Aricent Unveils New Strategic Brand Positioning - Becomes the Aricent Group

SAN FRANCISCO, May 17, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Aricent Inc. today announced a new brand positioning and identity. Effective immediately, the company will change its name to Aricent Group and position itself as a provider of innovation and technology services for the connected world. The Aricent Group name will serve as the new corporate brand for the company, with product innovation, design, and related engineering offerings marketed under the frog brand, and R&D engineering and carrier services marketed under the Aricent brand. The brands will each maintain their own client base and continue to collaborate in situations where clients can benefit from the Aricent Group's full breadth of capabilities.

The new brand positioning better reflects the Aricent Group's leadership role in helping clients capitalize on the disruptive innovations enabled by communication technologies, including 4G technologies such as LTE and WiMAX. Sudip Nandy, CEO of the Aricent Group, says: "Companies are keen on delivering innovative products and services with satisfying user experiences in order to build meaningful relationships with their customers in the connected world. They require a new type of strategic partner, one who provides a holistic approach to end-to-end product and service innovation. Our new brand positioning highlights the fact that we can meet this need."

The Aricent Group was created in 2006 when private equity firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), Sequoia Capital, and other investors combined the former Hughes Software Systems/Flextronics Software Division with frog design. Since then, the Aricent Group has grown to more than 10,000 employees in 36 locations, serving a client base that spans the entire telecommunications ecosystem (including communications service providers, equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, and device makers) as well as Fortune 500 brands that are innovating in industries such as healthcare, energy, finance, retail, and media.

The Aricent Group provides a broad portfolio of capabilities that combines customer insights, strategy, product and interaction design, software engineering, systems integration, testing, and maintenance and support. Working side-by-side with its clients, the Aricent Group:

• Identifies emerging consumer trends and technologies and translates them into viable product and service concepts
• Prototypes, creates, and commercializes products and services
• Tests, supports, and sustains products and entire product lines
• Delivers a broad array of services to help optimize back-end systems and operations

These services enable clients to develop highly differentiated user experiences while at the same time accelerating time-to-market, optimizing service operations, and reducing overall product development lifecycle expenses and risks. Companies are increasingly pressured by accelerated development cycles but often face a fragmented supplier landscape and in-house silos. Furthermore, the hand-offs between R&D, marketing, design, development, and support can cause "innovation erosion;" and the traditional stage-gate process opens the door to profit bleeders such as high acquisition costs and, on the experience side, customer churn. The Aricent Group's integrated delivery model helps companies bridge the gap between ideation and implementation, launching products and services in a more timely manner.

Tim Leberecht, CMO of the Aricent Group, says: "We believe our mix of user-focused creative vision and pragmatic technology implementation addresses the collective innovation challenges of the CTO, CIO, and CMO – optimized R&D spending, reliability, and differentiation."  

The new brand positioning is reflected in the company's revised visual identity and web site (www.aricent.com). The identity was created in collaboration with acclaimed strategic branding firm Siegel + Gale, which has worked with global brands including 3M, American Express, and The Four Seasons.

About the Aricent Group

The Aricent Group is a global innovation and technology services company that helps clients imagine, commercialize, and evolve products and services for the connected world. Bringing together the communications technology expertise of Aricent with the creative vision and user experience prowess of frog, the Aricent Group provides a unique portfolio of innovation capabilities that seamlessly combines consumer insights, strategy, design, software engineering, and systems integration. The client base includes communications service providers, equipment manufacturers, independent software vendors, device makers, and many other Fortune 500 brands. The company's investors are Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., Sequoia Capital, The Family Office, Delta Partners, and The Canadian Pension Plan Investment Board.

For more information, please visit http://www.aricent.com

SOURCE Aricent Group