In a bid to distance itself from its troubled past, Indian Outsourcing giant Satyam has changed its name to Mahindra Satyam.

Tech Mahindra bought Satyam Computer Services after the owners were locked up for fiddling the books and the outfit was found to be missing about a billion dollars. There were fears that even after the buy out, punters and investors would not go near the outfit with a barge poll.

It seems that Mahindra decided to call in a emergency team of marketing people to solve the problem. Their logic must have been that both Mahindra and Satyam were still big names in the outsourcing world and so therefore the brands should be united. According to Anand Mahindra, vice-chairman and managing director, Mahindra Group, the re-branding exercise reflects an amalgamation of the Mahindra Group's values with Satyam's expertise, retaining a part of Satyam's identity that "signifies commitment, purpose and proficiency of the organisation and its people".

It is a logic that might have worked if one of the brands, Satyam, was not associated with corruption and fraud, and tainted. The name 'Mahindra Satyam' is not really different enough to give the outfit a new brand identity.