I pride myself on staying away from hyperbole and showy adjectives.
Still, there’s no getting around that today is a big day. We have acquired CCGroup, the top tech-focused consultancy in the UK.
The Agency has enjoyed many milestones over the years.
Winning HP’s enterprise business in year number three.
Expanding to Asia and later to Europe.
Turning down the overtures from Dustin Hoffman’s agent to acquire www.Hoffman.com (true story).
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Earning Global Tech Agency of the Year honors (twice).
Tipping the $30M mark in global revenue.
Joining forces with Rich and Paul and the CCGroup staff is right up there in importance. While milestones, by definition, focus on the past, this acquisition catapults us into the future.
We aspire to be the best in the world at helping tech organizations tell their stories on a global scale. There aren’t that many communications consultancies that can tick the boxes that ladder up to this aspiration.
- A core competency in making sense of complexity
- Domain expertise across the primary ecosystems — semiconductor, telecom, cybersecurity, enterprise computing, etc. — that constitute tech
- The ability to execute multi-market programs as one team
- Experience in creating digital-first campaigns that leverage owned and paid media as well as earned media
- High-touch mentality to client service
- On-the-ground staff in the markets that tech buyers prioritize (Europe, Japan, Asia and the U.S.)
With the addition of CCGroup, we go from “small but mighty” in Europe to a “force of nature.” We now have the scale in each of the key geographies to take on virtually any assignment that falls under the tech umbrella. I say tech umbrella and not tech companies because non-tech companies are increasingly coming to us for support in telling their tech-led stories.
Equally important, at a time when many agencies that started as tech specialists have waded into other sectors that muddy their brands, we’ve doubled down on tech with our Geeks @ Heart ethos.
It’s worth taking a quick look at the competitive landscape. Either holding companies have scooped up many of the larger tech specialists (Hotwire by Enero, Method by Chime, etc.) or private equity has their claws into them (Highwire, Brands2Life, etc.). Regardless, to deliver the ROI expected by the buyer/investor, these shops must fixate on profitability, which inevitably reshapes their culture and impacts service delivery. On the other end of the spectrum, you have the mega shops, like Edelman and Burson, which have tech practices/brands. No question, their brand cachet is formidable and yes, they have the dots on the map, but good luck with the high-touch part and getting value. Plus, the more target markets they take on for a given tech client, the less likely their entire team will be steeped in tech, which brings us back to value.
The addition of CCGroup strengthens what was already a differentiated proposition. We now have roughly 350 employees who live, eat and breathe technology across 15 offices.
Internally, I’ve fielded many questions on whether we’ll make more acquisitions in the future. To ensure we do everything humanly possible to integrate CCGroup into our organization not only in the UK but globally, that will be our focus this year.
As for 2026 and beyond, we’ll be opportunistic when it comes to M&A. I do think there are many independent tech-focused shops on the smallish side that have great cultures and deliver a quality product. At some point, some of these shops will find their growth hitting a wall. Do they expand geographically? Do they create new services? Do they go after another industry? There’s no right or wrong answer to these questions. Yet, for the founders who appreciate the idea of joining like-minded leaders and being part of a global brand — framed by a similar culture — we become a consideration.
Circling back to our aspirations, can we be the best in the world at helping tech organizations tell their stories on a global scale?
Naturally, I like our chances.
