WPP AUNZ today launched a new business, called the Centre of Excellence (COE), a division providing data, consulting and martech expertise.
The centre is a key initiative within WPP AUNZ’s long-term growth strategy, aimed at helping clients to drive maximum value from their data and tech investments.
The division brings together skilled practitioners from across WPP AUNZ. More than 300 employees have already been assessed on their tech platform competence, with plans to grow.
The COE’s main focus is marketing automation, drawing on partnerships with global tech and platform companies such as Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Adobe and Sitecore.
WPP AUNZ’s chief executive Jens Monsees says COE establishes, through technology partnerships and inhouse capability, a strong marketing technology capability.
He says these capabilities provide essential solutions for clients whose data and martech expenses account for around 26% of marketing budgets.
“The COE offer is a hub and spoke model, allowing all of our agency brands to tap into the tech capability," says Monsees.
"It provides the opportunity to grow our business with both new and existing clients and this opportunity has been accelerated in recent months by the greater need of our clients for e-commerce and digital marketing platforms.”
The centre will be led by Adam Good, executive director (marketing technology) with hree new strategic partner leads – Faye Mehl, Sean Gillespie, and Nhung Nguyen – who will be responsible for Microsoft, Adobe, and Salesforce.
Mehl, Gillespie, and Nguyen joined WPP AUNZ earlier this year. They are responsible for client strategy, building partner communities across the group, developing client events and facilitating employee training programs.
WPP AUNZ chief data scientist, Rob Pardini, will lead the COE from a data and research perspective.
Good says marketing technology is a large client investment that requires continuous iteration.
"Collaboration between software vendors, internal client teams and agency teams is needed to maximise marketing performance,” he says.
“Our combination of creative thinking, technology expertise, content production and data insights will deliver greater customer value.
“The responsibility for marketing technology has shifted from the IT department to the marketing department in recent years as software and services moved into the cloud. The COE addresses that.”
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