Attendees
Christophe Chantraine – Global Creative Content Hub Lead at Ogilvy
Nital Shah – COO at Mavlers
Transcript
[00:00:00] Nital: How the agency world is shaping up and what current changes the digital agencies
[00:00:06] Christophe: are going through? I think the one that I’m seeing the most, at the moment is increasing tension between generalist agencies and more specialist agencies. Is AI going to, is AI gonna replace all the type of talents we need in an agency?
[00:00:26] Nital: What are the most common challenges for any agencies to grow?
[00:00:29] Christophe: I think the, the answer is very short. It’s profitability. We make less money for more time invested, and I think that’s the, the core issue that many, many agencies are facing at the moment.
[00:00:46] Nital: So. Christophe, thanks for joining us and we really appreciate your time today. Let me start quickly getting some insights about you and your experience and journey being [00:01:00] a content creative, lead for Ogilvy. So to start with being part of WPP group since almost a decade or a little more than that, would love to know your insights about how the agency world is.
[00:01:16] Nital: Shaping up and what current changes the digital agencies are going through.
[00:01:22] Christophe: Yeah. Alright, thanks. So I think what, what is currently happening? I mean, there, there are many, challenge obviously in our, in our industry, but I think the one that I’m seeing the most at the moment is that. Increasing tension between generalist agencies and more specialist agencies, and I think this has also a big impact on our.
[00:01:48] Christophe: As a big network, a big generalist agency, or ability to, to attract the, the right, talents. So what we see is that, there are more and more specialized agencies, [00:02:00] smaller setup, that are very specialized, as an example in influencer marketing or in AI or in automation or any other sort of discipline.
[00:02:13] Christophe: And those agencies very often will start by. Running some sort of pilot with a client and then the pilot will turn into a longer term project and the longer term project will progressively eat a little bit the revenue from the, the, the broader, bigger agency. So I think that’s one of the challenges enabling.
[00:02:34] Christophe: That internal transformation inside the bigger group, the bigger agencies to enable those community of skills, specialized skills to emerge and to yeah, be able to provide this type of specialized services to clients. And I was saying earlier, it, in my view, it has a direct link to our ability to, attract and to retain [00:03:00] talents because we see that.
[00:03:03] Christophe: We need in order to, continue to grow and to to, to sort of retain that revenue within the bigger network. We need more and more specialized profiles within the agencies and over the last few, years. The, the, the number of different specialism has exploded and, you know, it’s becoming so specific and so now you have, you know, needs for expert in so many different places in order to properly run your agency.
[00:03:32] Christophe: And finding all of those talents, making sure they’ve got something interesting on their plate, that they are being paid fairly. So that the client is paying for the expertise, making them work in a broader environment while where all the, the disciplines are kind of having to work together and embed each other and work in a sort of borderless way.
[00:03:52] Christophe: I think it’s a big challenge because for many specialists it’s maybe perhaps more appealing to just, join a, a specialist [00:04:00] agency that’s, you know, directly related to their, area of specialism and not to bother about having to integrate and work in, you know, such a bigger environment with so many forces in presence.
[00:04:12] Christophe: So I think if I have to summarize, this is in my view, the, the main challenge that we face as a big network at the moment,
[00:04:18] Nital: from the outset in an agency world, it’s. Often been perceived as the larger agencies or the larger group would not been going through much of a challenge to attract and retain the talent because the smaller agencies have those challenge more, and that’s the perceived notion.
[00:04:36] Nital: But I can, I can imagine what, because you guys needs so much specialization, as you mentioned, and also you need it in a volume, so you, the challenge is.
[00:04:50] Christophe: Opposite in each place. Smaller agencies, smaller, structure are willing to attract people with experience in [00:05:00] bigger network, bigger agencies because it can help them to scale face faster, to bring better ways of working process. And that kind of a structure and models that are being developed in the bigger agencies and the big structure.
[00:05:16] Christophe: Need the sort of, startup, mentality and mindset and specialism. That is usually something that you find in smaller structure. So perhaps the, the best situation is finding something in between, but, yeah.
[00:05:30] Nital: Yep. Yep. And, and I hear you mention with specialized agency Focus, you also mentioned ai. Would love to know with AI and automation being at center and a buzzword around the industry or around the world, how do you see the digital agency landscape is changing with.
[00:05:50] Nital: AI coming and automation coming at utmost focus.
