Dept has announced its entry into the Indian market by acquiring Mumbai-based Tekno Point. The Indian agency will join the Amsterdam-based technology and marketing services company, and the Indian operations will serve as an excellence centre for the global operations.
Dept is a full-service digital agency that creates brands for the new (digital) reality, creates e-commerce platforms that simplify the complex, and creates the technology teams, architecture, and platforms that power digital businesses.
Dept plans to use Tekno Point's 500-member team of Adobe specialists to expand its service offering to its global client base. The Mumbai-based agency becomes the Department's 33rd acquisition in the last few years.
Himanshu and Yash Mody founded Tekno Point to assist brands in providing personalised customer experiences. It enables business, digital, and IT leaders to deliver faster time to market and accelerate continuous innovation through the use of advanced analytics and hyper-personalization capabilities. Tekno Point enables business, digital, and IT leaders to deliver faster time to market and accelerate continuous innovation by leveraging deep analytics and hyper-personalization capabilities to provide consumers with an omnichannel experience.
Dept's revenue increased by more than 50% in 2022, reaching around USD 500 million. Dept was a 120-person agency in the Netherlands seven years ago. It currently employs 4,000 people across 20 markets, with the Americas accounting for 50% of revenue and Europe accounting for 45%. Asia Pacific currently accounts for 5% of Department revenue, and the agency network hopes to increase that share to 15% by the end of 2024.
Dimi Albers, global CEO, Dept told that, “There was a strong strategic alignment with Tekno Point. We also started working together on a few clients to test the waters.” Albers added half-jokingly, “We could also laugh, pretty loud together.”
“We want to be a strong party in the Indian market and we are here for the long term. We know the growth potential of the market and we are here for the long term,” he added.
Vishnu Mohan, partner and chief growth officer, Dept Asia-Pacific, added, “Tekno Point brings in a great amount of engineering talent, and by overlaying that with our design experience capability, we can give a very compelling answer to many of the needs across all sectors.”
He added that the acquisition allows us “the ability to bring speed to market to get to the clients faster”.
Himanshu Mody, founder and CEO of Tekno Point, added that the company's strategic decision to shift from training to consulting resulted in a huge takeoff for the organisation. "We started with a small team of around 20 people and it has grown to around 500 people. We have reached the point where we are responsible for the majority of Adobe Experience Manager implementations in the country. From a growth standpoint, our goal was to reach a point where 50% of revenue was international, as opposed to the current 95% coming from India as a market."