Havas secures scale and spread, looks to level up on stature
After growing the network in India from 200 people to 2,000 today in five years with a slew of acquisitions, RANA BARUA has his task cut out – to replicate the growth story in nine new markets he has now been asked to lead. Edited excerpts from an interview with the Group CEO, Havas India, SouthEast and North Asia and President, The Advertising Club.
It’s been five years now since you joined Havas. A number of acquisitions have happened under your watch. What was the headcount when you joined and what is it now? Which to your mind have been the game changing acquisitions?
We had less than 200-odd people in three agencies. I came into the system in late 2018. By January 2019 is when I started putting the perspective in place. We had a few acquisitions in the pipeline. One didn't work out and we amicably parted ways (with Langoor Digital). One which I saw through was that of Shobiz. I'm extremely proud of that as my first big acquisition, though the conversation had started before I joined. Around the middle of 2019 we acquired Think Design, which is now a fully owned Havas agency. And the good news is that the co-founders stayed on and one of them, Deepali (Saini), is the CEO of the agency.
We started fixing a bit of media, we started fixing creative. After that, when Covid happened in early 2020, I took on that conversation in a different way. I saw it as a business opportunity because if you are sitting at home and managing whatever you have, you could either sink or stay afloat – or you could use the time to experiment. We were at a base that didn't seem too strong and we realised that there was a potential of introducing new expertise.
By the end of 2020 I started speaking about acquisitions in a stronger way because I realised that it was how one could grow once you come out of Covid. 2020 was about keeping the foundation strong and looking at what we can do as a business. We were all formatting our plans.
When we came out of Covid, we were stable. The exponential growth actually started happening from 2021. New verticals got launched. Havas Media had a lot of new conversations; so did Havas creative. We started putting our team back in place with the right kind of people.
Our headcount now is over 2,000. We have three clear verticals, and specialist offerings within each. It is very similar to how we are structured globally. I said that I will just make it flat – if New York or Paris or Shanghai was behaving in a certain way, I will align India into that map. If you're going to launch Havas Play, I want Havas Play. If you are going to have something in events and experiential marketing, I will have one. If you want to build a centre of excellence, I'm going to build it from India – not because I'm low cost but because I've got talent and I can do it.
So today a Havas Market has 150 to 200 people. It reports into Spain and has got a cross reporting structure into MoJo (Mohit Joshi, Havas Media). But it's run by an Indian who works for global markets and is based in India. Internally, people in Havas don’t see it as Havas India or Havas Asia and so on. There is an extension of the global remit. Today, we (India) are in the top 10 markets for Havas globally in terms of value. Five years back we were nowhere near.
There are a lot of expansion plans we were discussing and we continue to do so.
But we are now shifting gears. It's not going to be only about acquisitions and expansion, it’s going to be about how we can make the product better. What are the interesting solutions that we can bring on board? Is there something new that we can create?
You get the feeling that there's a lot more happening in the network in India today than just one creative campaign or one media thing. We get excited about what PR Pundit is bringing to the table or what Shobiz does with a big launch. Those conversations happen because it's more integrated at the top.
There are two things I'm definitely focusing on. One is how we can integrate more and work more closely. Because it's a humongous opportunity for us. Unlike other networks, this is not a creative network and a media network – it's a collective ecosystem of expertise. Somebody's bringing CX to the table, someone brings design, someone is bringing performance, someone is bringing culture and sports. We are trying to figure out how we can extract more out of each other. When people ask me about the pitches that are happening, I wonder, how do I single out a pitch? It’s not just creative and media. All agencies are pitching for some account or the other all the time. For me, the bigger ask is: Are you pitching together? How many agencies are going together? Is it only one? Is it one plus one, two or three?
And of course, now that we have the product in place, most of our agencies have started looking at awards in a serious way.
It’s been the most satisfying journey of my career because what we have built is going to stay. What we have built is only going to grow multifold. I think we have a very solid foundation here. has equally become very powerful. The creative network which was much smaller is now probably contributing over 45 or 46 pc and media is around 54 or 55 pc. Earlier it was very different.