[00:05:54] Christophe: So I’ll divide my answer into the first thing and, and to make a link to the previous [00:06:00] question, we actually see more and more agencies, smaller structure most of the time that are. Really positioning themself as AI first agencies. And, we know about several agencies that are now, knocking on the door of big clients and, bigger companies to propose AI specialized type of, services.
[00:06:21] Christophe: So, you know, that that’s also something that a big network has to pay attention to. And I, I think most of them are developing a bespoke solutions and, and coming up with specific tools and, and. Ways, ways to leverage AI in the, in the work on a day-to-day basis. What, what I see on my end is I think that there are many, many conversation obviously, about is AI going to steal our job?
[00:06:48] Christophe: Is AI going to replace all the type of talents we need in an agency I’m not able to see in the future? So I don’t know what’s gonna happen in five years or 10 years from now. What I can say is, what is happening today and [00:07:00] what is happening today is that for me, I see ai. More as a sort of. Assistant to the work of existing talents across the entire agency ecosystem.
[00:07:13] Christophe: And you know, I, I work very closely with account manager, with media buyers, with content creators, with people working in intelligence research, media planning, brand planning, and I can see all of them. No exception are leveraging AI in different ways, depending on what they need to extract from the, the tools.
[00:07:36] Christophe: But all of them are using it and not using it, because they have to, but because it really help them to accelerate the work they do to enrich the work they do. Um, and so more and more it becomes a sort of co-pilot or an assistance or a co-creation type of. Tool that is just helping us within the agency to do better work and to perhaps also to automate or, [00:08:00] or to accelerate things where there is a lower added value from a, a, a human perspective so that people can focus on creative creativity when it comes to the, the creative people or building chemistry with clients when it comes to content to, to account management team and so on.
[00:08:17] Christophe: And so, if I take the example of my own network. What I find really, fascinating is that they have developed bespoke AI tools that are customized specifically for operation strategy, content creation. Content ideation and performance. And so even if I’m not, into creative content, let’s say that I’m an account manager, I could still leverage those tools, which have been developed using existing technology.
[00:08:46] Christophe: Huh? So we use API from chat, GPT from all the, the tools available in the market. But as an example, it’s just one example amongst many others. We have an internal tool that will use AI to write better [00:09:00] briefing for creatives. So, you know, it’s very interesting because at the end of the day, it means that, with all the input that an account manager can get from the client background, context and so on, you are actually able now to generate a fully fledged briefing for the creative team.
[00:09:17] Christophe: With assistance from ai and there are many, many other example like this. So I, I really like the fact that, you know, we, we, we, we are in a space where we can think about some of the business challenge that we face as an agency on a day-to-day basis and how we can help to solve those challenges with the use of ai.
[00:09:36] Christophe: And I think that’s also the way we need to approach it with clients. It’s not to go to clients and tell them, we are gonna change everything with ai. No, let’s work together to understand what are. Current challenge, issues, opportunities, and let’s see if and how AI can potentially provide a, a suitable.
[00:09:56] Christophe: Solution to, to address those challenge. and perhaps with [00:10:00] one client it’s about language variation, perhaps another client. It’s about better working with an ecosystem of a very wide ecosystem of agencies, perhaps another client. It’s about achieving better performances with their paid media. Perhaps another client.
[00:10:13] Christophe: It’s about, having a spokesperson that can speak in, 10 different language. You know, all of these can be to some extent solved with ai and I think that’s a, a very fascinating new. Space for agencies. Very interesting.
[00:10:27] Nital: And with this very fast, dynamic changing landscape, how do you see the type of skill sets agency look out for when they’re interviewing or hiring new candidates?
[00:10:41] Nital: Um, are there any specific skill sets they more focus on now than before?
[00:10:46] Christophe: I mean, clearly now when people can prove, not just say, but prove that they have done something with ai. To, to do a link with my previous answer. It’s probably something that will stand out in a CV because [00:11:00] yeah, I think most companies understand that they have to position themself in that space.
[00:11:04] Christophe: No, I think what, what I see on my end, and perhaps I’m more speaking at a personal level and less about the whole industry, but what I see more and more is an appetite for talents that have experience working in. I would say, again, it’s more my world, but in a global environment, what I’m seeing is that we would more easily find interest in hiring someone who, who has worked across multiple culture, has experienced dealing with a more complex international projects.
