Tech Mahindra hopes its “additive refresh” will enhance international model perceptions and place the agency as a pacesetter in its class.
The IT providers and consulting agency was based in 1989 and has since change into a $6.5bn (£4.9bn) model and one in all India’s largest IT companies. The brand new model id – which sees the enterprise undertake a purple lozenge icon in its emblem – is what CMO Peeyush Dubey dubs an “additive refresh”, moderately than tearing up all the pieces that got here earlier than.
Tech Mahindra hopes its “additive refresh” will enhance international model perceptions and place the agency as a pacesetter in its class.
The IT providers and consulting agency was based in 1989 and has since change into a $6.5bn (£4.9bn) model and one in all India’s largest IT companies. The brand new model id – which sees the enterprise undertake a purple lozenge icon in its emblem – is what CMO Peeyush Dubey dubs an “additive refresh”, moderately than tearing up all the pieces that got here earlier than.
“We’re not taking something away from the model,” he explains. “Our values and our goal keep the identical, that doesn’t change, and that’s a message to our 150,000 staff that this isn’t harmful or that all the pieces we’re doing has modified. Nevertheless it is a chance for us to outline our message much more.”
Dubey believes the time was proper to make the change for 3 causes. The enterprise has a brand new CEO in Mohit Joshi, the arrival of AI means it can not “go to market” in the identical means it at all times has and, apparently, Tech Mahindra needs to spice up international perceptions.
“We have been missing in being seen as a world firm like we’re,” explains Dubey. “We’re in 90 international locations, however we’re seen as an Indian firm working in 90 international locations. We need to be seen as a world firm that occurs to be headquartered in India. Like how Samsung is a Korean enterprise, but it surely serves your entire world.”
The refresh is a method to “contact these communities” in a greater means and current itself in a brand new gentle as a result of, as Dubey places it, a few of its design language “got here throughout as very Indian and never present”.
The refresh can also be a possibility to throw extra weight behind the ‘Scale at Velocity’ model platform, which is Tech Mahindra’s pitch to shoppers that it could possibly supply the dimensions of a giant enterprise with the pace of a startup.
“The place we are saying you can scale at pace, that then turns into a really distinctive promise that Tech Mahindra makes to its stakeholders,” he provides.
How one B2B large discovered the ‘good answer’ to its model structure problemOne of a very powerful elements of this refresh is the chance for Tech Mahindra to take a look at its wider model structure. The enterprise owns greater than 50 sub-brands – most of which have been acquired over its lengthy historical past – and cohesion between every has been missing.
The corporate has created what it calls the “orbit mannequin”, whereby every model was assessed by its relative closeness to the Tech Mahindra masterbrand. These fall into three classes: sub-brands, endorsed manufacturers and unbiased manufacturers.
“We checked out how precisely are we going to phase all these corporations one after the other and combine them into the mothership higher,” says Dubey.
“That’s the course of that we’re on. It should, after all, take the following three to 6 months. However the excellent news is that we now have a transparent means wherein every one in all these will go ahead. Now we have been discussing with the advertising and marketing leads somewhere else and slowly bringing them into this bigger umbrella.”
This all ties into the bigger objective of guaranteeing Tech Mahindra is perceived as a world model. Dubey is conscious that higher integrating the manufacturers it has acquired – resembling Irish digital providers firm Perigord and New Zealand-based administration guide Tenzing – will enhance its international picture.
“These corporations are very international, however they’re additionally very native to their market,” he explains. “For us to combine these manufacturers and their staff will definitely make our outlook much more international for Tech Mahindra.”
Not that the model needs to hurry these modifications via. Dubey says it’s necessary to not be “utterly blind” to the macroeconomic challenges that the majority companies are going through as much as proper now and demanding that issues change “in a single day” just isn’t going to assist.
It’s what he means by an additive refresh. If an workplace in Latvia, for instance, is coming as much as the top of its lease then the enterprise will handle any modifications when it strikes to a brand new location.
“Extra necessary is the truth that we create the best narrative, which is cohesive, and that’s how we construct the purchase in for everybody,” he provides.
Sector modifications
Dubey has labored inside B2B advertising and marketing for the higher a part of 20 years and in that point has seen the event of the business from being sales-led to specializing in the folks making the choices.
Furthermore, he’s impressed by the extent of mass personalisation that’s achievable within the B2B area, going from “throwing a dart at midnight” to having the ability to converse “one to at least one” with potential prospects.
He factors out Tech Mahindra solely targets the two,000 largest firms on the planet and inside that there’ll solely be 20 folks he wants to focus on.
“Primarily my market is 40,000 folks on the planet, proper?” he notes.
Nevertheless, the extent of “sophistication” trendy advertising and marketing instruments supply means he is aware of precisely when is the best time to place his advertising and marketing comms in entrance of the best purchaser when they are going to be most receptive to the message. The outdated adage that half of your advertising and marketing funds is wasted, you simply don’t know which half, has change into a factor of the previous.
“Any marketer in 2025 that that may disguise behind that quote just isn’t shifting with the occasions, as a result of it’s exhausting to say what half just isn’t working,” he says. “You do need to hold attempting issues and there may be advertising and marketing spend that doesn’t work, however it is rather clear what’s working and what’s not.”
Fintech model Sokin on the ‘credibility’ it features from sports activities partnershipsThe previous decade has additionally seen sports activities sponsorship transfer from being the protect of FMCG manufacturers to a channel B2B companies have more and more investing behind.
Tech Mahindra isn’t any completely different, though its chosen sport is actually an uncommon one. In 2023, the agency introduced it was the chief sponsor behind the newly inaugurated International Chess League, a franchise chess match that introduced the most effective gamers on the planet collectively in a glitzy new format.
For Dubey, it was necessary the enterprise invested behind one thing it believed would supply true differentiation moderately than “slapping our emblem on a stadium” and paying hundreds of thousands for the privilege. Chess, in any case, is thought for “mind, technique, the early mover benefit and risk-taking”, explains Dubey, issues a tech consulting firm “must be speaking about”.
“It permits us to dominate an area. Fairly than take an space like a Method 1, which is already saturated and simply put a small emblem someplace. We wished to dominate an area early after which go along with it,” he explains.
Based on Dubey, chess additionally permits Tech Mahindra to “join” with senior executives who benefit from the sport differently to extra conventional sponsorships.
In-keeping with somebody who enjoys taking part in chess, it’s unsurprising he’s already pondering a number of years forward in relation to the outcomes of the model refresh.
“My intention over the following two to 3 years is to get the next proportion of unaided consciousness. The place if any person asks ‘What are the highest 5 corporations that come to thoughts if you consider tech consulting providers?’ Tech Mahindra is one in all them,” Dubey concludes.
