By acquiring a majority holding in the technology consultancy Future Marketing, the Plan.Net Group is enhancing its strong position in the holistic management of effective customer experiences. This makes the Plan.Net Group one of the leading providers of advice on future-proof marketing transformations to enable the effective, data- and technology-driven management of customer journeys across all customer contact points. The Plan.Net Group’s consultancy services specialise in combining these services with the seamless realization of marketing transformation concepts.

Munich, 30 November 2020 – The marketing of the future defines effective customer strategies and implements them using data-driven operating models. This includes the ability to automate customer journeys.

Significant demands are being made of marketing in the future, as holistic customer journey management and a high level of marketing technology require new skills, structures and ways of working. For example, marketing, sales and CRM need new forms of organization in order to provide successful customer-centred services.

Such a focus on marketing requires significant investments in the design and implementation of advanced data and technology platforms. The variety of data and technology providers is enormous and is constantly growing. Choosing the right platform components for the realization of specific customer journey concepts is a critical decision for a company’s success, as are the rapidly increasing requirements for data protection and data security. In order to strengthen its position in this regard, the Plan.Net Group has now acquired a majority stake in Future Marketing.

Future Marketing is one of the leading consultancies providing successful, future-proof marketing transformations to create efficient, data and technology-driven management of customer journeys across all customer contact points. After the takeover, the two managing partners Dr. Sven Schiemann, who founded Future Marketing in 2007, and Martin Possekel will remain at the head of the 22-strong team in Düsseldorf. Future Marketing advises and supports clients beginning with their choice of technology to the appropriate operating model, and works with the telecommunications, tourism, finance, retail / e-commerce and automotive sectors, among others. Their long-standing client portfolio includes, for example, 1&1, Deutsche Bahn, Dertour and REWE, and has this year welcomed Porsche.

Wolf Ingomar Faecks, CEO of the Plan.Net Group, says: “We are seeing an increasing need to transform marketing in the areas of experience management, technology, process and organization. Marketing organizations are looking for competent partners in order to be able to develop, implement and manage inspiring experiences both holistically and successfully. With the acquisition of Future Marketing, we are enhancing our expertise in the area of Data & Consulting comprehensively, and will be able to support our clients even more effectively, partnering them through their transformation initiatives. Therefore, we very much look forward to welcoming on board the Future Marketing Team led by Dr. Sven Schiemann and Martin Possekel and driving our joint service strategy forward.”

Dr. Sven Schiemann, Managing Partner of Future Marketing, says: “We are pleased to be joining the Plan.Net Group. For us it was a strategically important step: we see considerable potential in the international scalability of our work, in particular by successfully realizing our implementation-oriented and tech-agnostic strategies.”

Martin Possekel, Joint Managing Partner of Future Marketing, adds: “With our experience and skills, we provide the perfect complement to the existing service and product portfolio of Plan.Net, for example, in dealing with data protection issues that arise when gathering, organizing and activating customer data in a wide variety of marketing technologies. When it comes to creating a sustainable marketing infrastructure, the most recent rulings of Germany’s Federal Court of Justice and the European Court of Justice are causing concern among many of our clients. In this regard, we can round out the range of services.”

Florian Haller, CEO of the Serviceplan Group, also sees this merger as ground-breaking: “Through the Plan.Net strategy, we can respond to the Serviceplan Group’s clients, whom we want to support throughout their transformation process – even and above all in an uncertain economic situation such as we are currently experiencing during the Covid-19 pandemic. Strengthening the Plan.Net Group’s position by partnering with Future Marketing is a huge asset for our entire group.”