Just recently, Enero Group, the boutique network of marketing and communications agencies headquartered in Australia, has announced that it has acquired GetIT, the marketing agency in APAC that specialises in B2B technology. This is the newest acquisition by Enero Group where last year, the network was seen buying McDonald Butler Associates (MBA), a UK-based B2B sales agency.
The current move by the network is aimed at accelerating the growth of Hotwire in APAC, Enero’s leading global technology communications consultancy. In an exclusive interview with GetIT’s CEO Anol Bhattacharya, he shares with us how the team plans to seamlessly fulfil the integration now that the agency is moving onto a next stage of growth with new offerings and an expanded value proposition at hand.
GetIT now a Hotwire company
When the news first broke out, we similarly spoke with Anol for a comment, and in a prosaic but spot-on answer, he said, “We liked the Hotwire/Enero leadership team.”
Anol said that Hotwire’s decision to acquire GetIT goes beyond expanding the global footprint in Asia, but primarily to strengthen the vision of Hotwire’s leadership team to accelerate Hotwire’s reputation, relationship, and revenue services globally and provide a unique marketplace offering.
The acquisition enables Hotwire to support clients with long-term brand awareness and near-term sales result.
Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT’s CEO
Alongside GetIT, Enero Group, in fact, simultaneously accomplished its acquisition of North America-focused B2B digital marketing agency, RIO-DNA. Anol said that the two acquisitions will allow the teams to rapidly scale services to innovative technology companies in North America and APAC in order to navigate “complex reputation issues, building business-impacting stakeholder relationships, and delivering revenue growth on a larger scale.”
The challenge that comes with expanded capabilities
In the interview, Anol bared that in beefing up its services following the buy-out, one of the challenges is attracting and putting good talent in place for these practices. Through the acquisition, GetIT is now adding reputation management, brand strategy, and public relations to its capabilities.
There will be some challenges ahead of us…as finding and attracting good talent is getting more complex everywhere in the world.
Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT’s CEO
But Anol said that all’s good in the hood as the Hotwire leadership, specifically Global CEO Heather Kernahan, and Australia MD Jamie Nelson is behind them in ramping up the hiring process “as fast as they can.”
Furthermore, Anol implied that the fusion such as that of GetIT and Hotwire’s is basically ‘written in the stars’ in the midst of an accelerated need for integrated services.
“One of the key areas of expertise of GetIT is content, [and] content is the central and common differentiator for marketing and communication services.”
“The rationale for integrating GetIT into Hotwire Group is easily explainable to the internal and external audience, following the narrative of integrated reputation to revenue.”
He revealed that the process of offering this unique and integrated service offering is already underway, where the leadership team of Hotwire, Enero, ROI DNA and GetIT has kick-started the process in a face-to-face, rigorous workshop in San Francisco.
The roadmap for cross-pollinating the unique attributes from every location of Hotwire, ROI-DNA and GetIT is mapped out, and we have a clear path ahead of us.
Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT’s CEO
When asked about what he thinks are the pain points of brands today when it comes to performance marketing, he jovially says, “Everything is performance marketing. Because the opposite of that will be non-performance marketing, and nobody wants that.”
But on a more serious note, Anol thinks the real issue of B2B organisations today is the siloed organisational structure where there are disconnected goals and KPIs for brand marketing, corporate communications, performance marketing, and sales.
He said that many companies now started the integration process to bring all marketing, communications and sales functions and even creating a new role of chief commercial officer or chief revenue officer.
“Even if I don’t take that broad perspective, we need to realign all the silos in the marketing and comms department in one direction.”
For Anol, if he were to classify B2B marketing and comms in two sections, it would be Brand and Reputation Marketing and Communication, and Field marketing or Revenue Pipeline Marketing.
For the former, Anol said it must include brand strategy, awareness, reputation and brand association. With the efficiency of digital surveys and focus groups containing a large sample size, he said that both dimensions can be measured in the short term.
While in the long term, he said “performance in profit and loss, market share, and the secondary market are irrefutable proof points of the effectiveness of brand strategy and communication.”
Meanwhile, for field marketing, this would include lead generation, qualification, nurturing and contribution to the revenue pipeline.
“It’s mind-boggling that marketers and agencies still get away with presenting some vanity metrics instead of showing any real value for field marketing in the era of marketing automation and analytics dashboards.”
The fusion of Hotwire and GetIT
For reputation management, he says that the biggest challenge is that everyone has become a publisher, and that social media proliferation has changed the perspective of brand reputation management completely.
Moreover, both B2B and B2C customers are now evaluating based on the sustainability and ethical values of the suppliers. On the other hand, public relations is becoming true to the taxonomy with time
Anol Bhattacharya, GetIT’s CEO
Meanwhile, the second biggest challenge, according to Anol, is to prove the ROI of brand reputation management initiative as many companies are struggling to connect the dots between their top-line growth and reputation.
Ultimately, Anol says that where the fusion of Hotwire and GetIT fits in is providing a unique, integrated platform to clients.
“The goal of joining forces between Hotwire, GetIT and ROI-DNA is to provide a unique, integrated platform to our clients where they can not only serve as a one-stop solution for Reputation-Revenue-Relationship service.”
In addition, at the heart of the upcoming new synergy is the aim to help clients align their aspirations and workflow beyond departmental silos.
