Saturday, May 19, 2018

Rise of consulting firms in the marketing industry


Traditionally, media agencies have been the main supplier of marketing services. But, as the world goes digital and substantial amount of data being available about the customer, the focus has shifted on optimizing the experience for the customer in real-time. Digital arms of big consulting firms are already using big data and analytics to solve complex marketing problems that traditional media agencies cannot. In this pursuit, there are establishing a digital technology eco-system for their clients. With the engine and solution in place, the only missing piece is content and creative services.

 These consulting firms are already working with the CXOs on company wide digital transformation programs, and extending it to cover content and creative services is logical since they understand the infrastructure, data and company/brand values already. Consolidating all services under one umbrella is efficient for the CMOs too. The consulting firms have been buying up agencies to build their capabilities - IBM iX (Ammirati), Deloitte Digital (Heat), PwC Digital Services (Fluid) and Accenture Interactive (Karmarama, Brand Learning, Wire Stone). Accenture Interactive and IBM iX have made it to the top 10 agency companies in the world.

Data, creativity and personalization is the future and whoever cracks the balance first will be the winner.

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