The sun never sets at DQ&A, EMERCE

20-11-2008

Seven years after its start DQ&A has become a worldwide top company in ad-management and ad-operations. Co-founder Heleen van Oord explains how an international location policy led to its success. First condition: staff with “DQ&A-DNA”.

Emerce: PRINT
May 2008
BusinesS Inbox

By: MARC JANSSEN

The sun never sets at DQ&A

DQ&A currently employs about eighty people, most of then are ad-operator. Besides Van Oord, the management consists of the Internet veterans Andries de Jonge, Peter van Wingerden and soon Joost Phoelich. About fifty people work at the main office in Voorburg. The rest is working in Germany, Spain. Sweden, Brazil and South Africa. DQ&A is also seeking a good location place in Asia. “Some people advise China, while others advise Hong Kong or Singapore. We will first have to examine this very well.”

Why does the company want such an international spread for its activities that which are hardly restricted to a particular place. The company is specialist in placing banners and related items at the right place and at the right moment. However, according to Van Oord, this business is restricted to a particular place. One of the reasons is that the managing of ads goes on 24/7 and a “follow-the-sun” principle - with representations in all time zones - has its use. Van Oord: “When Voorburg goes home and Spain, after its long afternoon lunches, stops at 21 hours and Brazil takes over.”

Moreover: sometimes you have to be in the country to bring in new clients. This is how it worked in Germany, and so DQ&A also has an office there. It’s that simple. “People are afraid of other countries without any reason. Of course, there are problems with different rules and banks. But once you have organized everything, you can have fantastic success. “However, there is one necessary condition: “You must find the right people. That is the secret.”

Dotcomcrash Van Oord and her companions already knew seven years ago that it is handy for media agencies and publishers to commission external specialists to implement an ad-campaigns. “But no one did what we were doing at the time. Certainly in the first two years it was really a matter of survival. ”This was reinforced by the dotcomcrash at the time. “Everybody told us: You must be mad to start for yourself.” But it meant that we only started to run faster.” When publisher Kluwer was the first to sign a contract, this was major step. After this things went fast, with clients such as KPN, PCM and VNU.

The first foreign location was opened in Cape Town in 2006. At the time it was not so important to “follow the sun” or bring in new clients, but to find the right personnel. “Compared with Amsterdam it is still easy in Voorburg to find people, however in South Africa you have a great reservoir of people who want to work online. They lag behind in knowledge, but we fly them to the Netherlands to catch up with things.”

Van Oord does not so much seek personnel with the right knowledge, but people with qualities that fit within the organisation: the “DQ&A-DNA” Last winter we had a world week. People from Sweden, Cape Town, Germany, Sao Paulo, Spain and the Netherlands came together here, and they were all recruited on the basis of that “DQ&A-gene”. The energy really shook the premises.”

Personnel DQ&A

Number of employees in percentages per country
Spain: 1%
Sweden: 3%
Germany: 6%
South Africa: 11%
Brazil: 13%
The Netherlands: 66%