Subex Kills Azure, Gives Life To Data Integrity

2007 has been a good year for people paid to market Subex. At the start of the year, Subex Azure rebranded all their products in an attempt to emphasise their role as pioneers of the ROC, the Revenue Operations Centre. Now, after a long wait, Subex has decided to eliminate the last reminder of the Azure takeover, by changing its name from Subex Azure to just Subex.

Along with the name change comes a new look. According to Sanjeev Gadre, Vice President – Marketing, Subex Ltd,

“The stylised ‘X’ in the new Subex logo stands for the `X’ factor that sets Subex apart in its domain. The colours purple and yellow are warm and reiterate Subex’s vigour and passion. The usage of the lowercase type is representative of the company’s youthful dynamism. The straight and thick lines are evocative of the strength with which the company leads the industry.”

They obviously put quite a lot of thought into the new logo. There was I thinking that the X marks the graves of all those businesses that Subex has acquired along the way…

The strange thing about the timing of the rebrand is that it comes just after another interesting move by Subex. Just a few days earlier Subex launched a new Data Integrity Management (DIM) Practice. The press release uses the old Subex Azure logo [cold red and black, elderly upper case type, wonky thin lines representing weakness, a circle representing the ‘0’ factor that made them no better than their rivals…] when you would think they might delay a few days and present a fresh image for this new venture. The DIM (note to Subex marketeers: not a good acronym if you are selling intelligence) Practice has the potential to be a new and vital source of revenues for the business. Data integrity is a natural complement to Subex’s other offerings, and is an entry point for a wide market that could easily extend beyond telcos to other industries. Perhaps the timing reflects Subex’s lack of confidence when attempting organic growth. The conventional play from Subex would be to buy an established data integrity business to force its way into the market. After recent purchases and contract wins by rivals, perhaps Subex felt a need to respond by competing across a broader range of services, but were unable to identify a suitable target for acquistion. Whatever the motivation, it will be interesting to see Subex’s level of ambition for this practice. Data integrity may just be pitched as a low-key way to augment revenues from existing customers, or it may be used as a genuine sprearhead into new customers. A lot will depend on whether Subex restricts the scope of the data integrity practice to areas around their core competencies, like network inventory, or whether they pitch themselves as offering expertise relevant to data across the whole enterprise. If Azure was an autumn leaf that has been swept away, then the new Data Integrity Practice is an acorn, waiting to grow.

Eric Priezkalns
Eric Priezkalnshttp://revenueprotect.com

Eric is the Editor of Commsrisk. Look here for more about the history of Commsrisk and the role played by Eric.

Eric is also the Chief Executive of the Risk & Assurance Group (RAG), an association of professionals working in risk management and business assurance for communications providers. RAG was founded in 2003 and Eric was appointed CEO in 2016.

Previously Eric was Director of Risk Management for Qatar Telecom and he has worked with Cable & Wireless, T‑Mobile, Sky, Worldcom and other telcos. He was lead author of Revenue Assurance: Expert Opinions for Communications Providers, published by CRC Press.

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