About the client company
Genesis Communications Limited (now Outsourcery) was a mobile voice and data provider previously owned by DSG International. In March 2007, Piers Linney and Simon Newton led a management buyout of the business and the company underwent a dramatic transformation to become the UK’s market leader in integrated hosted IT and unified communications solutions for SMEs. Outsourcery is able to offer SMEs complete IT and communications solutions hosted in its data centres removing the need for customers to invest in software or hardware or its maintenance.
Outsourcery won the ‘SME Hosted Communications Solution of the Year’ at the 2009 Comms National Awards. Outsourcery’s rapid development was endorsed by Microsoft when they named Outsourcery their ‘Worldwide Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year 2010.’ Meaning Outsourcery is No. 1 in the world for Microsoft hosting innovation and development, recognition that owes an enormous amount brand awareness campaigns and PR. See: www.outsourcery.co.uk/about/history
Strategy – broader issues the company is facing
Genesis Communications had a poor reputation in the marketplace as a ‘fly-by-night’ business mobile provider with many unhappy customers. The management buyout and subsequent acquisitions created multiple challenges including brand persona, ethos and internal cultures. The businesses needed to be brought together under a single brand that reflected the company vision to become number one in the UK for hosting and communications.
Objectives of the campaign
Brand agency Figtree worked with us to develop a strong personality that would drive commercial success by:
- Resonating with employees, prospects and customers
- Appealing to MDs and FDs, not just IT
- Addressing issues faced by SMEs
- Allowing us to move to a ‘unified’ offering
Figtree created the name ‘Outsourcery’ and developed powerful, imagery which stood out against our competitors. The strap line ‘Changing Work for Good’ is multi-layered in that it claims there is a better way to work, implies productivity and is not time constrained – it’s unending.
The target audience
The rebrand targeted existing customers and prospects with the message ‘there’s a better way to work.’
With over 300 hosting providers in the UK and as many mobile providers, the space is a busy one. Customers are looking to maximise return on every penny, therefore using a single provider of multiple communication and IT services brings time and cost benefits with a single contact for support.
Typically, SMEs have found accessing advanced technological solutions is expensive and time consuming. Outsourcery offers SMEs the latest Microsoft technology at a fraction of the ‘expected’ price which levels the playing field between them and their larger competitors.
Media, channels or techniques used
Figtree’s four step process was: Understand & Develop (1), Create (2), Refine (3), Plan & Produce (4).
Understand & Develop gathered information through customers, suppliers, competitors and stakeholders to identify challenges and outline our position in the market to create our ‘brand DNA.’ Create gave us a verbal and visual identity that brought the agreed positioning to life, in order to standout to SME’s. Refine was the development of visual identity and Plan & Produce turned theory into reality for customers across multiple applications.
This research identified that Figtree had the right ingredients in place, it had more than products to talk about and it had good chemistry for SMEs. However, it was a busy space, existing customers would be hard to up-sell to, our offer was complex for new customers and we needed to win SME’s trust. This was translated into our identity and Outsourcery was born.
FIgtree bought the domain name ‘Outsourcery.’ The main website and the partner website were redesigned and rewritten. Figtree created animations for both sites.
Main Outsourcery website; www.outsourcery.co.uk
Outsourcery partner website: http://partners.outsourcery.co.uk/
Timescales of the campaign
We decided to rebrand the business in December 2008, due to the poor reputation of Genesis, the misalignment of the four businesses and the need for a positive culture change. Figtree were selected to deliver the rebrand and work commenced in January 2009 with a planned launch date of 1st May. Timescales slipped mainly due to discussions within the stakeholder groups at each stage which meant the external launch happened on 8 July 2009 with an internal launch two weeks prior.
Results
Press coverage
- Advertising Value Equivalency (AVE) June 2009 £17,721
- May 2010 AVE was £193,893
- 1211 per cent increase in our press coverage
- Rebrand coverage £116,575
Website
- 57 per cent increase in visitors to website since we have rebranded
- 31.8 per cent increase in ‘Outsourcery’ related web traffic
- After rebrand conversion ratio of leads from website more than doubled from 12 per cent to 26 per cent
Success since rebrand:
- Revenue from hosted products increased by 169 per cent between January 2009 and May 2010
- 121 per cent increase in customer subscriptions over last year
- Generated 350 per cent rise in inbound enquiries for hosted solutions in the first quarter of 2010
The Source
The first issue of The Source featured the rebrand and a history of Outsourcery. It was distributed to 6,000 customers and 57,000 prospects.
Client testimonial
“The rebrand marks a bold repositioning strategy for the company since the MBO, with the past three years seeing the acquisition of specialist providers, the launch of a suite of new products and a rapid diversification from our former business mobile model. It shows we’re serious about our goal of offering one of the UK’s leading UC product sets and has significantly strengthened our position with Microsoft, who endorsed the rebrand stating proof of our commitment to the hosted marketplace in line with their own strategy. It was almost certainly a key success factor to becoming their Worldwide Hosting Solutions Partner of the Year 2010.
Feedback from customers and partners confirmed the need for change, and integration of the multiple business brands was essential. The Genesis brand had run its course and was tired. For staff, it was about bringing together the different brands and people under a single ethos and giving them a strong brand personality to believe in.
The overall success of the new brand and our status as Microsoft’s #1 Worldwide Hosting Partner is testament to the hard work, commitment and ongoing drive for success across the whole of the business.”
Kath Dewar, marketing director of Outsourcery.