Are there any gaps that you feel still exist?
I'm definitely trying to fill up a high end, transformative consulting kind of a gap. We have Gate One in the UK. They work across brand transformations globally (and became part of Havas in end-2019). I've always been attracted to high end consulting conversations and projects because it allows you to work closely with the CXOs and you have a huge impact. I also feel that if you have something like this, it directly correlates to some of the key offerings like design. We have a new global CEO at Havas CX who joined us in January –.David Shulman. David is building CX into one of those most aggressive growth engines for us. So you would see a lot of conversations out there. CX involves data and tech and what we build out of India may just not be only for India
The third one which I'm quite keen on is the digital agency – the classical social and digital agency is something I see as a gap. It's not like we don't have digital natives walking on the creative floor. It’s just that sometimes when you go for larger RFPs or conversations, there’s a question about the digital agency, how many people are in it, and what clients and brands we have worked on. Most networks have a strength out there. Many of them have bought companies in the space and some even recently.
Nine more markets have been assigned to you in the expanded role. What is the exposure to the newer markets that you have and how much of a challenge do you see that as? Is it rather the growth driver Rana Barua who's been put in the saddle?
The second part is the broad driver – definitely, growth is an expectation. The group has been quite appreciative of and enthused about us bringing in a stable environment, having created many ecosystems and expertise, building a five and a half-year conversation with steady growth. We’ve done it in a very transparent way. It's been absolutely straightforward. If you had an issue, you've called out an issue. If you had a problem, you've addressed the problem.
We have built a very strong and balanced leadership. The share of women overall was 19 pc in 2019 and today we are around 41 pc women. That ratio remains in the leadership as well. In the Executive Committee the representation of women is 54 pc.
If you're a leader, you should be able to drive whichever place you're thrown into because you're governed by the same principles. It's about leadership. It's about growth.
Officially, my transition started in October. The way things have started moving, it's as if I was working with the teams forever. It's been a very natural fit for me. I knew a lot of them across markets from before, so it's been very easy to start working with them officially now.
Are there gaps within the India system in terms of leadership that you would like to fill?
I don't see any gaps. I think we have to be more hands on in some spaces.
Also, because we've got a Managing Committee which works very closely, while people can play their own role they can also take on a wider perspective. We had Jaibeer (Ahmad) who was working with a certain profile in the system. He suddenly walks in and becomes Chief Transformation and Growth Officer.
I encourage mobility a lot. If somebody is working in some space within the group and not liking it, she raises her hand and we figure out if there is a role or profile for that person. We've had so many successful cases where a very senior person from creative has moved into media, someone from CX has walked into Havas People and so on.
Five years back I would have said I have to go out and hire people. Now we first see if there is anybody within the group.
At the start of the conversation you mentioned that now it's about getting out better work and touched upon awards. What are the ambitions in terms of awards? Is there a goal post?
We started putting in place a few things that we could have done a bit earlier. We have a Strategy Council across the group led by Sanchita (Roy) who is the Chief Strategy Officer of Havas Media. Roy and Anirban (Mozumdar), CSO of Havas Creative India, are working with all the group companies over the last few months.
We also have a Havas Creative Council led by CCOs Anupama (Ramaswamy) of Havas Worldwide and Sachin (Talwalkar) of Havas Life Sorento. In the last 90 days they have started measuring the quality of work. The Creative Council is also overseen by a gentleman called Joji (Jacob) from BLKJ Havas Singapore. Joji now works very closely with me across the region. He is also Regional Creative Chair, a position held by Bobby (Pawar) earlier.
We have work getting ready for the larger awards. Do we have ambitions to win more? Yes, we do. We are figuring out which are the ones to go after.
We are looking at what kind of case studies are getting built at Effies. There are internal benchmarks. In fact, next week we are doing a three-day Asia Pacific strategy and creative workshop in Hong Kong. Stéphane (Xiberras, CCO, BETC France and Head of Havas Global Creative Council) is coming. So a lot of action is happening.