1. Maurice Levy and David Kenny have both strong leadership skills, which were more than usefull in their career development. One is going to try to describe their style of leadership, and understand how similarities and differences in the way they act and in the way they perceive things are contributing to their ability to work together toward Levy’s future vision for Publicis Groupe. First of all, one will describe how one could perceive Maurive Levy, then David Keny. At that point, one would be able to point out out similarities and differencies as strenghts for running successfully the business together.
On one hand, one would describe Maurice Levy as a visionnary. He has a vision of where he wants the company to be in the future, with both a short term and a long term vision. As a visionary leader, he is moderately rational, he is not stuck into a set of rational things but he sees beyind the boundaries. He has, in a way, a scientific approach of management, as he is realistic and fact based. In fact, he knows very well the industry he is evoluting in, and its environment, including the competitors, the trends, the threats but also the opportunities. One would describe M. Levy as someone quick, reactive, and opportunist. But that does not mean that he acts in a rush, on the contrary. It seems that even if he is able to catch up new opportunities in a fast growing and fast changing industry, he takes his time to prepare the ground, to create link with people (by being good at networking, which require being sympathic and diplomatic, as he actually is), to understand the key success factors and people involved, to under the psychology of the people he will be dealing with. One could maybe describe him as a “thinker” leader or manager. He is aware that employees are key success factors in a company (not only for Publicis Groupe) and he really cares of his people and of the environment in which they evolve. He is respectful, and even in tricky situtations he tries to find the best solution to integrate employees into a new entity, etc. He is a polite manager, with human resource concerns. Honesty and trust seem to be one of his personality’s pillars.Hence the importane of a strong sense of culture (he launched the “viva la difference” culture).
On the other hand, David Keny he is more “in the action”, and he is maybe less a “thinker” (cautious, it does not mean that he is not a thinker, but one could say that his personality is best described by “in the action” rather than by “thinker”). His backgroung as an Harvard student and consultant shows us that he is an intelectual. But maybe he prefers using his thoughts not to provide advise to others but to implement himself his vision. One could describe him as a challenge taker; he looks like a very pragmatic person, who could face each kind of tricky situation. Moreover, he is a rapid decision maker. If a situation is not sustainable, he will not stay with blind spots but on the contrary he is facing the problem and try to fix it. He is really realistic in his way to approach the business, and he has a strong concern for building relationships, not only with customers but also with suppliers. He is in a continuous learning process, he is not close-minded and he is aware that sometimes it is easy to stay with blind spots. That is why he says that we have sometimes to forget what we know. According to that, we could say that he is humble enough. One may also describe him as honest, trustful and with a strong sense of culture (he was very attached to the “viva la differencia” culture).
As a conclusion, both of these leaders are very concerned by people and relationships. They run the business, which for sure has to be profitable and sustainable, by being “human”. They both want to create a strong culture within the company, based on honesty, trust, quality, care of the other and satisfaction. Another similiarity that may be very useful for running successfully the business is the ability to create new possibilities. They are not stuck into a set of possibilities or condamned in a paradigm, but both are willing to move beyond, openning up new opportunities. They also present differencies that complete each of their own personnality. In fact, one could say that M. Levy will be the one who will catch the opportunity and prepare the ground, while D. Keny, with his sense of action and his pragmatic view, will bring skills to how implement it in the “real life”, in a specific context.

