Strategic planning future-proofs newly merged business

A merger combined with a rapidly changing market required a clear and smart strategic planning process to set the company on a path to significant growth.

Business Challenge

Sticky, along with two other agencies, underwent a merger and what was needed was a new proposition for this newly merged agency.

Because each of the groups were functioning very well individually before the merger, it was a priority to ensure that the personnel from each of the agencies continued to gel well together.

Solution

The most notable solution would be the transformation of Sticky’s business model from a content provider to a strategic consultancy.

The new agency adopted the name “Sticky” (previously “Sticky Content”) as it made sense of what the market needed and what the combined agencies could do together. More importantly, this was a desired outcome from the workshop — a more future-proof approach for Sticky’s clients by having groups become specialists in specific business sectors.

Members of the group would immerse themselves into the business sectors assigned to them, as if they were consumers, and regroup to understand where that particular sector could potentially go in the future.

Result

• Results were also delivered swiftly with the workshop conducted in the summer and the new agency and website launched in September.
• The sector-focused specialisation approach enabled Sticky to provide better insights and a very strong point of value to their clients.
• The advice to take on a higher level and more strategic role gave Sticky the boost in confidence they needed to push for a more proactive approach with their clients and sell this new business proposition.
• A new executive who recently came on board with the company cited that one of the things that made the position attractive was the big vision and the big promise that Sticky did more than just producing content.

Quote from Christian Harris, Managing Director

“I have had the pleasure of working with Simon during his last few weeks consulting at Sticky. He has always been on hand to provide skilled and objective advice and his experience speaks for itself. More generally, he has had a significant impact on our approach to how we work as an agency and has substantially re-engineered the method we have for developing insights and market knowledge. We wish him every success in the future.”