Datacom to delink corporate name from brand

Datacom Solutions, which has won licences to operate mobile telephony services across India, plans to brand its services by not assigning it the company name, thereby becoming the first Indian telecom operator to experiment with the strategy. 

Datacom’s strategy of building the brand may help it foray into other telecommunication services and the overseas market, say industry analysts. Datacom, a joint venture between Videcon Industries (64 per cent) and Nahata group-owned Jumbo Techno Services (36 per cent), has hired Interbrand, which has presence in 20 countries, as the consultant agency. Interbrand’s clients include BMW, Procter & Gamble, Deutsche Telekom, AT&T, IBM, Gillette and Guinness, among others. 

Datacom CEO Ravi Sharma confirmed the development, adding: “We have appointed Interbrand as our agency to finalise the name and create a distinct personality for the brand. We now look forward to a brand full of freshness and strong appeal. By bringing in a new brand name, Datacom Solutions intends to create value under the specific brand name.” 

Indian telecommunication companies, including Bharti Airtel, Tata Indicom, Reliance Infocomm and others, have marketed the company’s name as the brand in order to exploit the goodwill they have built over the years.