FOCUS - 2001 PREVIEW: Best to be prepared for the unexpected

More than ever, we will have to gear up our organisations to be prepared for the unexpected. I am convinced that going through 2001, I will be challenging more than once our offering and the organisation supporting it. Two years ago, I wrote in the same column that I believed the only operations that could deliver totally integrated communication programmes to their clients were the ones in which all the communications disciplines were developed under one bottom line. At the time, integration for most people meant the same colour coding from bunting to print ads. Integration for Euro RSCG means the ability to re-deploy. And this ability will be the most valuable asset of our organisation in the years to come. We have to make sure that the structures we put in place are flexible enough to accommodate the succession of changes we will have to go through. It means fewer operations managers and more discipline leaders working in teams in the same organisation. From delivering integrated communication programmes, to delivering interwoven communication programmes, agencies shouldn't think of 'having an Internet division' but look at how they could integrate digital communications into everything they do, because in fewer years than we all think, all communications will be digital. Understanding how the Internet fits into and affects other communications media is a role that we are embracing at Euro RSCG. It is more than just integrated communications, where creative relates across different media. It is 'interwoven' communication, where one media's creative is dependant on the other. Soon, we will develop TVCs, websites and direct marketing as one execution rather than three. The media revolution is driving dramatic change. It is fragmenting audiences and creating vast new opportunities. This revolution is changing how we interact with each other and with the consumer. For our industry, the impact will be neither in B2C or B2B, but in C2B. Our role will move from accessing consumers and translating their needs to giving them access and moderating the dialogue. Our ability to listen to people should improve through the use of interactive media, and so should our ability to learn. In 2001, we will expand the direct marketing e-learning programme that we have put in place in the last quarter of 2000 to other communications disciplines, starting with interactive, and allow more than 300 of our employees as well as our clients to access them. We are moving into the creative economy. It is an economy based on ideas rather than physical capital. Companies that embrace the notion of creating value through ideas, through strategy, will be those that profit the most in the coming decades. Those who dare to be first will be rewarded. I will conclude with an abstract from our worldwide vision summarising our attitude towards change. "The people of Euro RSCG embrace the great opportunity of the times we live in. Times that demand the courage of new ideas and new solutions. Times that greatly reward those who are first with those ideas and solutions. Our agencies and our people are committed to applying new organisational concepts and information technology in ways that make us the leading network of the new century."

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