For the past three years Dentsu-Aegis Network (DAN) triggered plenty of industry conversations about its go to market strategy and structure under previous CEO Simon Ryan. In that sense, not much has changed since Henry Tajer was announced as its new group CEO in January.

Under the previous regime, Dentsu's media unit was where much of the action centred and with Tajer's media pedigree at WPP and IPG's media units, it is a reasonable assumption that Tajer, like Ryan, would take a strong and possibly disproportionate interest in the group's media activities.

Tajer says those assumptions are wrong although he admits it's where he's been forced to move first because of a quick succession of clients that have walked. "I'm not going to sugar coat the fact that we've had a number of account losses," he tells Mi3. " You do not lose accounts because things are going well."

One of the more contentious structural changes under Ryan was essentially the shift of power and focus from DAN's agency brands to the centralised Amplifi trading unit. Amplifi was often the subject of frustration of media owners and even inside the company. Tajer moved quickly to can that structure, suggesting he was not a fan from the start.

"If you take my actions as an indicator of what I think then yes," he says. "There were a number of things that the organisation decided to do that since I've been here I feel were not in the best interests of the company, clients or the people. To be honest, they have been some of the easier things to decide on. Some of the more difficult decisions I think are ongoing, centred around the talent in the business and that the agency business is really about human beings, supporting them, giving them development, ensuring they have empowerment and that we're working in a way with our clients to really generate value to their business.

Lessons learnt

"I think maybe the Amplifi structure was a little over-engineered," says Tajer. "If you centralise purely to create efficiency, it never ever turns out well. If you centralise to strengthen the output and to strengthen your product, that is always a more sustainable proposition. I think the Amplifi changes were maybe made in haste. I wasn't here for that but I can see it created some challenges for the organisation in terms of how we interact with some clients. Some of them have been really open and honest about that with me. Some are not here because they felt it had an impact on their business. So it's a lesson."

Tajer accepts there's more work to do but he's busting to build out and connect up the broader group of creative, data, analytics and business transformation capabilities. 

In his previous role as Amazon Media's first boss in Australia, Tajer says he got a reasonable fix of the capabilities of rival holding groups - and claims the Japanese holding company has the most diverse set of assets, with depth, to reinvent what a future holding company looks like in Australia. Which means the old rivals are no longer the only game in town.

Coming for consultants

"Some have taken cheap, easy and in most cases anonymous shots at the group and when the time is right, the group will really be able to showcase that it has capabilities that a lot of the marketplace is not as aware of as some other parts of the business," he says. "In particular, the media business seems to have been front-of-house. But we have capabilities that already have us competing with other organisations that are not our traditional holding company competitors. A big part of our business, more than half of it, is really competing against Deloitte, Accenture, CapGemini and larger independent solutions firms. That's a really, really exciting part of the business that we will continue to expand and we'll have more to announce on that pretty soon." 

Tajer bats off suggestions he's boxed-in by a market perception of being a media agency specialist. "The market view of me is of little significance," he says. "It's going to become about the group. That's probably another area that the marketplace needs to get used to. It's going to get used to understanding what the Dentsu business is through more than one person and that's going to enable us to showcase not only the talent but more importantly the various capabilities."

"I had the good fortune of having spent a bit of time with Amazon which gave me an opportunity to really understand what all the holding companies are capable of doing. Based on what I've seen since I've been here, I think we're probably the most diverse. We have depth in that diversity across the board with capabilities in and around the big martech platforms like Adobe and Salesforce. We're got one of the bigger UX, CX and digital ecosystem businesses in Isobar. Just watch that space. The work we are doing there for our clients has got me really, really excited. We have arguably one of the most awarded creative agencies in the country with BWM."

BWM's rivals might beg to differ but here's Tajer's emerging strategy: "We have creativity, we have digital, we have media, we have technology and business infrastructure solutions and we have a full spectrum of sporting and sports market capabilities. This is quite a hybrid group."

Tajer on Sorrell

Tajer likes former WPP boss Martin Sorrell's recent views on the data-leaning acquisitions made by all the holding companies. Publicis' Epsilon announcement and IPG's Acxiom deal were not ideal first-party data capabilities, according to Sorrell. "Merkle, which was acquired by Dentsu, is a good example of what we're aiming for," Sorrell told Digiday about his acquisition plans at new venture, S4 Capital.

"He [Sorrell] had a look at all of them and what he would have seen at Merkle was it's the real deal. What is says on the tin - and inside the tin. It really is a capability that enables us to re-engineer what we are as a business."

Over time, suggests Tajer, "the market will see that we're probably the most unique" in terms of blending the capabilities of a traditional holding company with those of a "more progressive consulting firm."

Tajer's argument around Merkle is a reasonable one but after a near disastrous post-acquisition phase by Publicis of the Sapient business in 2015, Publicis has turned that corner. Sapient also has the wings for Publicis to diversify deeply beyond the marketing communications sector, in much the same way as Tajer talks of Merkle.   

"Having been a competitor of this network and been through a couple of holding companies, I can tell you categorically that Dentsu is ahead," says Tajer.

"When Dentsu acquired Merkle, that was a huge step forward to really having proper data, technology and analytics capabilities being brought into our organisation. What came with that is business solutions capability, business architecture capabilities, which is really where we are competing with the consulting firms. We have won a number of things against them this year. When a client is standing up a Salesforce marketing cloud or a multi-cloud proposition, we've been growing heavily in that space. Adobe is a critical partner to us and we have very, very credible and market leading capabilities through the Accordant business."

Eyes on the $4tn prize

Tajer says the global ad market is a $US600 billion sector while the outlook for martech is "almost $4 trillion over the course of the next few years" in market opportunity. "So part of the opportunity and what we're working towards is really having the capabilities to be competing in a different market to what most of us believe the market is,” he says, “and it's not just the ad market.”      

The WPP factor 

Tajer, who was rumoured to be in conversations for the WPP CEO's gig in Australia and New Zealand, along with others like James Warburton and Jo Pollard, brushes off the conjecture. But he does stir the pot a little.

WPP's new CEO, Jens Monsees, was out from Germany two weeks ago for a whirlwind visit to the operation before he returns for good in a few months. "I've read with interest your thoughts on a PwC acquisition of that group," Tajer says, referring to this piece last month in Mi3. "That seems to make the most sense, to be quite honest. It's a big group, it's trading at pretty good value (WPP's share price) and yet it has still got an organisational and structural challenge in that it's structured very conservatively. It’s probably too early for us to be making comments on WPP and possibly a little unfair." 

Indeed, Tajer accepts there might be more pain to come in his own backyard. Are there more losses yet for Dentsu before it finds the rhythm he's looking for?

"Listen, I hope not too many more - but the whole industry is about wins and losses. Will we lose business across the group over time? I have no doubt. What you gain from a loss is sometimes greater than what you gain from a win and that's something I'm experiencing." 

As even Tajer's rivals acknowledge, he doesn't die wondering and makes decisions fast and moves on them. By 2020 we will start to see if Tajer's calls were the right ones.