MAM
Havas Media prepares for aggressive growth in 2012
MUMBAI: In a tough economic slowdown year, Havas Media had to ride through a quieter phase of growth as it parted with the Maxx Mobiles account, one of its top five clients, but retained the MTS business. And its prize catch was winning the entire media business of Parle Products, the account size of which is pegged at Rs 700 million.
“2011 has been a tough but an on-track year. Maxx Mobiles is the only business we gave up due to the poor health of the handset category and, hence, payment issues. But we managed to retain the MTS business despite fierce competition. And we closed the year by gaining the complete Parle AOR,”said Havas Media India & South Asia CEO Anita Nayyar.
Growth in 2011 was muted by the fact that there were lesser number of pitches called for. Havas participated in around ten bids and won about six.
“The industry did not see too many pitches for new accounts in 2011. Hence conversions have been a bit slow but our new business targets are on track. We expect the scenario to change in 2012 and will aggressively go for new business,”said Nayyar.
Havas formed alliances to ensure growth is smoother. Its media agency MPG partnered with Rediffusion‘s media brand TME to offer planning and buying services to clients of Rediffusion Y & R and its subsidiary Everest Brand Solutions.
“We are already on the path of initiatives, one of the most recent being an alliance with TME, the media arm of Rediffusion , wherein media for Rediff and Everest clients is being handled by MPG. This has allowed us to have prestigious clients like Parle, Heinz, Tata Motors, Paras, TVS Tyres etc under the MPG-TME brand. We are looking forward to more such initiatives across our offerings,”said Nayyar.
The agency also revamped its Mumbai office while Kolkata presence was established. Averred Nayyar, “We have revamped and strengthened our Mumbai office, which is gaining new clients and is ready to fight the market. The new clients that have come in after the revamp include History, Guffic, CNBC Awaz, Parle, Heinz, Taj, Tata Motors etc. We also have presence in the Kolkata market.”
Havas Media has grown more than five times in the last five years. “Our growth is largely a function of two key factors – new business wins (like Hyundai, MTS, Kohler, Carlsberg, Bank of Baroda) and launch of diversified divisions like Havas Digital (Media Contacts, Mobext,Escelis), Outdoor- MPG Active, Havas Sports and Entertainment and BTL- MPG Solutions,”she stated, while refusing to disclose the financials.
Charting out the road for 2012, Nayyar said, “Growth will be through the organic route and getting new clients is the oxygen for this. The focus is entirely on providing the best services to our existing clients and pitching for new business. Our integrated offering provides clients to choose all or choose from complete communication services.”
“Digital is certainly the focus area with more and more clients realising and appreciating the role of the medium in their business.Endeavour is towards strengthening this offer in media, search, social media and performance marketing through specialised services including conversion rate optimisation, attribution modelling and quality score management to provide a complete digital offering to clients,”said Nayyar.
Havas Media recently acquired a majority stake in Snapworx Mobile Inc, the mobile marketing arm of Philippines-based Snapworx Inc. Will it follow a similar route to grow its digital business in India?
Nayyar said the digital wing of the media agency is the one to look out for in the coming year, without clearly stating whether it would adopt the inorganic route. “Digital is certainly the focus area with more and more clients realising and appreciating the role of the medium in their business. Endeavour is towards strengthening this offer in media, search, social media and performance marketing through specialised services including Conversion Rate Optimisation, Attribution Modelling and Quality Score Management,”she concluded.
Brands
Workday unveils Sana, a new AI tool for businesses
New conversational interface, 300+ skills and deep integrations aim to turn AI from sidekick to operator
CALIFORNIA: Workday has fired a fresh salvo in the enterprise AI race, rolling out “Sana”, a system it touts as “superintelligence for work”, designed not merely to assist, but to act. The pitch is blunt: stop dabbling with disconnected copilots and start letting AI run the plumbing of business.
Unveiled globally on March 20, Sana arrives as a three-part stack, Sana for Workday, a conversational interface; a self-service agent with more than 300 skills; and Sana Enterprise, which plugs into tools from Gmail and Outlook to Salesforce and Slack. The aim is to collapse the sprawl of enterprise software into a single AI-led workflow engine.
At its core, Sana promises four things: find, act, build and automate. Employees can query internal data, execute tasks such as updating records or contracts, generate dashboards, and trigger multi-step workflows, all within the same interface. The twist is where it sits, inside Workday’s existing systems, inheriting their permissions, compliance rules and audit trails.
“AI only works in the enterprise when it’s connected to trusted, deterministic systems,” said Aneel Bhusri, co-founder and chief executive. “Sana is what brings it all together… a powerful way for people to search, reason and orchestrate work across the enterprise.”
The critique of current AI deployments is familiar, flashy pilots, little real impact. Workday’s answer is to embed intelligence where decisions are made and actions executed. Gerrit Kazmaier, president, product and technology, framed it as a shift from suggestion to execution: “AI agents take action using trusted context, not just provide suggestions… a single experience where AI is embedded directly in the flow of work.”
Early adopters suggest traction. Berner claims 90 per cent adoption within 40 days, scrapping 400 ChatGPT licences. Cheffelo calls Sana its “AI backbone”, while Telavox says the conversation has shifted from automating tasks to reimagining entire processes.
Analysts, too, see a broader play. Josh Bersin described the integration as “a major milestone”, arguing it could reshape both customer and employee experience by making AI-native workflows the default.
Sana is being bundled via Workday’s Flex Credits, no separate licence, no added paywall, a move that lowers friction and speeds adoption. Meanwhile, Sana Enterprise extends the system beyond Workday, allowing users to search documents, schedule meetings or track project tickets across multiple platforms in one conversation.
The bet is clear: whoever controls the workflow, controls the future of enterprise software. With Sana, Workday is trying to move AI from a helpful assistant to an invisible operator. If it works, the software menus may vanish, and with them, the way work itself is done.
