Earlier today, SciQuest, a source-to-pay technology provider, announced it had rebranded itself as Jaggaer.
The new name is “a derivation of the German word for hunter, and reflects the company’s brand promise of delivering comprehensive, focused spend solutions for a broad range of businesses.”
Spend Matters will be speaking with the Jaggaer team later today to learn more about the rebrand and updated strategy that the firm is pursuing. We look forward to sharing what we hear with our readers in the coming days.
Our initial take is that there is more to this rebrand than just the new visual identity. Jaggaer is a new company with an updated strategy and focus. Killing Questie for good represents more than just a bold marketing move.
It’s symbolic for a firm that is moving beyond its traditional focus on select vertical markets and investing to deliver a comprehensive procurement suite, paying equal attention to the “upstream” strategic components and “downstream” transactional elements. For example, we’ve heard rumors that this new focus includes finally giving ASO (formerly CombineNet) the investment it deserves.
Strategic direction, hunting allusions and Germanic translations aside, we’re in the “anything but the name SciQuest” camp, given this new vision, product investment and direction.
Related Articles
- SciQuest: Solution Review & Analysis
- SciQuest: Vendor Analysis (Part 3) — Competitive & Summary Analysis
- SciQuest: Vendor Analysis (Part 2) — Product Strengths & Weaknesses
- SciQuest: Vendor Analysis (Part 1) — Background & Solution Overview
- SciQuest Taken Private (Again!) by Accel-KKR: Vendor Summary, Updated SWOT Analysis and Investor, Customer and Market Perspective
- A Spend Matters Graphical View of SciQuest: Understanding the Provider’s Solution
- SciQuest: The New Suite Dimension That Puts the Supplier First
- SciQuest Becoming a “Sweet” Suite Team Player
- SciQuest – That “S” is Now For Sourcing (In More Ways Than One)
- SciQuest – Well Along in the Journey from Frankenquest to Integrated Suite
- A Post-Acquisition Guide For SciQuest and CombineNet Customers
- SciQuest and CombineNet: Initial Market Implications
The Blade Runner logo rip-off aside, Jaggaer-bomb has to decide how to instill confidence into the markets. There are way too many providers in the spend management space who look better, run faster, have a better story around long-term stability, and who haven’t abandoned their core focus in the same way the old SciQuest has left the education industry at the alter (and bad time to do it, now that these institutions are all scrambling to save money in light of impending federal dollars being drastically less).
It’s a good company with solid products (albeit the “Frankenstein stitched” together integration by result of growing out through acquisition). But with all that’s out today is it really any different? Add the pressure of the PE investment driving bigger and less flexible terms/pricing on deals, and you’ve got a very difficult competitive go at it against those who are still so nimble and able to configure/address specific needs better. Difficult road without a doubt.
The name isn’t great, but who knew what Google meant before it was the best search engine ever? The problem is the branding and design. The logo looks like it’s from the 80s, and the logo exploding after being shot by an arrow (on the desktop version of the website) looks like something a middle schooler would think is awesome. The name needed to be changed, but everything else about their branding was modern, clean, and professional. Now it looks cheap and juvenile.
OMG, I nearly spit out my coffee when seeing Questie buried in the label. To quote Maroon 5, I guess procurement now has the tech “moves like Jaggaer”.
Who ARE the people that think up these names?!
I forget to mention the pronunciation. Jaggaer is said “Jagger” — as in in the rock and roll icon. But as a friend pointed out last night, The “J” in German is pronounced with a “Y”. Regardless, it’s time to go hunting for savings!