WeP will 'Bloom' soon

WeP Peripherals, which Wipro Limited spun off while retaining a 38 per cent stake, is going in for a rebranding exercise and is expected to change its name to 'Bloom'.

This is part of a concerted effort to acquire a significant identity in the company's post-Wipro avataar which is understood to be handled by Shining Emotional of Shombit Sengupta.

Shining has done a corporate realignment and new strategy for WeP. Sengupta was also involved in the branding exercise of Wipro which involved creating its present logo.

WeP's new logo will revolve around the theme of fantasy and will have a microprocessor embedded in a strawberry to depict the company evolving into a more consumer oriented organisation with a focus on the SOHO (Small Office Home Office) segment.

The Rs 286 crore firm is presently focussed on mainly printers, UPS and data communication businesses.

Said Ram Agarwal, MD & CEO: "WeP has put a new organisation in place since July 2005 to address different customer segments in a more focused manner. The WeP group business now includes consumer products, business products and services. With this new organisation, we are planning to launch a new corporate identity at our Business Partners Conference in Dubai on September 30."

WeP is largely held by its own and Wipro employees, besides its business associates (5 per cent), and has an authorised capital of Rs 18.7 crore. It derives 62 per cent of its revenues from printers, 22 per cent from the networking business and the remaining from UPS and services such as printing.

The company during 2004-05 grew by 22 per cent and is looking at a similar growth this year. WeP, which reported a net of Rs 12.6 crore has a debt of Rs 6.8 crore and its networth is Rs 40.56 crore. WeP employs around 450 people.