Sydney consultancy Tangram has partnered with Copenhagen-based Christian Arpe-Hansen (main photo), to launch Tangram Europe, bringing best-in-class agency tools and WorkBook consulting to its global audience.
Arpe-Hansen, who was a partner at WorkBook prior to its sale to Deltek in 2017, will spearhead its growing European client base, while Tangram managing director, Helen Johnson, will continue to lead the Asia Pacific region.
The partnership means Tangram, which collaborates with WorkBook – the SaaS web-based system including CRM, project and resource management and accounting – agencies all over the world is now operational 24/7 for its global clients, including Ogilvy, The Hallway, Dentsu, Apparent and Project Worldwide.
“Christian has years of experience of agency C-Level finance and the gravitas, expertise and knowledge to strengthen and better service our European agency clients,” says Johnson.
“We’ve worked together for six years, implementing new ERP systems as part of major business transformation programs for a number of clients, including Ogilvy, Dentsu Aegis Network and Project Worldwide.
“We had huge successes together helping agencies across the world and we’re really excited to continue this as one company.”
The partnership is also the springboard for three new Tangram pillars:
- Technology by Tangram – business intelligence (BI) tools. Its first new product is an advertising and marketing communications industry-focused ERP tool providing better analytics to business owners
- Teach by Tangram – a suite of knowledge development & eLearning tools for marketing and ad-land, based on systems the industry currently uses
- Consulting by Tangram: the European base ensures a 24/7 service to its global client base
“The needs of agencies have changed during COVID-19,” says Arpe-Hansen. “The industry creativity is born out of interaction, but agencies are thinking differently about the way they engage with their teams.
“With a potential global recession, having a clear view of project costs, client costs, costs of acquisition and all of those things are crucial. What the last few months has shown us is that agencies are more open to different ways of working in the future, because we’ve learned we can adapt.
“Being able to rely on digital platforms and operating systems is more important than ever to drive the business in the right direction, especially when it comes to embedding those systems and processes, and people being genuinely comfortable using them to drive the business forward as part of their daily habits.”
Tangram, named after the 19th century puzzle comprising seven geometric pieces, was launched by Johnson, in 2014.
Johnson, who has lived in three continents and serviced agencies across the globe for more than a decade, saw a gap in the market for agencies to better organise their workflow, get the best out of software and generate meaningful data on their business.
