Satyam's Mahindra satyam, now
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.