Ladies and Gentlemen, Dear Shareholders,
With sales of €200m (+10%), net profit (Group share) of €12.4m (+14%) and more than 1,000 employees, in 2023 the Group reached a major milestone in its Ambition 2025 plan!
2023 was a very positive year for our Group. After the economic crises that began in 2022 over energy, purchasing power and Ukraine, the global geopolitical situation remained highly unstable, but the Group successfully withstood these new challenges. The rapid rise of Generative Artificial Intelligence has helped our customers realise the need to further digitalise their marketing and sales, which is the core of the Dekuple Group’s business. Although many companies faced cash flow pressures, leading to increased caution in their marketing investments, our Group maintained a robust growth trajectory and continued its transformation.
Our consolidated sales rose by 10% this year, driven mainly by very strong growth in Digital Marketing, which now accounts for 60% of the Group’s total sales, compared with 36% in 2020, and recorded a sustained increase in its gross margin of +39%. Our net profit (group share) rose by 14% to €12.4m, demonstrating the relevance of our offerings and the improved efficiency of our operations.
Our Converteo consultancy continued on its excellent trajectory, with gross margin growth of 19.9% over the past year. By the end of 2023, it had nearly 430 expert consultants serving our prestigious customers, including two-thirds of the CAC40 companies. To support this growth, we have continued to structure Converteo by appointing new Partners and creating new activities focused on Pricing and Product Management. In addition, Converteo’s purchase of Synomia’s strategic assets has strengthened our position as a pioneer in AI.
We expanded our Agencies & Marketing Engineering Solutions activities in France, Spain and China. Despite the impact of the reduction or postponement of certain campaigns suffered by the market as a whole, gross margin rose sharply (+76.6% in France and +11% in Spain), mainly thanks to external growth, with the successful integration of Nouveau Bélier and Smart Traffik. Brainsonic and Reech continued their excellent growth, reinforcing their positions as leaders in their fields thanks to their differentiating offers.
The press market remained very difficult in an unfavourable consumer environment. We have nevertheless maintained significant commercial investment with new offers and new partners, in order to bolster our portfolio of contracts and consolidate our vital role for press publishers. Against this backdrop, sales in our magazines business fell by 7.8%.
The insurance business remained stable (-1.1%, compared with a high base of +14.7% in 2022) and continued to diversify with the development of our supplementary health insurance offering.
A stronger capacity for innovation thanks to technology and AI.
We are convinced that to pursue their development, brands will increasingly need perfect integration between marketing strategy, creativity, communication, data, performance and technology. This is the choice we announced in our Ambition 2025 plan, and which we are pursuing with determination.
This year has seen the Group take a major step forward in the field of Artificial Intelligence. From January 2023, we have implemented an in-house training plan designed to familiarise our 1,000 employees with the uses and constraints of these new tools, so that they can be applied across all our activities. Thanks to a large number of physical and online training courses, as well as fortnightly internal newsletters and the appointment of a Group ‘AI Evangelist’ responsible for leading the 30 ‘AI champions’ appointed in each of the Group’s departments, we have profoundly transformed the way we operate and a large part of our offering. This unprecedented effort will continue in 2024.
This major skill has been put to work for our customers and partners through the adaptation and creation of new offerings, the training of more than 50 executive committees at our customers’ sites and the setting up of “AI factories” at Converteo and Brainsonic to support the transformation of brands and organisations.
We are also continuing to platform our offerings, so that we can leverage our technological strengths and our unique ability to exploit proprietary or partner data. Major advances in this area are planned for 2024.
The Dekuple Group is becoming increasingly visible in France and Europe
Thanks to the relevance and skills of our 1,000 experts, we won a record 61 awards in 2023, a sign of the growing strength of our creativity in the market. The Group was ranked twelfth in the Stratégies/Altarès ranking.
We continued our sailing partnership with the sponsorship of William Mathelin-Moreaux’s Class 40 boat, which we are renewing in 2024 for the third year running, with the first start of a transatlantic race in April from Belle-Ile. This sponsorship is a driving force behind the Group’s internal activities, as well as an opportunity for exchanges with customers and partners.
We have raised our profile in Europe by taking part in trade fairs, strengthening our digital communications and developing the export of several of our technological solutions. Discussions are underway at European level to develop close partnerships with leading agencies in their countries in order to reinforce the European leadership of the Dekuple Group.
Corporate Social Responsibility
As a family-owned group for over 50 years, we have always placed our integration into our ecosystems at the service of the common good at the heart of our concerns. This is the deep conviction of our shareholders, management, employees, customers and partners.
During 2023, we pursued our Corporate Social Responsibility policy in line with our membership of the UN Global Compact. In particular, we renewed our ISO 14001 certification for our loyalty activities and continued our collaboration with My Job Glasses. For the 3rd year running, Converteo came first in the Happy Index®AtWork ranking for the consultancy sector. We have also implemented the action plans decided in 2022 following the assessment of our scope 3 carbon footprint in our various activities. Within our main subsidiaries, we have developed awareness-raising workshops on the climate, called ‘Climate Frescoes’, while the ‘Friday’ platform, deployed at Group level, has strengthened the commitment of our employees to the crucial issues of CSR.
CSR governance was also strengthened in 2023, with the creation of a dedicated committee within the Board of Directors, and the creation of a committee at Group level and for our main activities.
We confirm our growth plan for 2024 and beyond
The general economic situation at the start of 2024 remains uncertain, but we are convinced that the digitalisation and datafication of businesses, and in particular their marketing, will continue to accelerate.
Notre Groupe est parfaitement positionné pour répondre à ces enjeux. Nous abordons cette année 2024 de façon confiante, et nos équipes sont mobilisées pour poursuivre la trajectoire de croissance rentable de nos activités, en particulier des activités de marketing digital dont le poids dans le Groupe continuera à progresser fortement.
Our Group is perfectly positioned to meet these challenges. We are approaching 2024 with confidence, and our teams are mobilised to continue the profitable growth trajectory of our businesses, in particular our digital marketing activities, which will continue to grow strongly within the Group.
We will achieve this growth organically, but also through acquisitions of companies that can bring us complementary skills, as opportunities arise, in France and Europe.
As part of our 2025 plan, we are going to strengthen our capacity for innovation and make better use of the Group’s many technological skills. On the social and environmental front, we can capitalise on the actions we have taken in recent years: employer branding, quality training, responsible consumption and production, attention to well-being and health in the workplace, gender equality and, more broadly, employee diversity. In 2024, we want to make an even greater commitment, commensurate with the stakes and the impact that a group like ours, with its 1,000 employees, can have.
I’m very confident in our ability to adapt, to continue to grow and to constantly improve the relevance of our offerings and the quality of our deliverables.
We are fortunate to work in a dynamic sector and to be able to rely on the exceptional skills of our 1,000 employees to serve our customers and partners. We form a Group that is unique in its stable family shareholding, its multi-entrepreneurial group structure, its long-term vision and the diversity of its skills. We look forward to another successful year in 2024.
I would like to thank our employees, partners, customers and shareholders for their trust and loyalty.
Bertrand Laurioz
Chairman and CEO
