GE Access Renamed Access Distribution

The enterprise distributor, based in Westminster, Colo., says the named change is part of a strategy under GE CEO Jeff Immelt to reshape the numerous internal brands and businesses under the partner company and allow them to establish a stronger individual identity. Under the plan, only 11 of the major business units within GE will keep the parent company name in their titles, such as GE Commercial Finance and GE Healthcare.

"About the last six months, we've been going through some internal brand changes in order to simplify all the businesses underneath the company," says Mark Kulaga, director of corporate communications and marketing at Access Distribution. "The names for those businesses become more simplified, go-to-market names."

Thus, GE Access becomes Access Distribution to better convey what the business is about. Access Distribution CEO Anna McDermott says the name changes will also allow GE to re-establish its overall brand name.

"There's more than 180 companies within GE that are all going to market with completely different identities and use of the brand," McDermott says. "So the market will better understand what GE's brand is, and the individual businesses will also be able to better establish their own identities.

Scott Zahl, vice president of marketing and vendor relations at Access Distribution, says GE isn't giving the distributor additional marketing funds to help with the rebranding effort. Instead, the rebranding is a companywide effort. Kulaga says the name change does not affect Access Distribution's internal structure at all; he also stressed that the name change is not a signal that GE is looking to sell its IT distribution business.

McDermott says one of her top priorities is to build up "cross-selling" between Access Distribution and other GE businesses, such as the distributor's umbrella unit, GE Commerical Finance and Vendor Financial Services. McDermott believes the rebranding will help in that respect.

"The idea is to have one transaction and be able to make money four different ways [through different GE businesses]," she said.

This is not the first name change for GE's distribution arm. Access Distribution was founded in 1988 as Access Graphics and was later bought by GE in 1997. Initially, the unit was known as GE IT Distribution, but the name was changed in 2000 to GE Access.