DAN Singapore names Prantik Mazumdar MD of CRM biz in line with 'One Dentsu' strategy

Dentsu Aegis Network (DAN) Singapore has officially promoted Prantik Mazumdar to the new role of MD, CRM group. In his new role, Mazumdar (pictured) will be responsible for leading the CRM business in Singapore to deliver growth across brands through a robust go-to-market strategy. 

He will work closely with brand leaders under the CRM line of business to define market opportunities and deliver value to local, regional, as well as global clients in Singapore. Concurrently, he will continue in his role as managing partner of Happy Marketer, a Merkle Company. Mazumdar reports to Zhengda Shen, president, Merkle APAC, and Prakash Kamdar, CEO, DAN Singapore.

Mazumdar brings with him 15 years’ experience in implementing idea and data-driven digital campaigns for marketing, customer service and online-reputation management. He started his career at International Enterprise Singapore and joined Happy Marketer in 2011 where he has been instrumental in driving the digital marketing agency’s regional growth, according to DAN Singapore. He also lead the agency's acquisition by DAN in 2019.

(Read also: Dentsu Aegis Network acquires digital agency Happy Marketer: Behind the deal)

Mazumdar has also worked with several regional brands across the Asia Pacific to build and implement successful data-driven digital strategies that are aligned with business objectives. Additionally, he has consulted clients across multiple industries including Heineken, Royal Brunei Airlines, The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf, Income, INSEAD, the National University of Singapore, Nanyang Business School, and Singapore Press Holdings.

In a statement to Marketing, Mazumdar said the CRM line of business encapsulates a few specialised practices such as data, analytics, measurement, B2B marketing, marketing automation, loyalty, account-based marketing, attribution and visualisation. "There is a lot of breadth and depth of these areas that we can develop. I am excited to start creating a solutions roadmap for our region as I step into this new role," he said.

He added that he would like to drive more synergies within its CRM and more importantly, along with its creative and media line of businesses, ensure that as a network the network is gearing itself for more integrated, joined-up solutions thinking and offer these as consulting, implementation or training services to solve real-world client problems."I definitely envisage our data-driven proposition to sit at the forefront of our offerings going forward," Mazumdar said.

When asked how COVID-19 has affected the CRM line of business, Mazumdar explained that it has benefited from two specific market events. Firstly, it is seeing higher higher marketing spends from industries such as technology, eCommerce, gaming, banking, insurance and fintech. Secondly, many brands are also using this "downtime" to clean up and restructure their data analytics setup; investing in owned media and SEO; initiating first party data driven CRM initiatives and building capability through training.

"As we get into recovery mode of the pandemic with a revived confidence in the economic momentum, I am confident that we will be able to tap on these market trends as well as leverage the increased marketing spends to further grow our business on this front," Mazumdar said.

Meanwhile, he explained that it is important to be resilient and embrace the uncertainty of the VUCA world we operate in and focus on the variables in one's control. "One of these variables is our own knowledge base and expertise. Continuous learning and development are key to strengthening our capabilities," Mazumdar said..

Therefore, his aim is to ensure that it invests a good amount of time and effort in micro-learning initiatives to boost the team's skillsets. Ensuring that its people are certified in the following areas will also be important to further future proof the business: machine learning and AI-driven marketing on the cloud, customer data platforms, Internet of Things, voice-enabled commerce and certain adjacement domains such behavioural economics and soft skills such as persuasion, creative thinking, and negotiations.

Mazumdar said that it has always been his passion to shape, manage and build winning strategies. As the digital landscape rapidly transforms in Singapore and across Asia, the opportunity to implement such winning strategies to accelerate its Singapore CRM business is very exciting to him, he explained.

"I am also incredibly privileged to be working alongside a strong suite of brand leaders within our CRM pillar. Their commitment to charting new growth and agile approach in creating successful client stories inspire me to take on this role," Mazumdar added.

In a previous conversation with Marketing, Mazumdar explained that the CRM line of business is essentially the "leg of a tripod", and is aimed at helping the company be data-driven and technology-led. "In the CRM business, data and tech is at the core of what we do," he said, adding that the team lives and breathes data analytics. 

"We help our clients get real and clean data that is the typical starting point of the journey. We also want clients to focus on business metrics, and help to solve problems around customer lifecycle value, and help clients figure out how to maximise their existing customer base," he explained.

The promotion comes as DAN reshuffled its management last year to be in line with the network's One Dentsu strategy at driving greater simplification and joined-up thinking. In December 2019, the network aligned with a new global business model split into three key pillars of creative, media and CRM. Leading the creative and media group in Singapore respectively as MDs are Phil Adrien and Prerna Mehrotra. DAN Singapore CEO Kamdar told Marketing previously that the One trajectory at DAN was established as clients want ease, expertise and joined-up thinking. It was really about fewer agency relationships that can solve bigger problems, he added. 

With regards to the appointment, Kamdar said Mazumdar is a dynamic leader in digital brand management. His in-depth experience in delivering powerful tech enabled data-driven marketing, and clear sight of a transformational CRM roadmap makes him the ideal person to shape the business growth strategy for its CRM business.

"I have no doubt that he will work successfully with our brands leaders in Singapore to deliver incremental growth opportunities for one of our fastest growing lines of business, and for our Singapore business to flourish as one," he said.

Meanwhile, Shen explained that CRM is a critical pillar of its business that leads its strategy and tech implementation, as well as customer and digital transformation across adtech, martech, CRM and loyalty platforms for clients, supported by strong data and analytics.

"With his strength of experience across all these areas, Mazumdar’s acute focus on data-driven and customer experience enablement as well as a collaborative leadership culture will be the key differentiator in taking our CRM success to new heights," he explained.

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