FY16 Q1 CEO Update
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Hi everyone. We have just completed
the first quarter of FY16,
so I wanted to take an opportunity
to update you
on how the business is progressing.
Before I go into that,
I wanted to talk to you a little bit
about an exciting initiative
that we've kicked off
as a leadership team.
You recall that four years ago we brought
our leaders within the business together
to develop a strategy in how we move
and shift
to become more of an integrated
communications agency.
Over the last few years, we've done
an extraordinary job
against that strategy. The business
itself has grown by over 30%,
but most importantly we've shifted
from just 5% of our work
being digital to over 50% of our work
involving some form
of integrated communications
campaign work on behalf of our clients.
We're now up to 600 people
across 24 offices, and we hit
every single one of our key performance
indicators within that plan.
So now it's time to kick off
Vision 2020.
What will our business look like
by the year 2020?
And to do that, we started by
getting some feedback from you
through our staff survey, but we also
went to 30 leaders—
communications leaders—across the world
to get a perspective from them
on what their needs for an agency are
today and what they will be in the future.
With that, we took a team together
here in New York
a couple of weeks ago to really focus
on what are the key areas
that need to evolve in our business?
We're kicking off six work streams
involving people across the world
on that development.
We will present that work to the ELT
in the July time frame.
And then we'll look to present it
to the leaders within our business
in October,
all of that being prepared
for the kick-off of that strategy
across the Text100 business
in its entirety in FY17.
So with that as the backdrop,
let me share with you a little bit
about what's happening
within the business over the last quarter.
Specifically we've been at the forefront
of the award circuit.
In particular, I wanted to highlight
the IN2 Saber Award that we won
in North America for the best use
of LinkedIn. I also wanted to highlight
that we won Agency of the Year
in India at the prestigious Indy Awards.
Our Stockholm office also developed
and launched a monthly podcast
which had tremendous success
and garnered interest
from a number of key new prospects.
San Francisco hosted a fantastic panel
in our new office space
and it was led by Jeppe Christensen
from Republic Publishing.
There was an amazing debate
within both current clients
as well as prospect on what are
effective content distribution strategies.
Lastly I had the opportunity
to speak at the 2015 Edison Awards,
and my topic was translating
innovation into corporate reputation.
We've included a link to the video
of that if anybody
would like to look at it at the end
of this presentation.
One of the things I would like
to do in these quarterly updates
is to look at the specific campaign work
that we're doing within the business.
And today I'd like to highlight
the Nordics campaign
for Orange Business Services.
Our team there developed
a digital strategy, which was focused
on moving from a push to pull
traditional outreach to a campaign
which was based more on digital
and social activity.
The goal was to establish
Orange as a highly respected influencer
and the go-to expert
in their key business areas.
The program was incredibly effective
and got really great feedback for Text100
from the Orange executives.
So along with this video, at the end
you will see a link to that creative work
as well as links to some of the other
great campaign work
that's going on in the business.
Now let me shift gears a little bit
and talk about our people.
In particular, it was fantastic
to see the Global Appreciation Day.
It's always amazing to me
how every single office
takes a unique approach to celebrating
our employees
and then takes the opportunity to share
all of that across our social channels.
I also mentioned earlier that we have now
fully acquired Republic Publishing
and I'm very excited about the fact
that JBC is going to join our ELT.
And he will move to New York in July.
My expectation is that he will be
a key contributor both to Vision 2020
as well as to our business
over the next 5 years.
And lastly I just wanted to mention
that we have completed the integration
of Bite in France into the Text100 office.
And I wanted to welcome Annie Hurley
to lead Text100 Paris
as our Managing Consultant.
She joins a tremendous group of leaders
across Text100 worldwide.
Now I wanted to look at operations
because they have been incredibly busy
over the last quarter.
They've rolled out a new upgraded
Wi-Fi system to all of our offices,
but they also undertook a huge effort
to support the business move
into our new offices
in 100 Montgomery Street in San Francisco.
Not only did they move Text100,
but they also moved a number
of our sister brands within Next 15
which was an extraordinary effort.
In addition after countless hours
of hard work, we launched
text100.com this quarter along with
a new website for our HyperText brand,
our integrated communication specialists
in India.
I encourage you to check out these sites
if you've not seen them.
Sarah MacKenzie and the IT team
did a great job of re-imagining
our website so that it's more welcoming,
more intriguing,
and is a much better representation
of the Text100 brand.
Lastly, let me take you through
the financials of our business
over the last quarter.
As you can see, the business is strong,
and we're continuing to grow.
However, we had a number of unexpected
client losses early in the year
which have impacted our revenue targets.
But we did complete a Q1 reforecast,
and that brings us back to plan
from an operating profit point of view.
So from my perspective,
I'd like everybody—encourage everybody
to put a key focus on revenue growth
from current clients
as well as new business.
Please look and find new opportunities
for leads within the business.
Think outside the box and continue
to remain creative.
You guys are at the heart of Text100,
and I know that we will continue
to make incredible strides
within the business
over the coming quarters.
So thank you for your contribution in Q1.
I'm very much looking forward to Q2
and for all of the excitement
and the opportunities that that brings.