Dubai: Ad agencies, at least the big ones among them, are rewriting the script — no longer are they confining themselves to being just into advertising. They want to switch over parts of their operations as full-blown consultancies.
“What you don’t need is just another digital agency, but a digital consultancy that can work on multi-year transformation projects for clients,” said Nigel Vaz, CEO for the EMEA and APAC territory at Publicis.Sapient, itself a part of the French media behemoth Publicis Groupe. “And if that means competing against an Accenture or IBM on tech-oriented solutions or the likes of [management consultancy] Bain, so be it.
“The way we will do it, typically, is not going to be through client pitches, but offering strategic consulting.”
And as part of putting together that strategy, SapientRazorfish has opened its regional office in Dubai, with Kareem Monem, Managing Director, heading it. The pure-play digital services powerhouse was created from merging SapientNitro and Razorfish late last year.
First up, it will work on consultancy possibilities for clients in the travel and hospitality, retail, telco and financial services sectors. It has already been associated on work for Emaar and the Miral development on Yas Island.
“In our perspective, digital has transitioned from being the nice shiny toy to be used on the side to being at the very centre of customer-client interface,” said Vaz, “With customer self-service taking root, entire business models (within traditional industries) will be defined by operating the digital way.”
Already, such transformation is in the air in the UAE. A couple of local banks are testing out their online/digital-banking services as a stand-alone arm to their core operations. The retail space, meanwhile, has already seen seismic change, and keeps going in for more.
“If it were just a branding opportunity that was needed, ad agencies could keep using their traditional skill sets,” said Monem. “But clients are thinking way beyond digital marketing — they need to because their consumers have already made the move.
“Now, rather than just sell airline tickets via a website, the service providers need to create other compelling add-ons such as allowing them to change to seats they want. These require huge amounts of system changes — SapientRazorfish can come in and map such transformations.”
By the looks of it, the UAE and Gulf markets are ripe for digital consultancy work. At the governmental level, smart city initiatives are in vogue with the UAE clearly defining the timeline when it wants to bring in all of the desired transformations. Saudi Arabia is also getting into the act in a big way.
Then there is the private sector — not a single business remains untouched by what digital demands of it. “We are sitting in one of the most dynamic and demanding regions in terms of digital disruption, innovation and consumer demand,” said Monem. “You only have to look at the significant investments being made by the likes of Noor ($1 billion) to build the region’s first truly “Amazon-like” eCommerce platform or how the UAE’s Vision 2021 and Saudi Arabia’s vision 2030 have placed digital not just at the core, but also at the front and rear of each initiative.
“It is the perfect time to launch the world’s leading digital transformation platform and bring our global experience local.”
SapientRazorfish will serve as Publicis.Sapient’s lead brand to help clients achieve business transformation. Another entity, DigitasLBi, which is already present in the region, has a slightly different offering — helping with marketing transformation using data at its core.
