WPP AUNZ announced this week to the market a raft of changes and new initiatives, all part of a new corporate strategy including a Martech Centre of Excellence to transform, strengthen and grow.

In announcing the group’s new group strategy, Jens Monsees, Managing Director and CEO, said:

“This year is the transformation phase of our strategy. Now two months into 2020, I can say we have already made meaningful progress in this phase by announcing a new leadership structure, a restructuring of our New Zealand business, added capabilities in technology through the acquisition of Dominion in New Zealand and announcing the establishment of our Centre of Excellence led by Adam Good, Executive Director of Marketing Technology to consolidate the technology consulting operations of the Group.”

See the full Strategy Briefing pack on the WPP AUNZ web site found here.

As the WPP AUNZ Executive Director of Marketing Technology it’s great to see the Centre of Excellence we call the COE, a virtual shared service launch as part of the new WPP AUNZ.

I’m also excited that Rob Pardini, our group lead Data Scientist and his DATA team joins the COE effectively immediately. This brings together data and technology communities that are all joined via new products and new working models to all the WPP AUNZ agencies lead creative services.

The creation of the new practice delivers both a hub and spoke model to our WPP AUNZ agencies to ensure creativity and marketing expertise leads technology and operational efficiencies for brands to engage and enrich customers using data and marketing technology.

The COE also supports clients when reviewing or buying cloud technology and works to increase the effectiveness of their investments to strategise and deliver marketing automation programs to drive customer lifetime value.

Jens outlined this week, “Our path to growth will be undertaken in three phases – transform, strengthen, and grow – over a three-year period to 2022.”

WPP AUNZ 2019 end of year recorded financials and earnings in line with previous guidance amid very challenging local market conditions and global conditions that can impact our industry over the coming months.

For the full-year to 31 December 2019, WPP reported total net sales of $819.4 million, which was a decline of 4.4% on the prior year.

The financial report shows the Specialist Communications segment, which includes technology brands AKQA and Aleph, have achieved strong performance consistent with trends across markets globally where clients are investing more heavily in marketing and advertising technology.

The group’s continuing business net sales came in at $712.5 million, a decline of 2.6%, while total headline earnings per share (EPS) was 7.4 cents, down by 9.6% on the prior year.  Continuing business headline EPS was 6.0 cents, also down by 9.6% on the previous year.

Pleasingly for shareholders, WPP AUNZ reported a strong cashflow conversion rate of 98% over the last 2 years of operation and the company managed to significantly reduce net debt.