Kantar lands P&G's Dedeker to oversee quality initiatives

US-- Former Procter & Gamble researcher Kim Dedeker is joining WPP's Kantar Group of MR agencies in the newly-created role of chair of the Americas.

Dedeker will have direct oversight of Kantar's US-based HQ staff functions including client, business development and privacy roles.

Globally she will be responsible for leading group initiatives to improve research quality and delivery.

In her previous role as vice president of consumer and market knowledge at P&G, Dedeker became a notable clientside critic of the state of data quality in research, particularly online research.

She chaired the client advisory board of the Advertising Research Foundation's (ARF) Online Research Quality Council and currently sits on the ARF's Council for Research Transformation, alongside her new boss, Kantar CEO Eric Salama.

Salama said: “I've long admired Kim's vision and the way that she and colleagues at P&G have led the industry in so many ways. I'm thrilled that she is joining us and believe that we can harness her passion, leadership around data quality issues and desire to increase the value that agencies add to their clients to help Kantar achieve its goal.”

In an interview with Research last year, Dedeker said: “The customers that we serve are complex individuals, and our industry will have to evolve at a more rapid pace than we have in the past in order to offer our customers the value-add propositions that they deserve and have come to expect of us.”

Dedeker comes to Kantar at a time of change both within the wider industry and within the company following its £1bn acquisition of TNS in October.

TNS's custom business has been merged with Research International, another Kantar company, while those focused on healthcare, retail and media have been combined with other sector specialists within the group to form new Kantar divisions.

Much of the top-level integration is complete, said Salama in an interview with Research yesterday. The bulk of the global TNS/RI management team is in place, and the heads of the new divisons have all been chosen: Management Ventures' Wayne Levings will lead Kantar Retail, TNS's Jean-Michel Portier heads Kantar Media, and Ziment's Lynette Cooke and TNS's Elaine Riddell become co-CEOs of Kantar Healthcare.

At the ground level, Salama said the businesses were now working “on a co-ordinated basis” while work on the practicalities – such as the physical merging of teams and offices – was ongoing.

Already, he said, the setup was paying off. “The reaction from clients across the board has been incredibly positive. In areas such as retail and health they have demonstrated that by giving us assignments we would not have got before. This is what a lot of our restructuring was about – getting the offer right for clients.”

Cost savings have also been a focus and estimates of £52m “are being met and added to”, according to WPP's 2008 results.

Salama would not break down exactly where savings were coming from. Eliminating overlaps in job functions has played a part, as has rationalisation of back office functions and the real estate portfolio, and better procurement deals.

On the issue of jobs, he refused to say how many had been made redundant either as a result of the TNS integration or the prevailing economic conditions. Reports in the press say WPP's staff numbers will be down 6% – equivalent to 7,000 jobs – by the end of the year, in line with the company's policy of matching headcount to revenue growth. That is, if like-for-like revenues are down 6% in 2009 (as they are expected to be), headcount will be also.

Staff numbers were down 3,505 in the first quarter, with a third of that the result of net attrition rather than severance. But with the rate of attrition slowing, WPP may have to be forced to make more redundancies.

Again, Salama wasn't saying, but he dismissed suggestions there would be a 6% reduction in headcount across the board within Kantar. “It's not a one-size-fits-all approach,” he said. “In areas like digital and online, in senior client facing positions and in growth markets around the world we are putting in more resources.”

Author: Brian Tarran