In this issue:
- Where’s Your Growth Coming From?
- Nancy Fessatidis Joins Mercer
- Career Opportunities:
- Head of Corporate Branding & Communications – Life Insurance/Annuities – NEW
- Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
- Director, Advanced Analytics – FILLED
- VP, Marketing – Collections- FILLED
Where’s Your Growth Coming From?
The U.S. economy finished 2015 strongly, with low energy prices and cheap interest rates fueling record years in the airline and automotive sectors. Corporations are flush with cash, M&A deals set a record in 2015, and corporate stock buybacks reached the highest level in recent years as CEOs boosted EPS by using excess cash to buyback company shares.
While increases are expected in interest rates, the overall cost of money will remain inexpensive throughout 2016, and combined with strong cash balances on most balance sheets, strategic acquisitions will be once again the #1 growth driver. U.S.-based multi-nationals will continue to acquire Asian, EMEA, India, and Latin American businesses at record paces.
Also, given this is a U.S. election year, we are already seeing political campaigns and special interest PACs spending significant amounts on advertising. And look for Washington politicians (Congress & Senate) to avoid any government shutdowns or budget showdowns. It will be another year of kicking the can down the road which will assure plenty of government (subsidies) money continuing to flow into the U.S. economy.
While most global economists are forecasting world economic growth of 3-4% and modest growth for the U.S. economy (2%), we are more bullish and expect U.S. economic growth of 3-4%. The early signals are executive hiring remains strong. EC’s Q4 hiring was strong and early hires (plus new searches) in January confirm CEOs are hiring C-level leaders who can drive growth.
Where is your (company’s) growth coming from in 2016? Is your company pursuing acquisitions or perhaps your company is an acquisition target by a larger, strategic buyer that can accelerate your growth rate? What are your “Blue Ocean” strategies? Accenture Digital, one of our clients, has successfully pursued and closed several “bolt-on” acquisitions to accelerate their growth into the creative side of digital marketing and media. This has been a complementary and successful strategy to accelerating their growth and positioning Accenture Digital as a formidable competitor to the marketing services holding companies (i.e., Havas, IPG, Publicis, WPP).
In addition to strategic acquisitions, several of our clients are hiring GMs and CMOs to build new businesses through new products and new distribution channels. The majority of our placements in Q4 and early in 2016 are positions responsible for finding new adjacencies and developing new products/positioning in new sectors and/or new distribution channels.
Another area of growth being pursued is long-term infrastructure investments to transform antiquated, legacy processes and systems into modern-age, omni-channel, digital-first customer engagement, experience, and acquisition processes. In this new “Customer Age” we have entered, the consumer is at the controls, and mobile and digital shopping increasingly are the new “first screens.” This rapid change in consumer behavior is causing companies in every sector to redesign legacy systems to enable seamless online and omni-channel customer engagement and marketing in a new real-time, geo-targeting world. Just look at Amazon Prime, Uber, Priceline.com, Jet.com, and other innovative digital-first services to see the future of marketing and e-commerce. The Millennial generation has overtaken the Boomer generation as the largest segment of the workforce and this is a “tech savvy” generation that has already demonstrated they have no fear about buying things online.
So in many ways, 2016 will be a year of Innovation, with smart companies answering the Growth question in pro-active fashion.
If you haven’t already addressed this issue, start asking where’s your growth coming from?
As always, we welcome you comments and input. Pls. write to us and tell us about your 2016 strategies.
Best,
Jeff Gundersen & Lola White
Nancy Fessatidis Joins Mercer
We are pleased to announce Nancy Fessatidis has joined our client Mercer, a division of Marsh McLennan, as Global Leader of Analytics and CRM “Center of Excellence” based in NYC.
Sustainable competitive advantage starts with data analytics, and with the power of big data available to large global clients like Mercer, Nancy is the type of “Analytics Genius” to help build these capabilities to the next level.
In her new global role, Nancy will oversee simplifying sales & marketing analysis/reporting, developing predictive tools and processes to improve sales, client management and marketing effectiveness, overseeing lead qualification and nurturing, cultivating client insights and satisfaction, and fully leveraging available marketing technologies.
Nancy was formerly Global VP, Big Analytics at SAP prior to joining Mercer. EC will be providing Nancy our unique career transition support services as she begins this important new career opportunity. EC is delighted to have initiated this transaction and recruited Nancy Fessatidis to Mercer.
Career Opportunities
We have career opportunities at a variety of companies.
Take a moment to click on these links (below) for the complete position description:
- Head of Corporate Branding & Communications – Life Insurance/Annuities – NEW
- Sr. Mgr., Digital Strategy
- Director, Advanced Analytics – FILLED
- VP, Marketing – Collections- FILLED
Learn more about our Career Opportunities…
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