Excited about India both as market, tech hub: Publicis Sapient Global CEO Nigel Vaz

New Delhi, Sep 14 (PTI) India is central to the global, integrated delivery approach of Publicis Sapient and the digital business transformation company is "excited" about the addressable market here as well, according to CEO Nigel Vaz.

In an interview with PTI, Vaz further said digital business transformation budgets (global spends) in 2026 are likely to be "better and more significant", as companies reset strategic priorities.

He, however, cautioned that persistence of inflation and macroeconomic uncertainties remain key factors that will be closely monitored.

Publicis Sapient is the digital business transformation hub of one of world's largest advertising companies, Publicis Groupe, and has 20,000 people across 72 offices globally.

On India, Vaz said Publicis Sapient views growth in terms of leadership it builds here and the transformative outcomes driven by its India-based teams, both of which are growing significantly.

"What we're certainly recognising is the shift to being a people and product company creates huge opportunity in terms of the area we're growing in. So in India, we're consistently hiring talent to build products, which was not a space that we've historically been in," he said, emphasising the presence of some of the "best and brightest" engineers, designers, and strategists in the country.

Publicis Sapient, he explained, is prioritising the development of AI-enabled SPEED teams - an internal acronym for strategy, product, experience, engineering, data, and AI, designed to accelerate and unify transformation efforts.

"So what we're building is AI-enabled speed teams, as we call them. These are teams that we can deploy to really accelerate the transformation," according to him.

From a market perspective, the company is "excited" about India.

"India has a tech-literate workforce with a vibrant community of startups, with an incredibly important part of our team, because we've always operated in India as part of our globally distributed delivery approach.

"So, we've never thought of India in the way, say, a lot of the Indian IT services firms, like with a typical offshoring, outsourcing mentality do...," he said, asserting that Publicis Sapient teams in India form an integral part of the global teams.

"They work seamlessly, and we move and distribute work across the world, specifically with leaders from India and in many roles. That said, we definitely think the addressable market is going to be significantly bigger than what we serve today," he said.

Given the potential for growth in the addressable market, Publicis Sapient does not approach India purely from a headcount addition perspective.

"So for us, it's not just about adding capability or headcount for the sake of adding capability or headcount. It's finding the right sets of people who can actually help accelerate what we're trying to build, which is essentially a people and product-led company," he said.

Asked how the digital budget would unfold over next year, with the world in grip of macro uncertainties and trade wars, Vaz said digital business transformation budgets in 2026 are expected to be "better and more significant" than in the past as companies realign their strategic priorities.

"When I look at 2026, I think you're starting to see budgets that are better and more significant than we've seen in the past, as companies start to realign priorities in order of importance.

"I think what remains to be seen in 2026, is how the macroeconomic environment improves... What we've seen is pretty stubborn inflation in almost every market, even in markets like the United States," he observed.

Vaz explained that true digital transformation isn't about merely digitising processes, but rather reimagining business for a digital era.

He recalled how people, in the beginning, found it hard to see online banking as anything beyond a website that would display bank's information.

That was before online and mobile banking went on to revolutionise the world of finance.

"So imagine asking your bank for advice, not a person in the bank, but an actual tool/solution in the bank for advice on how you should save to send your kids to college.

"And they are actually able to position all their products, like high interest savings accounts or government schemes that will help you save taxes in the context of that question. That is what reimagination of business to me is, and what digital business transformation is all about," he elaborated.

Today, AI represents a similar shift, moving from people-enabled digital tools to a new era driven by real machine intelligence.

"And the moment that we find ourselves in today with AI is another big shift, where we're going from a world where digital was essentially a tool that was enabled by the intelligence of people, to where now you have true machine intelligence coming to the fore," he noted. PTI MBI DRR DRR