The Indian arm of the $944 million (Rs 4,625 crore) IT company Sapient, plans to focus on providing interactive marketing and technology services in the country. The company already has a similar international practice called Sapient Interactive, that has operations in 20 cities in North America, Europe and Asia.
As part of this focus on multi-channel marketing and commerce, the company plans to increase the headcount in this division besides having a new office in the country. Sapient Interactive contributes nearly 50 per cent of its global revenues, besides employing almost 2,000 people in India. The rest 2,000 work for its consulting practice in the country.
“The increased focus on interactive marketing will translate into increased headcount, all of whom would be lateral hires and a new office where Sapient already has a presence. We plan to do this by the end of this year,” said Gaston Legorburu , Senior Vice President and Chief Creative Officer, Sapient.
The services include integrating strategy, creative, advertising, media services, analytics and technology for its clients in emerging channels like social media, mobile devices, digital in-store displays, self-service kiosks and traditional media.
Sapient has been hiring 1000-1500 people every year and has offices in Noida, Gurgaon and Bangalore in India.
“We want to focus on creative delivery of digital marketing in India especially for those clients who wish to be digitally savvy. The real challenge is to establishing ourselves as a digital agency from an IT firm,” adedd Legorburu .
The Indian digital marketing industry is pegged to be around $150-200 million (Rs 740-980 crore) and growing at 45-50 per cent year-on-year. “This makes India a key potential market for Sapient. Our strategy is to have multi-channel commerce and marketing that will provide brand and marketing strategy, creative work, web design and development to our clients,” said Karandeep Singh , Managing Director- Sapient India.
In fact, it recently acquired Nitro Group, a global advertising network for $50 million (Rs 245 crore) and became a digital agency to acquire a traditional agency.
