affecting the building of brand trust in international markets. The results indicate that trust in brand has become a very important strategic asset for companies with activities in increasingly competitive and interdependent situations in international commerce. Study findings revealed that product quality, reliability of the service, corporate image and communication transparency are the essentials to build business customers' trust. Consequently, a company that is consistently making quality products, and rendering dependable services, continuity with individuals and a good corporate image will more readily build a customer relationship and trust. Another finding of the study is that there are three phenomena which can be yielded from trust: (1) Uncertainty reduction, (2) Perceived reduction of business risk, and (3) Relationship stability between buyer and supplier. Another very important topic of import export business with B2Bs is trust which is related to selection of supplier, costomer maintenance, repeat customer and extended grooms of the organisation. From the results, general guidelines could be conceived as an investment strategy instead of a marketing project: think of trust building. By engaging with customers, participating in other aspects of business, and communicating customer issues, businesses can improve their chances of success and outcompete their rivals in the global market. The observations of the importance of brand trust provide a perspective which very few participants, sampling technique and self reported answers are limitations of the study. The numbers and samples in various industry and countries could increase Abec's development of research. Discussion about the impact of current megatrends, including digital transformation, artificial intelligence, sustainability, cybersecurity and cross-cultural communication can also be included. Moreover, there could be differences in the approaches to building customer confidence and some of these differences could be explained through a crossregional and sectoral comparison. Global trade is currently in a state of change and as a result there will be an increased demand for sustained trust in the future, and organisations need to constantly update their relationship management activities and invest in projects that help them to increase trust, confidence and continued stakeholder relationships in global trade.

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