'We've had a lot of mickey-taking from customers' - MSP boss sees funny side in sharing name with Omicron variant

Hertfordshire-based MSP Omicron Solutions has ‘gone global’ after the latest Covid variant was named, but its MD says customers are seeing the funny side

"Oh Sh*t" was the knee-jerk reaction from the MD of Hertfordshire-based MSP Omicron Solutions when he first learned that his business now shared a name with the latest Covid-19 variant.

Andy Sheppard, who is the managing director of Omicron Solutions, was alerted to the resemblance one weekend via a text from his wife screenshotting a TV news announcement.

And half an hour later, the first of several customers sent him a message pointing out the resemblance.

"Have you seen this? Isn't this hilarious!" the message read.

His initial reaction was more negative than positive, he told CRN, but after the dust settled he noticed that customers were seeing the funny side.

"My initial thought was that this could be bad,"

"But now we're looking at it on the bright side; it's not often that your company goes global. We are a St. Albans-based MSP, we do help desk, we do IT support, we help people with cyber security and Cyber Essentials, so anything that raises our profile is a good thing."

Sheppard was soon receiving more messages from customers exclaiming "You've gone viral!", "I've never thought of your company as a variant!" and "You're going to be number one on Google!"

The MD even began to join in with the fun, penning a post on LinkedIn that "We certainly aren't the worst strain ever".

Omicron Solutions was founded in 1983 and has eight staff based in St. Albans. Sheppard took over the business three years ago after its previous owners decided to retire.

He said that one positive outcome from "going global" is that now everyone can at least spell Omicron Solutions' name correctly, Sheppard said.

"You should see the amount of people that misspell our name. They insert new letters, it becomes ‘Omnicron', or they put an ‘r' in there or an ‘n' in there. It's crazy. But now it all seems to be spelled correctly. So every cloud has a silver lining."

A number of companies have been forced to rebrand after unfortunate events have led their names to carry negative connotations.

Private equity firm Isis Equity Partners decided to rebrand in 2014 following the rise of the terrorist group with the same name.

Meanwhile, print provider Corona Corporate Solutions now simply refers to itself as CCS following the pandemic.

But Sheppard said that, as it stands, rebranding is not a necessary step for Omicron Solutions.

"We've had a lot of mickey-taking from customers, we've had a lot of ‘haha, isn't this funny' type messages. If anything, we're looking at it on the bright side. We're not looking to rebrand because of this," he said.

"Yesterday's newspaper is soon forgotten. When the next variant comes along, I'm sure there'll be another one, then it'll all be forgotten."

Sheppard said that he would only think about rebranding the business if it became an issue for its customers.

"There's always a possibility that if things could take a turn for the worse, and if they do then we would look at potentially rebranding. But that's an expensive exercise; it's not easy or cheap to rebrand."

"Hopefully customers are happy with our service and happy to tell others that they use Omicron Solutions. If ever they felt that they couldn't promote us, or our name was giving them any negativity, then yeah, we would definitely look at changing it," he added.

The MD joked that, if Omicron Solutions ever did rebrand, it would steer clear of the Greek alphabet.

"The next letter in line is ‘Pi', so I don't know whether there are any manufacturers of steak and kidney that are going to be in trouble next," he said.