Communiqué Communications Consultancy of the Year

Sponsored by

Finalist

Burson, Cohn & Wolfe (BCW)

Summary of work

2020 demanded a creative and agile response to meet the changing needs of our clients, our people, their families and society. Whilst businesses stalled as they figured out the logistics of delivering work, BCW focused on the value we bought for clients and colleagues; and doing more meaningful work that we were proud of.
We innovated, bringing forward several new offers in response to our clients’ evolving needs; a high-value business transformation consultancy; dedicated virtual meetings and experiences offer; and BCW:Life, our specialised consumer health offer. We created sprint-style, virtual consulting tools that facilitated agility, creativity and collaboration.
We responded to changes in our culture; introducing even greater flexibility to accommodate individual working patterns, well-being programmes to support resilience and self-care, and reviewing our employee experience and consulting frameworks for unconscious bias.
Despite no one attending awards ceremonies, we continued to win recognition for work that delivered against our clients’ objectives and truly moved people.
Made possible by our incredible team and inclusive growth culture, our results exceeded all expectations. We grew 19%, adding four new clients and 15 new accounts to our portfolio. We promoted 40% of our team, onboarded eight new colleagues and retained 90% of our staff.

To date, the program has successfully generated and leveraged data through newly established channels and partnerships with engaged stakeholders. The program has already successfully influenced clinical practice and policy at global, country and clinic levels via novel insights and targeted, patient-focused solutions. Adherence is gaining the attention it has long needed, and real-world outcomes will improve as a result.

Judges’ comments

BCW had a really clear vision about what they wanted to do next and delivered a strong performance with some good growth and good investment in people. That they responded well to client need was immediately evident. This is a team that know where they’ve come from and have built on a great year on year performance, with some insightful manoeuvring in the marketplace.