Well, quite a lot actually. Way back in the late summer of 1993, I remember sitting with Tom Montgomery, one of the other Lagan co-founders, brainstorming naming ideas for our new software company venture. I wanted something that would identify the company as being from Northern Ireland but NOT be controversial. He agreed but immediately suggested “Red Hand Technologies”…

For those who aren’t familiar with Northern Ireland politics (and let’s face it, many aren’t), Tom’s suggested name was less than appropriate given its unfortunate association with a certain paramilitary organization… What made it even more incredulous was that Tom’s political views are not shared by the aforementioned terrorist organization, then perhaps you’ll understand why I was surprised!

But incredulous as it was, it prompted me to think of the river than runs through Northern Ireland’s capitol city, Belfast – the Lagan. Some of our rivers (and indeed roads/highways) do have political connotations but, thankfully, the Lagan River does not and so we had our name!

Some years later, as our customer base grew, we noticed that our customers started referring to our product (then officially known as Frontline in the UK and Frontlink in North America) as “the Lagan product”, and so we decided to make it official. In hindsight, this was in some ways a turning point for us, because it was at that point our company name became a brand, that elusive thing that represents a promise a company makes to its customers and its customers in turn come to trust.

KANA recognizes the importance of brand and resolved to keep the Lagan name following the acquisition of the Lagan business in 2010. Throughout 2011, it was retained as both the company name (Lagan, a Division of KANA) and as the product name. However, our customers made it clear that this made no sense whatsoever (I was at meetings frequently where I was introduced as being from Lagan/KANA/“What do I call you now?!?”).

So, from January 2012, we’ll be referring to the company simply as KANA, but retaining the product name, Lagan, as well as it’s implied promise.

If you are interested in finding out more about the importance of brand, then why not register for our upcoming webinar by best selling author Dr. Janelle Barlow.

BTW. I’ve been telling our customers for years that the word “Lagan“ actually derives from the Irish word for Belfast, which my colleague and co-founder Séan has told me is rubbish. I am, however, actually (almost) right. You see, Belfast is a low-lying area and the word “Lagan” comes from the Irish “Abhainn an Lagáin” which means “river of the low-lying district”, i.e. Belfast. So Séan is wrong and I am right; however, I suspect he will be delighted that I had to quote the Irish language to prove it!

(David Moody is VP Solutions Marketing, KANA)

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