2. Since the acquisition of Digitas in December 2006 (US company focused on digital marketing), some internal and external alliances have been done to boost the growth of Publicis Group. The acquisition of Digitas changed the overall Groupe’s environement, and internal alliances were necessary to put things in orden and move in one unique digital direction. Also, strategic alliances have been made trough acquisitions in order to strenghen Digitas position in the market, and to increase the overall Groupe’s business (positive impacts on the business ‘ growth, but also on employees alliances as a way to increase credibility for clients, and as a good opportunity to broaden career development, increase job complexity and get more challenges). They bought Business interactif in 2007, a french company directed integrated in Digitas the integration of a french entity serving Europe to Digitas, which is american and bought by Publicis which is French, can may be strategic to strengthen some links within the entire Groupe and facilitate Digitas’ penetration of the European market. They bought a Chinese digital company, also integrated into Digitas (geographic growth – even more in such a hard market to target – their strategy is to enter the digital chinese market through acquisitions). They also bought Tribal in 2008, a Brazilian company, and introduced it into Digitas. The company has more or less the same spectrum of actions than Digitas (that is to say digital marketing): this acquisition is a strategic operation to get Digitas into one of the largest market in Latina Americas external growth through geographic growth. The Groupe bought Performics to get core skills in search measurement and social media. It is an opportunity for the Group to understand better the market and the impact of some specific actions on customers, through marketing research. As we know 50% of the advertising activities failes, it could be a way for the Groupe to improve some non-efficient activities external growth through new skill’s acquisition. There is a very strong sense of culture within the Groupe, and the changes in the organisation were respecting two things: the respect of the culture of the new comers, and the respect of the Groupe’s values. The aim was to keep the original culture based on honesty, trust, quality, customer’s satisfaction. But as the company was getting larger and larger worldwide, the culture that has to be reinvented was a multicultural one, considering a worlwide diversity: different languages, cultures, time differences, different willingness to work, centres of interest, etc. Also the culture fit with the new set of possibilities in terms of customers (financial services, pharmaceuticals, industry, IT, automobile, product consumer). 3. Technology played a major role in the globalisation of Publicis Groupe. In fact, innovation in technology was going very fast: digital tools and media revolutionized the way we communicated it was changing the advertising industry dramatically. The business was not based anymore only on short TV ads to consumers but also on TV ad for more demanding customers, on digital ads, on measurement tools, etc. Being creative was absolutely necessary, and the technology was a very useful tool to surprise customers, in order to develop attractive, pleasant content and tools of communication. So, for the Groupe, it was necessary to adapt itself to survive in this highly competitive market. They had to reinveint themselves. Through acquisitions (in particular thanks to Digitas for the digital marketing), they got new skills and enlarged their capabilities. The new technology provided the industry the tools to advise on how to optimize ad spend (hence the acquisition of Performics for the measurement of marketing activities). Also, the customers were getting more and more demanding: thanks to technology, they were able to ignore or filter messages, create their own content: the ad industry had to shift the balance of power to consumers they were not creating “just an ad to customers” but they had to communicate with the customers. For example, the Groupe has to be able to customize messages to its customers, that means having the necessary resources to understand the need of each other. Also, the success of social networks, mobile phones, web’s interactive features was openning a set of new possibilities for the ad industry the Groupe needed to globalize to catch the opportunity offered by the new technology. Technology is growing more and more quickly and will still play a major role in the globalisation of Publicis Groupe. 4. One could identify some main success factors for Maurice Levy to achieve his vision for the future of Publicis Groupe. First, the industry is owned by a few big players there is a strong competitivity amongst them: hence the importance to have a look on small players one could buy to improve the business (strong barrier ton entry as a small player because the big players are settled down for too long, there are too powerful). And the Group did it successfully. In fact, through internal and external business development, the Groupe was able to adapt itself in a fast-changing industry, and increased its worldwide presence: growth through new geographic markets (including China and Brazil) and growth through new markets’ penetration (new skills). Inceasing its presence in such emerging countries is for me a very important key success factor, even more when the economy in Europe or in the USA is slow (as of 2009: financial crisis). The Group controls all the levels of the industry through different entities, from creating traditional advertisements, ensuring digital marketing and direct marketing and innovating in technology. By the way, innovation is a strong success factor, not only talking about technology but also about innovation in process, in creativity, in the way they target people, in the way they deal with suppliers. The image of the Groupe is very powerful, as it is associated to a strong technologic supremacy, to a high level of creativity and to a holistic how-to-know. Thus, they create trustful relationships with customers and suppliers, and they create a diversified client portfolio the business is sustainable as it does not rely on just one industry. Also, they emphasis the importance of a people and management. First, they developed a multicultural culture based on the initial core values. They care about they employees and enhance leadership development thus they work with skilled and motivated people. Also, they launched the P12, which was a good way to gather main entities and main leaders in different places worldwide, a few times a year, to let leaders meet each others and have an overall view of the business worlwide. Finally, a key success factor would be their strong financials, with an increase in sales, an increase in margins and a decrease in debt (as of 2009). I think that today the advertising industry is even more a fast-changing industry that it has never been, and the key success factor to be sustainable in such an environment in the ability to answer quickly. But, that is only possible with skilled and motivated people (employees who are willing to make the best for their company, and understand the concerns of the industry). So, in my opinion, the strong culture they developed is THE key success factor that will always be very important, even more as it is an internal strenght (a competitor cannot copy the culture you created).