Deloitte Digital enters Central Europe with Polish deal
Deloitte Digital has expanded its wings into Central Europe with the acquisition of Digital One, a Poland-based digital marketing company. The transaction, which sees almost 100 staff added to its headcount, represents the first move in Deloitte Digital’s wider expansion strategy within Central Europe.
To play into the rise of the digital market, Deloitte – with more than 225,000 employees the globe’s second largest professional services firm – launched Deloitte Digital back in 2012, which now has grown into one of largest digital agencies of globe*. The business provides clients with digital solutions across the full spectrum of services, from strategy through execution, including digital strategy, user experience, engineering, design, and implementation services across mobile, web, social, and digital content solutions.
As part of its growth strategy across the world, Deloitte Digital has besides organic growth been buying up specialists in strategic locations to fuel its ambitions**, with the latest deal taking place in Poland. The acquisition of Digital One – a Lodz-based digital advertising company that supports brands with the development of digital media – will see almost 100 staff join Deloitte Digital. The move sees Deloitte Digital enter the Polish, and wider Central European market, following previous European launches in amongst others Belgium, France, Germany, UK & Ireland, Italy, Netherlands and Switzerland. Besides the market entry, the integration also adds significant complementary capabilities to its portfolio, says Deloitte, with Digital One excelling in the area of creative and marketing execution, while Deloitte Digital describes itself as a leader in digital strategy and technology consulting, combined with deep industry knowledge.
Olgierd Cygan, who founded Digital One in 1999, has been elected Partner at Deloitte Digital and will lead the Digital Agency offering within the Deloitte Digital practice in Poland and Central Europe. Cygan remarks about the move: “We are joining Deloitte Digital because of the vast potential we see in this combination. I think it will allow us to grow even faster than before. We also subscribe fully to this definition of new category, which Deloitte Digital represents. Digital marketing is transforming and evolving rapidly. We find the new model, the combination of strategy, technology and creative as potentially extremely disruptive. We want to be part of this disruption.”
Looking ahead, Zbigniew Szczerbetka, Leader of Deloitte Digital for Central Europe, says he is convinced the firm can successfully leverage Digital One’s track record to build a strong foothold in the Central European landscape. “We are unique combination of a digital agency and consultancy under one, integrated, global practice. Our combination of industry focused strategy consulting and design-led technology capabilities with creative and marketing skills of a digital agency will allow us to help our clients in the way traditional consultancies or agencies cannot,” he comments.
Similarly to other deals done by Deloitte Digital, Szczerbetka says the Big Four giant will preserve the unique DNA of Digital One – the culture of the Digital unit differs considerably from that of Deloitte itself, with Deloitte Digital leaving its network of ‘studios’ with a high degree of autonomy, allowing them to maintain a “start-up culture while being part a global consulting powerhouse.”
For Deloitte Poland, Digital One represents the second major deal in the space of just a few weeks. Early September the professional services giant poached Stratosfera, a Polish marketing consulting firm, now rebranded as ‘Stratosfera by Deloitte’.
Pushing into digital design consulting
To capitalise on the digital boom several large consulting firms have of late been beefing up their design capabilities. Accenture for instance has Accenture Interactive (the third-biggest digital agency network after Deloitte and IBM according to Advertising Age), while even the strategy houses such as McKinsey & Company and the Boston Consulting Group (through BCG Digital Ventures) are gradually building an agency arm. Last month Consultancy.uk also featured PwC’s push into the digital design arena.
* Advertising Age, a global magazine on marketing and media, recently named Deloitte Digital the second largest digital agency worldwide, with an estimated revenue of $1.5 billion.
** In May this year Deloitte Digital acquired a digital agency in Sweden called Mobiento, while in November last year it purchased Flow Interactive, a South Africa based design firm. Earlier deals include the pickup of Seattle-based digital shop Banyan Branch and mobile company Ubermind.
