In the journey of any successful company, change is often the bridge to growth, and few understand this better than Armen Kocharyan, the CEO of Spark. Today, Spark, formerly known as raiseR, stands at the forefront of a significant evolution. What began as an HR solution has transformed into a powerful platform for strategy and people management, tailored not just for HR professionals but for company leaders and executives striving for meaningful, strategic alignment. In this interview, Armen shares the motivation behind Spark’s rebrand, the vision guiding its development, and the values that continue to drive the Spark team forward.
What inspired the rebrand from raiseR to Spark?
One of the main reasons behind the rebrand that I want to emphasize is that we have shifted from a purely HR platform to a more strategy-driving solution for businesses – specifically with features like OKRs, strategy maps, and KPIs. Naturally, these new changes impacted our buyer persona as well – our new, evolved product was appealing not only to HR teams and leaders, but company executives as well. During our brainstorming sessions, we realized that Spark.work was a name that was definitely a better reflection of what our product helps Executive and HR teams achieve.
Another reason behind the rebrand was the phonetic aspect of the word raiseR. When talking to prospects from the Western world, their first mental image was of a razor – not something you want people to associate your HR product with. We constantly found ourselves explaining that our product name was something else entirely, which we realized was a real challenge that needed to be addressed if we were to enter the western market. Even though we as a team had grown quite fond of the name raiseR, we knew it was time for a change.
How does the name "Spark.work" reflect the vision and the direction of the product?
The vision of Spark is to fortify businesses and guide them through digital transformation journeys with a people and strategy management platform that’ll help them unlock their true potential. And on this path, every leader and executive should take a stand as an agent of change – to be the originator of the first spark that’ll lead to big outcomes, big breakthroughs, igniting fire and passion in people’s hearts and minds and getting them excited for the next big thing they’ll accomplish together as a whole.
This was our promise to those companies – to give them the tool to deliver on that and walk that path of progress and transformation along with them.
What are the Spark.work brand values and how do they represent the impact you want the product to have on your customers?
Our company values are
- Teamwork
- Agility
- Excellence
- Privacy
We don’t just talk about values, we act on them. They reflect not only our ethos, but how we approach our customers.
As a company that started in HR, we know full well the importance of teams and teamwork in achieving success.
