24FEB Three years as part of the Acosta family
It’s incredible to think that this month marks three years since we became a part of the Acosta family, joining the number one field sales company in the world. We thought we would take a few moments to reflect on the journey so far, what it has meant for our business, our team and our clients, as well as looking forward to what is yet to come.
The Acosta Europe team at the 2019 FMBE Awards.
One of the key areas of collaboration has been in the continued development of our technology capabilities. Reach has always been at the forefront of technology, and as part of the transition to Acosta, our technology team and leaders in the UK joined an exceptional global technology team.
Through this collaboration, we have been able to accelerate our technology solutions in both the UK and USA while retaining our full in-house capabilities. With our team’s knowledge and expertise combining to build even greater capability, creativity and opportunity.
Acosta’s scale brings significant benefits to the European businesses and technology is no exception. With global partnerships in place and industry leading experts we have been able to utilise the latest technologies and insight approaches to generate ground-breaking advances in the ability to predict issues in store while informing clients quicker and more accurately than ever before.
Whilst there have been great advances in technology and insight, they have all been centred on empowering our team out in the field and making their experience the best it can be.
Our experiential and consumer electronics arms have been able to pitch alongside Mosaic to win global accounts, with Acosta Europe being responsible for delivery across this continent. In addition, the formation of a head office services business in the UK has seen US brands, that are represented by Acosta in North America, get a foothold into the European market. This unique approach has led to us directly working with British retailers on behalf of these brands to bring additional innovation to these categories.
Our team celebrated being part of the Acosta family at last year’s Christmas party.
Charlene Friend, Acosta Europe’s Chief Operating Officer, explained, “Since becoming part of the Acosta family we have been able to unlock innovation across a number of areas of our business. From technology to insight, through to enhancing culture, whilst keeping people at our core.”
“The enhancements we have been able to make on our new technology have been truly ground-breaking and continue to strengthen our position as a complete solution provider, across both the UK and Europe. Acosta has given us even greater access to talent, partners and technology and we are very excited about the future opportunities this brings.”
The acquisition has been hugely positive in America as well. Darian Pickett, Chief Executive Officer at Acosta says the business is as excited now as it was at the point of acquisition.
“I continue to be excited about the work our team is doing in the UK. Three years ago we acquired the Reach business and the acquisition was key to Acosta expanding the breadth of where we serve leading CPG companies and retailers.”
“In addition to a broader footprint, Reach has afforded Acosta with new sets of data led services that provide us with superior retail capabilities in the marketplace. Looking forward, we will continue to use the team in the UK at the forefront of how we accelerate investment in retail technology to best serve our partners.”
Ultimately, a successful business comes down to performance. With the acceleration of our technology plans, a boost to our people agenda and relationships blossoming, there has never been a more optimistic time for the business.
Having won significant new business in 2019 and 2020 being the year a number of our developments come to fruition, we are seeing the evolution of not only Acosta Europe, but the industry happen before us and we are more excited than ever about the next steps.