Start-ups, marketing companies and venture capitalists all raised at least one eyebrow this morning with the news that Google has rebranded its company as Alphabet.

No, that’s not a typo (although, what an ironic one it would be!). Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the two garage engineers that went on to organise the internet have demoted the brand we all know an love as Google to simply mean ‘search’. All was revealed on Monday 10 August (US time) in a blog post authored by Larry Page and titled ‘G is for Google’.

While this may seem a little bit strange, by taking one step back and looking at the current offerings of the IT giant. With such a broad range of products and projects, it’s hard to isolate what Google actually does as it heads into only tis fifteenth year as a company.

Google’s brand value is almost immeasurable. ‘To google something’ has become part of the vernacular, and former search star Yahoo, as well as Microsofts Bing, cannot get a look-in. Why then confuse the idea of ‘googling’ with driverless cars, glucose-sensing contact lenses or wifi distributed by hot air balloons?

By creating Alphabet, the company is simply applying a more defined structure and identity to its business units, and allows both consumers and investors to engage with those operations with a clear understanding of their functions and aims.

There are plenty of lessons to be learned here – especially in regard to maintaining internal business clarity and respecting your consumer’s brand perception and loyalty. You don’t need to be the undisputed king to see the value of this strategy – even SME’s need to constantly look at their operations to ensure a consistent and strong public face.

Investors didn’t love the news, with Google stocks dropping 1.5% by Monday’s close.