[00:11:39] Christophe: Because more and more, that’s what I see in the world of advertising is more and more. Network effects. And when I look at the work we do on big brands, where we collaborate across multiple agencies in the network and multiple markets in the network, we need to have a po. An understanding of the cultural [00:12:00] differences, the different ways of working.
[00:12:02] Christophe: Yeah. The local context of the people we are going to work with. And for me, what I’ve seen in my own experience is that sometimes when you hire someone who has only been working in their own markets. Very often when you start deploying these type of people on a global environment, it takes them a little bit longer to be used to working with such a diverse, you know, set of people.
[00:12:26] Christophe: So I think it’s always good when we have people who already have that, build that experience of working in a global environment, know how to adapt, know that perhaps. The way you work in your own market is not exactly going to be the same way of working in another market. Having that type of expertise or experience is, for me, something that is increasingly valuable because it reduce the learning curve and so we can have people up and running faster and, and that’s quite important.
[00:12:55] Nital: Well, thanks. Thanks for answering this. Moving on to [00:13:00] next, especially when we talk about. Agencies growth journey. What are the most common challenges you have experienced or heard or happen to speak with agency owners about that? What are the most common challenges for any agencies to grow?
[00:13:17] Christophe: I think the, the answer is very short.
[00:13:20] Christophe: It’s profitability. What we see, and again, it’ll be, it’ll be related to what I was saying earlier is more and more complexity. More and more needs for specific specialists across whole set of different, disciplines. So clients are expecting more in terms of the, the, the, the specialist, the volume of what we need to deliver, the speed at which we deliver.
[00:13:48] Christophe: And at the same time, budget, client budgets are increasingly. Decreasing because it’s hard pressure from procurement. And so it’s really about [00:14:00] how can we do more with less? And at the moment, I think many agencies haven’t yet formed the magic solution. And so the, the first impact is on profitability. We make less money for more time invested to deliver on the client needs.
[00:14:16] Christophe: And I think that’s the, the core issue that many, many agencies are facing at the moment.
[00:14:21] Nital: Okay. Okay. And. Would love to know that as as a global content or global creative content hub lead and previously setting up that entire Ogilvy South Africa as a content hub, what has been your journey? I believe. So the second part of the question is what are the solutions to increase that profitability?
[00:14:47] Nital: And I would love to know a little bit more about your journey of building that content hub for Ogilvy.
[00:14:56] Christophe: But, so to go back a little bit in, in the past [00:15:00] when, so I’m initially from Belgium. When I went for the first time in South Africa, my goal was not to develop an offshoring or outsourcing center. My goal was to launch a local agency inside.
[00:15:17] Christophe: The network and to be more paid media agency initially. And what I started to discover very quickly when I, I started in South Africa is that we could find a. Very good talents in the market, not just in paid media, but South Africa has an excellent reputation in the world in terms of creative excellence.
[00:15:41] Christophe: We’ve got a very good strategist, very good account people and so on. So all in all, it’s South Africa is a, a top tier market when it comes to advertising, broadly speaking and marketing. And so I, I discover all of those talents in South Africa. And having conversation with, you know, [00:16:00] my ex-colleagues back in Belgium.
[00:16:02] Christophe: I had also a good friend of mine who, is also part of my network who moved to New York. And we were discussing and started to compare the cost of talents. And then I realized, okay, in fact in South Africa we have top tier talents. People that can easily compete in terms of quality of craft and speed and ability to deliver with any other market in the world, including markets like North America, Europe, and so on.
[00:16:31] Christophe: But the, the, the, the cost of living, the, the four X and all those parameters. Make South Africa a very interesting destination for cost efficiencies. And so I think that’s really how, how the idea came up in the first place. And we had a first opportunity to work with North America on one media buying project for one of their clients.
[00:16:51] Christophe: It came a little bit out of nowhere, but I thought, okay, let’s, let’s try it. And it was a success and so we started scaling the media team. [00:17:00] Initially, very quickly, in fact, because we had a major client in Europe who moved all their media buying into my team in South Africa. So all of a sudden I had to hire, I think 48 media buyers for social, programmatic and display and, and social and, and search.
[00:17:18] Christophe: In something like, four months. But, so media was really the, the, the driving force in the beginning. But then very quickly we realized that, okay, media is interesting, but what about content? What about creativity? What about also what is. The front and center in the offering of our agency. And so we started hiring a first creative director in, in South Africa, a very, very good one.
