Why Deloitte brought in talent instead of buying an agency

Rosie Baker
By Rosie Baker | 29 September 2017
 

Following the news yesterday that four of McCann Melbourne's senior team, including MD Adrian Mills and ECD Matt Lawson, have exited to join Deloitte Digital as partners, AdNews talked to Deloitte Digital industry lead Steve Hallam about the strategy.

It's the latest big move into the creative space from consultancies in the last 12 months, but it takes a different approach. Rather than buying an agency and the talent, accounts and clients that come with it, Deloitte has taken on talent to build its capabilities from within.

The subtle difference is that instead of Deloitte buying into an agency, the partners are buying into Deloitte.

Hallam, who has led Deloitte Digital since July, tells AdNews that the McCann execs it has hired provide an extension of its existing designs and creative capabilities.

“It's supercharging our capability and expanding what we already do around customer experience and moving into brand and creative strategy. It's a new offering, but we already have a lot of designers and creatives,” he says.

“We feel we've have design as the default within the Deloitte Digital team for 10 years, so we have a really strong creative culture, so this is a new movement, but it’s an extension of what we've already got.”

Steve Hallam

Steve Hallam

Deloitte Digital's clients tend to be ASX 200 companies and government departments, and it's one of the largest digital agencies in the country with around 450 people across Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, Brisbane and Adelaide. Its customer experience practice has around 90 people, but Hallam says bringing in creative and media talent will give it a more integrated offering.

“We think of ourselves and being an agency and a consultancy and the integration of design, technology, data and business strategy should be the norm, and it's the way our clients expect us to operate. Its an important way to construct our offering,” he says.

“We create experiences that enrich people's lives and we want to be doing the most difficult, complex and most interesting work that helps people who use our products. We look for novel, interesting products that we think will have a lasting impact on the Australian economy.”

Partners: more than a partnership

When you look at the headline numbers reported for recent acquisitions, RXP paid $33 million for The Works, and Accenture allegedly shelled out $63m for The Monkeys, Deloitte’s strategy of hiring a team of senior and established staff, and putting them in partner roles, appears much more cost effective.

Deloitte operates as a partnership, which means with Adrian Mills and David Phillips coming on board as partners, each takes an ownership position, which requires a significant buy in. It also means that if the practice doesn’t perform - partners share a small pot of the spoils.

Adrian Mills

Adrian Mills was one of the minds behind the highly awarded Dumb Ways to Die

It’s a tough incentive and Deloitte has high expectations of partners, equity or non-equity, to deliver revenue. While Hallam wouldn’t comment directly on any financial aspects, he says:

“The strategy we are looking at for Deloitte Digital is slightly different [from PwC or Accenture] in that we have been doing design and creativity for quite some time, so for us to integrate and embed this into our existing offering is potentially easier for us to do,” he says, suggesting it wouldn't be as easy for other consultancy firms to integrate, which explains why others are acquiring creative businesses.

“We think the power of the Deloitte Digital brand is [such that] incredibly talented individuals are seeing their future as being supercharged working alongside us, is a really positive statement,” he says.

Hallam says the strategy is to be able to offer clients end-to-end capabilities that will help them futureproof their businesses.

“The really important strength of this team is their ability to clearly articulate, and create the ideas that will help our clients understand where they are moving to, rather than where they are moving from,” he claims.

Hallam believes it's this integrated approach that will differentiate Deloitte Digital's media and creative offering from competitors.

“We've been doing a lot of customer experience, but this is a move into the front end of that. We talk about the brand creative as a promise, an experience and then a memory, so for us this is a strategic move to be able to create the brand promise that we can then execute.

“What we think will be unique about what we're doing, goes back to the strong brand and design culture we have. The integration of these together is what we're really focussing on, and so the integration and extension of brand creativity will differentiate us in the market,” he says.

Read more about the consultancy shake ups that have rocked adland this year 

Have something to say on this? Share your views in the comments section below. Or if you have a news story or tip-off, drop me a line at rosiebaker@yaffa.com.au

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