Fitting a national market leader into a global network
Overview
When two companies merge, great things are bound to happen. Their potential can be increased, their strengths can be multiplied and their weaknesses can be cancelled out. This depends on how their merger is handled. The opposite is also true, if their merger is mishandled, great disasters can occur. MN Associates is a firm of Certified Public Accountants specializing in audit, accounts outsourcing, tax advisory and management consultancy services. It has been a leading accounting firm in Rwanda. Being a dominant player in their nation, they wanted to join a global network in order to cement their position and also to tap into international resources. They reached out to HLB International. This is a worldwide organization of professional accounting firms and business advisers. It is headquartered in London. They have been in existence for more than 50 years and assist clients to do business in over 150 countries, with more than 2,210 partners and over 25,000 staff in 660 offices. HLB is a company that is always in pursuit of new firms to add to its portfolio in order to boost its local presence in many nations. Therefore, these two successful firms were bound by a common vision of complementing each other.

Rebranding the company
There was a need for MN Associates to understand the HLB brand. We carried out research on the brand guideline book of HLB International. Afterwards, we were able to unpack the brand recommendations. We designed a logo for the new name of the company (HLB MN). The guiding principle was maintaining the history and incorporating the future. Having successfully finished the first task, the logo was incorporated into the marketing and promotional materials of the company. These materials included company profiles, calendars, tax guides, signage and clothing items for staff members. Once the work was finished, the marketing team of HLB visited Rwanda to carry out a compliance inspection. The assessment was successful. Finally, we helped the new brand organize a launch. The event was successful. The guests had great enthusiasm for this new brand.