Dept is betting on India as more than a technology delivery hub, with the launch of Dept Studios marking the first step in a broader three-year roadmap to build out its capabilities in the market.

The digital agency, which acquired Mumbai-based digital transformation company Tekno Point in 2023, now has around 500 people in India and works with approximately 40 clients. It is also building a media practice, which it plans to launch in the fourth quarter, while expanding its content capabilities through Dept Studios.

For Andrew Dimitriou, partner, global chief client and growth officer, Dept, the decision to launch Dept Studios in India is rooted in the complexity of the market itself. The country, he argues, provides a unique environment to solve the very challenges global marketers face when adapting campaigns across markets, cultures, languages and channels.

Speaking with Manifest during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, he said, “We believe India is a microcosm of the world. When global marketers think about countries and geographies, they have to deal with the complexities of languages and channels. India has all of those inherent qualities built in."

Dept Studios focuses on producing content at scale, taking creative assets and adapting them for different audiences, formats and channels, across video, CRM, social and mobile. The India operation is intended to bring that global proposition closer to the local market, while also helping Dept better understand India's cultural nuances.

“The premise behind launching Dept Studios in India was straightforward. We already do this around the world, but we wanted to create a local Indian version. We need to understand Indian culture better,” Dimitriou says.

The offering is not, however, being positioned as another technology product. Dimitriou stresses that Dept Studios is a service business, with technology enabling human expertise rather than replacing it.

“It’s a tool powered by humans. There’s a human element throughout the process. It’s not just software. Humans are involved at every stage, enabled by technology,” he says.

India business

The India business is already closely integrated with Dept’s global operations, informs Dimitriou. Rather than measuring markets as individual silos, the company looks at clients and their business problems, with teams across India, the US, UK and Buenos Aires contributing to projects.

Much of the Indian team is currently working on global projects, particularly in the US, while India has also become an important engine for Dept's Adobe capabilities. Dimitriou says the Adobe practice has doubled its growth from India over the past three years following the Tekno Point acquisition.

Dept Studios, meanwhile, has already signed five clients in India, four of whom were existing clients. For Dimitriou, that is evidence that the proposition is responding to an existing need rather than attempting to manufacture one.

Dept's ambitions for India extend beyond content and technology. The agency is building its media practice organically and is currently hiring for the business. The longer-term objective is to offer the full Dept proposition in India, spanning digital transformation, content, media and brand-building.

The company also wants to challenge the perception of India as simply a lower-cost delivery market. Dimitriou points to its design practice, which works directly with Europe, alongside the technology capabilities being deployed on global assignments.

“India is much more than that. It’s home to innovative work,” he says.

The expansion comes as Dimitriou also takes a swipe at the traditional agency holding company model. Despite concerns about the European market, he says Dept continues to see double-digit growth in the region, with its business split broadly equally between Europe and the Americas, while India and Australia/New Zealand account for the remainder.

Networks versus independents

“I describe the networks as ‘holding on companies’ rather than ‘holding companies’. They celebrate 1–3% growth, while we’re growing at 15%,” he says.

Dimitriou says Dept's top 25 client programme grew 28% year on year, arguing that the company's position at the intersection of marketing and technology, with media increasingly embedded into the proposition, gives it room to grow.

For India, the immediate goal is to bring more of its approximately 40 clients onto Dept Studios, while continuing to build out the wider business.

The agency, however, recognises that it needs to raise its profile in the market. Dimitriou acknowledges that Dept is not yet as well known in India as it would like to be and says it plans to step up its marketing and events activity.

“We need to do a better job there. That’s the practical reality,” he says.

For Dept, the launch of Dept Studios is therefore less a standalone expansion and more the beginning of the next phase of its India strategy—one that aims to move the market from a technology and transformation outpost to a global centre for content, innovation and growth.

Read the full chat with Dimitriou in the July issue of Manifest, which can be purchased here.