Reflections on joining STRAT7

A couple of months after becoming part of STRAT7, it feels like a lot has changed already. Suddenly, we have lots of new colleagues who know things we don’t, who work with clients we haven’t worked with and who do things we couldn’t or wouldn’t do. It’s refreshing.

Of course, it works the other way around as well and we bring a huge amount to the group: new and complementary research and consulting skills; our close client relationships; and our strong US presence.

We are now part of a business that has a world-class set of capabilities to help our clients to change and grow. The thread that links all our work is meeting and anticipating changing consumer needs. Working alongside our new colleagues gives us a chance to do that even more effectively. 

Three things I have been particularly struck by are:

• CrowdDNA’s and ResearchBod’s ability to extend our in-house toolkit of qualitative techniques  

• The extended analytics capability that working alongside our new colleagues at BonamyFinch will allow us to offer  

• The alignment between the passion for customer-centric transformation among the STRAT7+ team and the philosophy and approach of our Planning and Strategy practices

Equally importantly, these new colleagues offer even more varied and inspiring opportunities for our people to learn and to build their careers. 

While our horizons have been expanded by joining STRAT7, our focus on our clients never changes. We’ve worked hard to prevent any back-office tweaks from being felt by clients and happily I believe we have achieved that. 

As always, I’ve been immensely proud of our ability to adapt to change. And I am looking forward to bringing the benefits of those changes to our clients over the years to come.