The Hindu Business Line : O&M's new chief to focus on niche, cutting edge areas

Speaking to Business Line, Mr Bose said that his main focus as CEO would be not to just make the agency more 360-degrees in terms of its offerings, but look at it from a 720-degree angle.

"Ogilvy is already a great 360-degree agency which thinks right across. But there are still huge areas where clients want expertise. We want to be seen as experts in every area, be it retail or sports marketing, viral marketing, blog marketing or even word-of-mouth. We want to bring in expertise and knowledge and be up there first."

He said the coming months would see a lot of new acquisitions and the focus would be on newer avenues of business. "We have to make an investment into the future, especially when we want to be a 720-degree agency."

Big challenge

The other big challenge, according to him, would be to manage and retain good talent. He said that attrition is an issue not only for Ogilvy, but also for the industry at large. "The problem is not so much about other agencies poaching talent, but the opening up of sectors such as retail, entertainment and banking where a lot of our talent has gone to. Therefore, the challenge is how well we take care of our talent, in terms of putting down a proper career path and so on."

Apart from talent retention, the other area of focuswould be to assure the same quality of work across all the Ogilvy offices in the country. "We have to string everything together and make the organisation more close knit.

Speaking about the overall health of the Indian advertising industry, he said, "The advertising industry is on a roll and should be on a roll for the next few years as the general health of the economy looks good."

With clients becoming more and more savvy and demand for specialised services on the rise, he said, "The difference between a good agency and a great agency would depend on the kind of specialised services that an agency would have to offer."