Wendy Clark, the global CEO of Dentsu International, is about one-third of the way through cutting the global advertising group's brands to six from 160, and stripping away layers of management in the process.
“We are simplifying our organisation and optimising our brand portfolio,” says Clark, who left her role as CEO of DDB Worldwide last year to take on the Dentsu job.
Her big tasks are a comprehensive cost review and accelerated transformation program.
In a briefing of market analysts, she says Dentsu International had a strong June quarter, posting a record 17% organic growth rate.
Overall Dentsu posted better than expected June quarter profit growth and increased its guidance for the full year. Organic revenue growth saw a “significant rebound in performance” at 15% and the company expects high single digit organic growth for the 2021 financial year.
“Our entire focus is to drive sustained growth and profit delivery in line with our ambitions,” she says.
Dentsu International’s new business pipeline is sitting at $US8 billion.
“Our client referral score, which is a measurement of client satisfaction, is at an all-time high,” she told the analysts.
“And our employee engagement score stands at a three-year high point, with one of our strongest metrics now being connection to manager as we've removed layers of internal management as part of our brand optimisation.
“In transforming our organisation, we'll continue to invest for growth.”
Dentsu recently acquired LiveArea and 600 commerce experts in a $US250 million deal. This global customer experience and commerce business sits within the Merkle agency at Dentsu International. Dentsu wants to grow customer transformation and technology to 50% of its business.
Clark says she is also investing in key leadership talent. Fred Levron from FCB is joining Dentsu International as Global Chief Creative Officer in November.
And Clark is accelerating investment behind integrated technology platform, Dentsu Connect.
“We continue to lead the industry in critical areas, including with technology alliance partners, maintaining our position as Salesforce's number one global agency partner, a position that was strengthened with the LiveArea acquisition," she says.
“And we are strengthening our industry-leading sustainability position as the only agency network with an A- sustainability rating, as ranked by third-party nonprofit CDP, and our net zero commitment by 2030 underpinned by science-based target along with our recent announcement to reduce emissions from flight by 65% by 2030.
“Our growth strategy is focused and single-minded to become the most integrated agency network in the world, helping to create agile, efficient growth solutions for clients through our integrated capabilities.”
She gave the example of IKEA which like many companies had to adapt, accelerating its digital transformation,when the pandemic hit.
“Working together, we identified an immediate short-term opportunity to grow online sales and a long-term opportunity to build the brand to find new and innovative ways of connecting with consumers,” she says.
“Our media and CXM team swiftly came together to accelerate the integration of IKEA's first-party data, creating a single view of their customers, along with our creative team implementing the new commerce experience.
“Our e-commerce capabilities combined with technology expertise and a consumer-first planning mindset saw us helping to deliver transformation and growth to IKEA, resulting in a 60% increase in online sales in 2020 as well as helping to prepare the business for the future of a cookieless world.”
A slide from her presentation:
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