All planned, nothing unexpected: Dentsu decodes exits & restructure to Adgully

Several top level exits at dentsu India in the last few days have created quite a stir in the industry, with everyone asking just what was happening at the network. The latest to exit is Haresh Nayak, president, Posterscope APAC, who put in his papers yesterday (September 9, 2021). Other senior leaders to move out in the last few days include Anand Bhadkamkar, CEO, dentsu India; Vivek Bhargava, CEO, DAN Performance Group; Shamsuddin Jasani, Group MD, South Asia, Isobar; Gopa Menon, COO, Isobar; Rubeena Singh, CEO, iProspect; Agnello Dias, CCO, Taproot Dentsu; Santosh Padhi, CCO, Taproot Dentsu; and Gautam Mehra, Chief Data and Product Officer, APAC, and CEO, DAN Programmatic.

In a bid to understand what triggered these senior level movements, the transformational process in dentsu India and much more, Adgully reached out to the network. Though the senior leadership refrained from responding to the queries sent, a dentsu India spokesperson, spoke to Adgully on the restructure process currently underway in the network, the dentsu India 2.0 vision, new hires and the road ahead.

The spokesperson maintained, “We are on our way to becoming the most integrated network in the world. It is our global ambition and everything that you are witnessing right now only indicates our journey onward.” The spokesperson insisted that this is a planned journey for dentsu India and nothing unexpected. “In fact, you are going to hear a few more people movements within the country network, including some very, very senior-level executives joining us. For example, Ajay Gahlaut recently joined us to lead Dentsu Creative as Group Chief Creative Officer, India. Vinod Thadani has come onboard a few weeks earlier as the Chief Digital Growth Officer for dentsu Media Group & CEO iProspect India. Rohit Suri has joined us as the CHRO for dentsu South Asia.”

dentsu India is currently completing a search for a CEO successor, which it will announce in due course.

Dentsu reiterates that every single change right now is part of the network’s plan to globally transform into the most integrated network of the world by 2024, a journey it started in September 2020. The spokesperson said, “While we are quite on track with our timeline in other markets, India has been lagging when compared to others. India is extremely critical to us and we need to pace up if we are to level up with the rest. Thus, the reset into dentsu India 2.0. Dentsu is focusing on strengthening its India operations and reorganising its 160 brands to six strong global brands to make it future-ready. In fact, operations are getting integrated as we speak.”

Vision dentsu India 2.0

What asked what triggered these changes, the spokesperson explained, “With India being a critical market for our clients and dentsu, changes had to be made to reenergise and refocus attention on dentsu India’s transformation, tightly re-aligning the business with dentsu’s global ambition to be the most integrated network in the world.”

This brand optimisation, along with the creation of three global Service Lines (Creative, Media, CXM) and other activities connected to dentsu’s transformation plan will make it easier to do business with, simplifying the network’s structure and enabling it to anticipate and respond quicker to fast changing client needs and market environment. Through a more focused portfolio of brands, dentsu is simplifying, integrating and making how it operates more consistent, to make the network easier for clients work with, and do more with.

The spokesperson informed, “dentsu India 2.0 is tightly re-aligning the business with dentsu’s global ambition to be the most integrated network in the world. As we accelerate our transformation towards dentsu India 2.0, there will be more movement within our brand portfolio and our teams. This is all part of our plan to bring India in line with a fast and positively transforming dentsu.”

dentsu will retain its local-market specialisms as platforms of differentiation and growth, but the optimisation of its brands and operational structure will result in changes to the way its business operates, as well as the removal of duplicate roles.

“We are progressing well with our global change plan and are focussed on getting dentsu India into the same position as our other key markets. We are excited for the future with our ambitions and goals interconnected. This will take dentsu India into the next phase of growth and success, bringing even more value to our clients and more opportunities for our teams,” the spokesperson added.

Moving from 160 brands to 6

Last year, the dentsu Group announced that it would be undertaking a comprehensive review and accelerated transformation plan to 2024. Part of that plan was to review and optimise its brand strategy, moving from 160 brands to six, globally-recognised leadership brands by end of 2022. Part of the transformation was to create three service lines – Creative, CXM and Media – to align its six global leadership brands under:

Creative: dentsuMB & Isobar

CXM: Merkle

Media: Carat, dentsu X & iProspect

The spokesperson further said, “Our transformation will benefit our clients in many ways:

• Through the building and integrating of our world-class capabilities
• Access to new talent and fresh thinking
• Simplified and agile way of working that allows us to respond to changing client needs at speed through a more focussed portfolio of integrated brands.”

Strengthening Digital

As part of its transformation drive dentsu brought together two of its Media powerhouses – Vizeum and iProspect. The spokesperson said, “A new iProspect was launched in March 2021, a game changing digital-first end to end media agency, the first agency to offer performance driven brand building at a global scale.”

Among the recent exits are the top leaders driving dentsu’s digital agenda – Vivek Bhargava, Shamsuddin Jasani, Gopa Menon, and Rubeena Singh. Thus, the network will need to effect new hires to fill in their positions, which the spokesperson acknowledged, “We will continue to invest in digital as a platform for growth in India and bring strong leaders to further enhance our digital-first thinking and capability through our service lines.” Most recently, the network brought on board Vinod Thadani, Chief Digital Growth Officer & CEO, iProspect.

Regarding industry speculations around Ashish Bhasin’s retirement, the spokesperson refused to comment on it and instead said that the CEO APAC and Chairman India, dentsu international, had already set the record straight last week, when he refuted all such rumours in his Twitter handle, calling them “baseless, unverified, wrong, and untrue”.

When asked about the kind of growth that the network is targeting post the restructure and consolidation of operations, the spokesperson said, “The Indian advertising industry is currently experiencing a double digit growth. With the IPL this year, the ICC T20 World Cup due in October, and the festive season just round the corner – business is certainly looking up. Nonetheless, there is also a possibility that India may get hit by a third COVID-19 wave in October. So, it will be a bit difficult to predict the growth numbers immediately.”