[00:17:43] Christophe: And that, first creative director, slowly but surely started to develop his own team and. To that we started to go and talk to the markets all across the world to propose our services. And it’s always start like this. They want small appetizer. [00:18:00] So okay, let’s, test you on one project and see how it goes.
[00:18:04] Christophe: And I think progressively we were able to show that we are, able to deliver and, and to, to provide excellent, creative thinking, content production rollout, all your content type that you need usually on digital and social media touchpoints. And so progressively we scale the team that way. And so today, when I look back at the whole journey.
[00:18:26] Christophe: We’ve got a media team. We have a content team, we have an intelligence team, and we are also providing access. To agencies all over the network, to any sort of capabilities available in South Africa. So not just the core media content intelligence services, but also healthcare, potentially pr, influence, website development, SEO.
[00:18:54] Christophe: So all of that is now, accessible through that structure that I have [00:19:00] developed when I was in South Africa. Just to answer the second part of your question, which was about how agencies are using the team to tackle that profitability challenge. What we have is, I mean, there, there is an easy answer for agencies in New York, in Belgium, in Germany, in the uk, in all of those markets.
[00:19:19] Christophe: Hiring people as part of our team in South Africa is per definition. More cost efficient compared to hiring in their own markets. So I mean, there is already an incentive of doing this from the get go. It’s less expensive. And again, because we have done that for several years, we have case studies, we’ve got a critical mass, we don’t need to convince.
[00:19:45] Christophe: Agencies of our ability to do it, they know we can do it. So there is that, that trust and, you know, trust is now creating more opportunities and, and bring that business growth. We also have done something, but that’s more, technical and, and really only available [00:20:00] within our network. But when an, a market like North America is working with a team in South Africa, they get a 20% margin incentive back into.
[00:20:10] Christophe: Their books in North America. so there is an incentive also for other markets to, bring work to the offshore destination we have in the network.
[00:20:19] Nital: Very interesting, very interesting. And Christophe, from your experience and because you deal and you speak with lot of marketers and agency owners across the globe, apart from profitability, what, what are the reasons usually agencies.
[00:20:38] Nital: Also inclined towards offshore countries or offshore destinations. Is it anything else which lead them to think about offshoring as an option apart from profitability?
[00:20:51] Christophe: No. The reality is that, and, and it relates to what I was saying earlier, more and more. I am hearing agency leaders [00:21:00] and and marketers and so on, speaking of talent scarcity in their own markets.
[00:21:05] Nital: Okay,
[00:21:06] Christophe: so sometimes it’s just difficult to find the right people and you end up with critical vacancies. Are unfilled for a very long period of time. And, and, and it’s an issue. And so that’s why I’m saying also that I’m, I’m looking for people that have that sort of international experience working across market and so on, because what I see is more and more we are becoming a global world where your location.
[00:21:30] Christophe: Doesn’t matter as much as it did before. And probably also the, the Covid crisis and the people working from home and so on have changed a little bit here, the ways of working. But yeah, so, so what is interesting, and one of the reason also for our clients to come to South Africa is because they know that we can tap into a larger pool of talent and we, we.
[00:21:56] Christophe: Very, capable talents that would, perfectly suit [00:22:00] the needs in those market that they were not able to find, locally.
[00:22:03] Nital: Yep, no, true, true, true. So that demand. Supply gaps in these other specific global countries and where you have more supply, those becomes an attractive zones for, for companies to rely upon and start offshoring in your experience, which are these countries of which are these pockets where there is more opportunity for.
[00:22:29] Nital: Agencies to explore when they think around offshoring or outsourcing their marketing operations.
[00:22:36] Christophe: So I mean, the, the answer is a little bit, perhaps a little bit car, but it’s a lot of countries in the certain atmosphere. Yep. So what I see, and not just from my own network, but also speaking with other people in, in the industry, you’ve got Latin America.
[00:22:54] Christophe: Then you’ve got Indeed markets like South Africa, you’ve got, [00:23:00] places also like Madagascar, Mauricio, and places like this. So I’m almost thinking here in terms of time zone now. So you’ve got Latin America on the same time zone or closely. Related to North America, then you have Southern Africa and Northern Africa or Europe.
