R/GA Vet Barry Wacksman on the Data-Centric Business Model
It’s no surprise that R/GA, the digital agency that helped longtime client Nike develop its Nike+ FuelBand fitness tracker, recognizes the connections between real world brands and the abundance of data at their disposal. To Barry Wacksman, the former chief growth officer who was recently promoted to chief strategy officer at R/GA, the impact of data extends far beyond supply chain efficiency or advertising and marketing. It’s actually the foundation for an entirely new type of business model Mr. Wacksman, a 16-year veteran at R/GA, is helping to define.
In fact, Mr. Wacksman named it. “Functional integration” is what he calls the approach taken by a new breed of company that has thrived by creating “connected ecosystems of value,” or products and services that are intended to work together and are often tied together with data.
“We started to see the rise of a new type of company,” he said, calling Apple “by far the most powerful practitioner of this strategy.” Functional integration is a modern-day answer to the classic horizontal integration model by which companies create multiple versions of similar products.
