The Situation

In 2011, Atos Origin integrated with Siemens IT Solutions and Services to become Atos, one of the largest technology companies in the world, with revenues of EUR 8.5 billion and 74,000 employees in 42 countries.

It meant a new brand and a new voice. It also meant rapidly aligning the key offerings and solutions portfolio, creating compelling propositions and content, training the new Atos sales teams and equipping them with the appropriate sales tools on a global scale.

As a result of Marketing Team Direct‘s (MTD) in depth experience and following a bid response that scored consistently higher than any of the other competing agencies, MTD was commissioned to; articulate the new market and solution specific value propositions, create and tell the new verticalized stories, activate the new brand and rearm a newly combined global sales community.

MTD then had 6 weeks until day one, July 4th 2011, to deliver.

How did MTD do it?

Their planning was meticulous. They pre-empted exactly how the project needed managing and operating. It was essential that existing MTD clients and business as usual was ring fenced from this rapid and complex project. So MTD:

- Built a new team with the right skills for each of the component parts and stages of the project. Creative people – planners, copywriters, project managers and designers collaborating flexibly and fast.
- Immediately invested in their technology infrastructure to provide the extra tools and capacity for rapid up scaling.
- Implemented creative processes – streamlined from the start with clear objectives, milestones and workflow.
- Went to the cloud – Sohnar’s advanced, cloud-based project technology - Traffic LIVE, let MTD communicate effectively with everyone – anywhere, assign and manage tasks and ensure effective communication by significantly reducing email.

MTD understood Atos and the market

MTD got inside the integration process articulating the new brand, the new positioning and the new tone of voice. MTD quickly understood the business complexities, messaging requirements, key stakeholders, solution owners needs, their markets and their customers state.

MTD embraced and signed up to the Atos challenge and the imperatives:

- Time: they had just six weeks to rearm the sales force
- Cost: they had to work within the strictest pre-agreed budgets
- Brand: this was a newly conceived brand yet to be activated
- Risk: they had to deliver; the whole of Atos depended on it
- Command and control: Atos needed transparency, involvement and confidence. MTD needed the speed and agility required to deliver quality, in the available time.

MTD added value and removed risk

The agility MTD provided Atos meant that they could add value throughout the project.

- Scaled and flexed according to needs and progress
- Actively collaborated with other agencies and stakeholders
- Retained and shared core knowledge to deploy when it was needed
- Solved problems outside of the scope of the project for the good of the project
- Created commercially relevant and sound content briefs first for every market that underpinned every value proposition.

MTD delivered results putting Atos in a winning position

Thanks to MTD’s well-planned, creative and strategic way of working, at every stage Atos could see they were achieving results. In the end, they didn’t feel any drag or problems. All they saw was success:

Atos strategy – made real
Atos brand – activated
Atos global sales community – rearmed
Atos audiences – informed and influenced

“We couldn’t have made it with any other agency than MTD”
- Johannes Diebig, Global Head of Marketing, Atos

Marketing Team Direct is an incredibly agile, responsive and seriously creative independent business-to-business marketing agency. They are experts in brand strategy, planning, marketing strategy and implementation. But ultimately their focus is on supporting and servicing their clients without compromise.