Thinking of the world as it was 25 years ago is a mistake. Doing business the same way... another mistake. That is why many companies are shedding their skin and changing their way of working to adapt to the environment. A recent case is that of BLCK, which is changing its name and redirecting its approach.
With several years of work operating under the Danilo Black brand, they are now becoming BLCK. This is not just a name change; behind it lies the goal of convincing others of their own transformation.
Alejandro Correia, CEO of BLCK, knows firsthand that business has changed.
BLCK seeks to offer a new strategy that enhances its portfolio of solutions and services so that its clients can face the digital transformation of their processes and, consequently, the transformation of their business and communication strategies. Not all companies need to be Google or Uber, but they can resemble them in essence. Hence, BLCK offers a cross-sectional view of the new digital environment through practical solutions for developing marketing strategies in areas such as Industry 4.0.
What are the new needs of companies?
New technologies. The basic needs of companies are essentially the same as years ago; what is happening is that technologies are changing and allowing companies to meet those same needs better and more satisfactorily. But now, added to this, users have changed as well: everything has become fragmented and personalized like never before, and companies must act accordingly to respond to each of their needs. By 2020, companies in their entirety, whether partially or fully, will have addressed new technologies through digital transformation and opening up to the digital world. We at BLCK will be accompanying them to ensure that change happens "smoothly" and helping them in their growth by generating business strategies.
What impact do you think the Internet of Things (IoT) will have on business and communication?
The difference between Big Data vs. what has existed until now, which is Business Intelligence: A Business Intelligence system works with structured information stored on computers coming from process systems—information it can understand and read. With the Internet of Things (IoT), information is manifold, with completely different structures, and Big Data must have structures intelligent enough to manage massive, huge, and above all unstructured information.
Over time, anything will be able to emit information that we can collect and analyze, and it will have a major impact on companies. This has to do with the vision for the future of business.
At the strategy development and communication level, agencies will have to be much more analytical, covering and understanding different markets. While today's marketing solutions make it easier than ever to communicate with customers, achieving business growth and customer value through brand building has never been harder.
What is BLCK's value or differentiation compared to other agencies?
At BLCK, we transform ourselves. We stopped being a digital agency to transform into a value agency with a direct impact on our clients' sales and business goals.
We understood that if we want to achieve something, we have to take charge ourselves to get it; KPIs are our language, and sharing risk with our clients is our business vision; we bet on growth, but together with our clients. This is something agencies resist doing; they prefer to hide behind clients and claim that their sole purpose is to produce "effective creative advertising that drives a client's business."
At BLCK, we bet on going all in; we bet on being a company not just of Storytelling, but of Storydoing. We have a robust, broad portfolio of services. With people who have deep expertise in different areas and industries, and today more than ever we bet on partners and people who join us with this same vision.
What is your outlook for the future?
BLCK is born with more than encouraging forecasts. For 2018, we foresee consolidated growth. We are aware that all this digital transformation will not be the primary strategy for companies during the rest of 2017 or throughout 2018, but if we didn't make this strategic change, by 2019 or 2020 the market would push us out, because we would be a company unprepared for it.
With this change, we are preparing ourselves for the future, hence our message...
ONCE YOU GO BLCK YOU´LL NEVER GO BACK.