Salmat restructures, goes on $100m acquisition drive
Exit: Nick Spooner
Salmat has merged its digital division into the business as part of a restructure which means digital CEO Nick Spooner has been made redundant.
Grant Harrod, CEO and MD of Salmat, told Mumbrella that the restructure was intended to “reduce the number of layers between me and the customers and give us a more agile business. We’ve reduced that number of layers by two now.”
Harrod said he didn’t expect further redundancies and that the company was looking to grow, investing up to $100m in acquisitions.
Spooner – a former chairman of the IAB – joined Salmat from Ten, where he was chief digital media office, in June last year.
Spooner’s departure follows Salmat’s services being divided into two areas – consumer marketing solutions and customer engagement solutions. The consumer marketing solutions division will include Salmat’s digital capabilities.
The new CEO of the consumer marketing solutions division is Peter Anson, formerly group COO of Salmat.
CEO Dave Besson has moved into the role of CEO of the customer engagement solutions division. Besson was formerly CEO of the customer contact solution area which focused on call centres. Harrod predicts that 50% of consumer enquiries will come through non-voice channels over the next few years.
Grant Harrod, chief executive officer and managing director said in a statement on the company’s website: “Nick played an important role in helping develop Salmat’s Digital capabilities following the acquisition of several digital businesses, and we are grateful for the contribution he has made during his time with the company.”
Salmat Digital was created after the parent company bought a number of Photon (now Enero) companies including Be Interactive, C4, MessageNet and Returnity.
Salmat’s other business ventures include Roamz and Lasoo.
Harrod said that no formal rebrand was planned.
He said: “The way we present ourselves is the way our customers expect. It’s off the back of a lot of client dialogue. We’ve seen the evolving phenomenon, there’s a move towards integration. Our clients want to deal with one person. No further redundancies are planned; in fact we will expand our capabilities in specialist areas.
“It’s a journey we’ve been on over the last four years. We’ve progressively and subtly reconditioned the market to see us not as a mail company but as a company providing a broad range of solutions,” he added.
Gee.. a whole $100 in acquisitions…
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Fixed – thanks Technojames
Cathie – Mumbrella
Does Roamz actually have a business model yet?
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Patience Just sayin… Roamz wasn’t built in a day.
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They can spend as much cash as they want. They are buying the name of the business and all the staff from the businesses, but unfortunatly all the staff have packed up and left and the clients have followed or are planning to.
Theyw ill have another restructure again soon, i think this is 2-3 in a year now?
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