[00:23:19] Christophe: And then for the Asia and Pacific region, usually you will have a Philippine, you will have India. Yeah, those are the main destination. I’m also hearing a lot, lately about Lebanon. So, yeah, it’s, it, it’s, it’s those kind of places. I think for me, what, what’s the most important? There are always two elements that I’m, I’m trying to keep in mind when I’m thinking about offshoring destination is one time zone efficiencies.
[00:23:47] Christophe: We launch a new hub in Argentina in order to have people on a, on a similar time zone as of North America. So time zone is always one consideration. and then the second consideration is. It’s not [00:24:00] even about the volume of people you can find. It’s, it’s really about the quality of the work and the talents that you can find in, in the, in the market.
[00:24:07] Christophe: And I’m perhaps a little bit based here, but I do believe that some markets are excellent. I. When it comes to execution. So if you think about, creativity as an example, they can do a great rollout execution, motion design, and coming up with your final assets that will then be, delivered to the target audience.
[00:24:29] Christophe: But they may perhaps be a little bit less efficient and creative when it comes to, coming up with the big ideas and working with a, a little bit more creative player in the work that they, deliver. So. That’s also something that I’m keeping in mind when we think about offshoring and building network of talents and so on, is that you may not always be able to have exactly everything that you need in one single location.
[00:24:57] Christophe: Sure.
[00:24:57] Nital: And would love to know if you have any. [00:25:00] Direct indirect exposure about India and talent landscape in India, and if there are any thoughts around that, maybe you have direct interaction or you have heard the talks or the perception out there in the market, so would love to know what’s your experience and belief system when it comes to talents available or the talent pool available in India.
[00:25:24] Christophe: Yeah, but so I, I’ve got that direct experience, huh? Because I have been working with talents in India for years now, and what I have seen is, first of all, obviously a very large pool of talents. So I think that’s a very big asset for, for India. It’s the number of people that you are able to find, and I think that’s very attractive when you need to scale your operation very fast, is that you can really think in terms of.
[00:25:50] Christophe: Volume and batch of people, and you will know that they are qualified and, and all of them will come with very, unique, type of skill sets. so I think that’s an interesting point about, [00:26:00] India and then more at a an individual people. The, the, the people we have been working, with have always been hardworking, very dedicated, humble, and, and just willing.
[00:26:13] Christophe: To do things right, and I think that’s, that’s very important in our space is we don’t want to go to another market. And work with people that are perhaps having a sort of hidden agenda because, you know, they, they do this waiting for something else, or, no. When we have been working with resource in India, the talents have always been fully yeah, dedicated, focused on what they have been scoped on.
[00:26:37] Christophe: Now in my experience with India, we have found great success. Working with people in the media space. And then when it comes to, I don’t want to say this in a negative way because I, I really don’t think there is a Archie of, of content type, but more like bottom of the funnel type of content. It has been more [00:27:00] challenging when it comes to coming up with.
[00:27:03] Christophe: Things that require perhaps a little bit more creativity and local contextual, and I think there are excellent creative minds in India. Because of the situation of the, of the country, those people will probably tend to be excellent creative in the context of India and come up with great ideas and great campaigns for local clients that will leverage local trends and local context and be really relevant for target audience in the Indian market.
[00:27:33] Christophe: I haven’t seen this yet. Translate it into a, a more borderless type of creativity.
[00:27:40] Nital: Yep. Thanks. Thanks Christophe. And would love to know again, a little bit about your journey to build those creative content hub. Whenever any agencies wants to offshore or outsource their marketing operations to any other [00:28:00] offshore or near shore countries.
[00:28:02] Nital: What are the common challenges they’re gonna face? And from your experience, if there are any specific ways to address them or to get prepared well before they think of building their offshore teams. Any any suggestions you’d like to share with
[00:28:19] Christophe: them? I see three main things to keep in mind when you are an agency, a client willing to offshore.
[00:28:24] Christophe: The first one is that offshoring is not going to solve your. Structural challenge that you may have with your clients or or with your company. So what I have seen in the past, just to illustrate on this, is a client or partner agency in another market. With facing structural problem with a client, and perhaps it’s related to the way they have set up the collaboration, perhaps it’s related to the people who have not delivered on the client request.
[00:28:55] Christophe: Perhaps it was not the type of client that was suitable for the [00:29:00] agency. So there are many different reasons, but what I’ve been really fighting against for many, many years is to avoid transferring your problems. To the offshoring destination. We are there to provide talents. We are there to compliment your team.
