check out the new links - TrendWatching - and Fallon’s Planning blog on the left.
The SMH mentions the change in direction of Blue Freeway and the exit of its CEO and CFO. This is one I’ve been interested in for some time and am keen to continue watching. 25 profitable companies (and their entreprenuers) join an independent network and then create one account management/client service team to manage their clients’ digital marketing needs. Each company head effectively leaves the development of new business (and therefore company growth) to the network team? (oh yeah, and that’s right - there’s an IPO in there somewhere..)
Then the CEO states that “by 2010, 75 per cent of the company’s revenue would be coming from the Blu platform, which uses the portfolio companies but marginalises their roles. The companies that Webb had acquired over the past year turned on him.”
What was the point of the network again? Its a broad structure, so I can only guess one of their missions is to compete with the STW’s, WPP’s and isobar’s of this world, crossed with a ’Google Analytics’, so they can use their platform to suck data on global marketing activities by country and platform. Nice.
The other bit I liked – “the cost of setting up Blu, hiring sales teams around the world to flog it and a 24-hour support centre, were not producing results fast enough. Webb said two weeks ago the company was involved in 82 pitches around the world using its Blu technology platform as the centrepiece, but Daniel said yesterday the conversion process was taking longer than expected” – and then they state that “this was supposed to be a slower “evolutionary” path to integrating digital services for corporates.”
I guess only time will tell. Having Steve Fanale and Shane Murray at the temporary helm can only be a good thing.
