IP Solutions has changed, we are now Babble. Or more precisely, IP Solutions UK Limited is now called Babble Cloud Limited. I thought I would share a bit of background on why we’ve changed as this was a very personal project for me.
Coming up with a new name always seems like a fun project to begin with, but those who have been through this know that these are about as painful as projects get. My idea of hell is sitting in a room full of “experts” debating the relative merits of Orbit versus Vertex. Having already led an (admittedly much larger) business that spent a seven-figure sum on a rebrand, I know that these can be financial blackholes. I decided on a quick and simple approach. We didn’t use an agency, we didn’t market test, we just made a decision and got on with it.
A company’s name isn’t the difference between success and failure – delivering value to customers is what makes that difference. So, why did I kill the old name? Simple, I don’t like the term “solutions”. Customers have always bought “solutions” to their problems even when bad salespeople have been doing their worst to just sell products. It’s just tired and meaningless. Private Eye publish a column called Solutions which highlights/ridicules organisations that misuse it (one company described cardboard boxes as “Christmas Ornament Storage Solutions”) and I have sympathy with their view on the term, and it’s not the first time I’ve changed a company name to get away from it either. Any business that is not delivering solutions is going to struggle.
So why Babble? At a recent event in Sicily I overheard one of my more “creatively-minded” colleagues tell a prospect that “we help companies have more productive and profitable conversations” – I liked this. So, when Babble came up on the list of possible names, it jumped out. Babble is, at its heart, a conversation company. We deliver the technology that enables better and more profitable conversations. OK, our customers aren’t babbling, for the most part, but it’s all about optimising the conversation – whether between colleagues or with customers. And it doesn’t matter to us whether that conversation is held via instant chat, social media or the telephone – we’re there to help make that conversation more effective.
That’s it. As from today we are Babble. I hope you like it, but as long as we stay focused on making sure our customers get value from what we do then we will all be happy. Next time you want to make your babble more profitable at least you’ll know who to call.