[00:29:15] Christophe: We are there to make sure that you can deliver, but we, we still need you as a local client, as a local agency, we still need you. To make sure that everything you build with the offshoring destination is, is makes strategic sense for your clients in your specific situation. So sometimes I, I face a situation where people talk, okay, let’s put everything in the offshore destination and they’re gonna fix it.
[00:29:43] Christophe: It’s a collaboration and we still need you in your own market to think about ways to improve your collaboration with the client. And on top of that, leverage talent in the Horing destination. So that’s number one, is avoiding to transfer your structural [00:30:00] issues to the, to the horing destination. The the second thing is, I think really about defining the way you want.
[00:30:09] Christophe: To collaborate with the offshore talents, and the way I’m usually explaining this is by saying you can think of a sort of a line with, on the one end. Things that are fully project based and project based is more a sort of supplier and client type of relationship. So the, the partner will come to you and say, okay, we need to, I don’t know, produce 120 banners for social media assets.
[00:30:36] Christophe: You’ve got 15 days, we have two review runs. Do the work and deliver it. So that’s project based. Then on the other end of the spectrum of the line, you’ve got that model that we have called fully embedded talents, and here we recruit talent in the Horing destination to really work as an extension. Of the team [00:31:00] in the local market.
[00:31:01] Christophe: And so usually when we work with that embedded talent type of model, we even involve the local team in the talent selection and vetting process so that we don’t impose anyone because we want this relationship to be long term. And so, to give you an example, we are currently hiring 14 creatives. To work with one of our partner in the UK, in London.
[00:31:25] Christophe: Mm-hmm. London is very involved in the selection of the talent. So we do a first review in South Africa. Then there is a second review with the team in the uk. There is a test assignment. So all of this we put together because we don’t want it to be one shot. It’s about building long-term relationship and having fully embedded talents that will even.
[00:31:46] Christophe: Complete the time, their time sheets in the system in the uk and be managed by a creative director in the uk or a media director if we’re speaking of media people or any sort of of capabilities. But so I think it’s really important to think [00:32:00] about where do you want to be on that line? More project based, more fully dedicated, because it’ll have a huge influence on the way you work with your shoring destination on a day-to-day basis.
[00:32:11] Christophe: And then I think the third. Challenge or the third thing you need to think about when you want to to offshore is, and everything is kind of related, but is how can you ensure that you build a community of people across markets? Because if. You go to India or South Africa or another destination and just think, okay, it’s my supplier and I don’t want to create any sort of, you know, community spirit between people and so on.
[00:32:41] Christophe: It’s not going to be a very rewarding type of journey. It’s just going to be. Third party, you know, provider in, in the way we want to work. In the way I have implemented offshoring for my own network, we often speak of dual citizenship. And dual [00:33:00] citizenship is means that when we scope people to work. As an example with a client in the UK or in North America, based in South Africa, we need to, we really need the local team to think of the team in South Africa as an extension of their own team and not as people that are sitting 9,000 kilometers away.
[00:33:18] Christophe: And so we have developed a whole toolkit. Which includes things like very basic stuff sometimes, and like, make sure that you include those people into your internal communities, your Facebook group, your Slack channels, your team channels and so on. So they can be part of the conversation and be connected to what’s going on in your market.
[00:33:36] Christophe: Make sure to involve them into, your team building activities. Even if it’s only remote, we try to, secure budget. When we have long-term commitment so that we can have our local resource going and spending one week or sometimes more in the market to meet the people. So we’ve got a, a, a whole set of tools, let’s say, to [00:34:00] ensure that we can build that, yeah, sort of real community spirit, even though people are not sitting in the same office, because otherwise I think it’s a very command and control type of collaboration, and that’s not.
[00:34:12] Christophe: At a personal level, what I’m trying to build.
[00:34:14] Nital: Yeah. Yeah. Very interesting. Very interesting. And Christophe, you mentioned, let’s say it’s South Africa or India or Philippines, any of these destination businesses, think of relying on them because there is a huge amount of talent pool available, but whenever.
[00:34:34] Nital: Any agency think of entering into in any of these market and hire their own team or outsource their work. As you mentioned, attracting or finding the talent and vetting or assessing the right talent out of that large mass, how big of a challenge that is and what suggestions or advice you would like to give it to agencies who are [00:35:00] entering into relatively alien.
