Deutsche Telekom had estimated that its global sponsorship expenditure exceeded €450M PA and wanted to rationalise its investment and contracted Redmandarin.
With a mixture of short and long-term investments at a range of levels, the initial challenge was to classify the commitments. Our audit detailed over 700 individual contracted relationships across 35 markets – the consequence of chronic lack of financial controls and incoherent strategy.
With stakeholders spread equally across the business, it was critical to define an impartial and objective process for rationalisation which would be acceptable to all. Our first stage was therefore to define globally acceptable objectives for sponsorship and determine the potential of individual sponsorships to contribute to these.
The next stage was to ensure the brand structure – of corporate brand, T Mobile, T.com and business services – was reflected at the level of sponsorship. The process resulted in a number of national and sub-regional reports, with recommendations and a series of workshops at which these were discussed. The objective was to reduce overall levels of expenditure and align the revised portfolio more directly against the sub-brands.
The portfolio review process lasted nine months and culminated in an annual saving of €100M PA, with improved effectiveness.