[00:35:02] Nital: Market.
[00:35:02] Christophe: So I think I’ve seen more and more global agencies going to, markets like India, South Africa, and so on, and trying to build an offshore operation from scratch without having any local support or any local relay. And I think it’s extremely challenging. Because you need an understanding of the local market.
[00:35:22] Christophe: You need to understand there are many things around the local laws in terms of employment notice period. You know, you, you’ve got so many parameters that you need to take into account. And what I’ve seen over the last few, years is some of those global agencies opening as an example, a new office in South Africa, is that they would actually do.
[00:35:42] Christophe: Everything virtually. So they wouldn’t really have a local office, they would only hire people to work fully, remotely. And I think it, it’s kind of attractive to talents, but only for a short period of time. At some point, those talents will come back and we, we, we are [00:36:00] seeing it today with, the, the whole talent acquisition effort.
[00:36:02] Christophe: We, we are running, we see those talent that, that moved into agencies that are fully remote, willing to move back into a more traditional model because they just miss. Having colleagues and being in a workspace and having a proper management structure and HR support and, you know, so it’s, it’s not for everyone.
[00:36:20] Christophe: Not everyone is made to be a fully freelancing and working remotely. But, so to come back to your question, my advice really is to leverage an existing local structure to develop your shoring operation. And that’s what I have done in South Africa. We’ve built it inside the agency that was already up and running and have been there for 50 years in South Africa.
[00:36:45] Christophe: So I was able to leverage their knowledge of the market, their HR people, their finance, and there are a lot of specificities. In terms of the talent market in South Africa that I, I had to know prior to starting hiring in that market, and I’m sure [00:37:00] it’s the same in India. I’m sure it’s the same in many other destination.
[00:37:03] Christophe: So it’s not really something you can, you can improvise. You need to have the knowledge of people on the ground
[00:37:08] Nital: and, um, what, what, what are your long-term goals or what will you call it as a success? So your journey. Of setting up that creative content hub in South Africa and now as a creative content hub lead for Ogle.
[00:37:24] Nital: We would love to know what are your long-term goals and what would you call it as a success?
[00:37:29] Christophe: perhaps we’ll more answer the certain part of the question, which is what I would call success. And for me it’s very simple. Success is when local markets, again, example, north America, uk, France, Germany, any other markets, enthusiastic and willing to work with an shoring destination.
[00:37:49] Christophe: Not because they are being forced, not because we are telling them at a management level you have to, because we have profitability challenge and you need to reduce your cost. But because they, they [00:38:00] actually see that it can really bring something. Additional because they can see the value of working with a team in the, the, the outsourcing network.
[00:38:10] Christophe: So for me, this is what I call success. This is what I’m trying to do. It’s again, not just to be executor and be a sort of necessary pain for other agencies working with us. It’s really about building that appetite to work with the offshoring destination because of the quality of the craft, because of the speed to deliver, because of all the efficiencies.
[00:38:34] Christophe: That that model can bring to the local market. So that’s really my, my North Star. That’s what I’m trying to achieve. I don’t want to be just another Horing destination as there are already hundreds of them across the world. I want to be a strategic destination. I want to be able to provide services. I.
[00:38:52] Christophe: That are going much beyond pure execution, but really bring value to not just the CFOs or the CEOs, but [00:39:00] the mid manager, the content creators, and all those people in the local market.
[00:39:04] Nital: A great way to look at it. It’s a need you wanna create, right? It’s not a push. So it’s a different approach, like push and pull.
[00:39:12] Nital: Exactly.
[00:39:13] Christophe: It’s push and Exactly. You have, let’s clear, the world is not perfect and you have to push sometimes. But once you have pushed, you want the pull effect to to, to arrive very fast.
[00:39:27] Nital: No, I think that’s all from my side. Christophe, really appreciate your time and contribution here. Amazing speaking with you and some great insights for.
[00:39:37] Nital: Lot of agency owners and marketers around the world, lot of businesses who wants to leverage offshore destinations to build their own offshore teams and hire talent in an offshore environment. So I’m sure a lot of great insights and coming from us, especially with an extensive experience, having those success stories of [00:40:00] building a great creative content hub for Ogilvy and WPP Group all.
[00:40:05] Christophe: Thanks. It was my pleasure. And yeah, always happy to share my experience.
[00:40:10] Nital: Yeah. Great. Great. Great.