“There’s not going to be much space for the middle-sized agency”
As YES completes its move under the ALTOUR brand, founder Sue Gill predicts a polarised UK agency market – and reflects on 25 years of building a business where relationships remain at its heart.
There may not be much room for the middle-sized MICE agency in the future, according to YES founder Sue Gill, who believes the market is likely to become increasingly divided between large global players and smaller businesses offering highly personal, specialist service.
Gill, whose 25-year-old meetings and events business has now officially merged with ALTOUR, says the biggest contracts are likely to gravitate towards a handful of large agencies, while smaller operators can continue to compete through the “concierge” service and close client relationships that have traditionally been the hallmark of independent agencies.
“I still think there’s a place for that bedroom startup that I did,” she says. “I think people still love that concierge service where an agency wants to offer that very up close and personal service, and getting to know what a customer needs.”
“But I also think that the bigger, huge contracts will probably go to a handful of the big boy agencies. So I’m not sure that there’s going to be much space for the middle-sized agency.”
YES founder Sue Gill & ALTOUR president Gabe Rizzi
YES founder Sue Gill & ALTOUR president Gabe Rizzi
It is an interesting perspective from someone whose own business has just moved firmly into the global agency camp.
YES began in 2001 with Gill making cold calls from her home in Halifax, West Yorkshire. Her first client, won after she spotted a newspaper article about a company offering an incentive trip for employees who hit their sales targets, is still a client today.
The YES name may be disappearing, but Gill says the move is intended to give the team a bigger platform while preserving the culture and client relationships that have defined the business.
“The heart of the business is to really create incredible, incredible events for our corporate clients,” she says. “So that’s not going to change.”
Gill sold YES to Internova eight years ago and now works as a senior strategic advisor to Internova CEO JD O’Hara, with a particular focus on MICE. She says the move into a larger organisation has given her a different perspective on the advantages of scale.
“I love being able to take on more of an advisory role rather than a day-to-day hands-on operational role, because that gives loads of growth for the other team members.”
For YES clients, she says the same team and service will remain in place, while the business can draw on ALTOUR’s technology, resources and global reach when required.
“On a day-to-day basis, it’s the same team, it’s the same passion, it’s the same drive to win,” she says.
For Gill, however, scale only works if the human element survives alongside it. The YES culture was the thing she was most determined to protect through the transition, with clients, suppliers and staff remaining at the centre of the business.
She acknowledges that procurement, technology and processing have transformed the industry during her 30 years in events, but argues that automation should ultimately give agencies more time to concentrate on the things technology cannot replicate.
“I remember when I first started, having to do an RFP, and I didn't even know what RFP stood for.
“The job is changing every day, and you've got to embrace that. The procurement piece, the technology piece, clients being a lot closer to the budgets, all that came in.
“But one thing that remains is when you get a load of people in a room for a conference, an incentive - no AI, no technology can replace that feeling of a group of people together wanting that passion and that energy that comes from that space that you work in,” she says.
For her, that is where a good agency should add value: using technology to make processes simpler and quicker, while putting the time saved into creativity and high-touch service.
“We all know about technology and marketing and so forth, but when it comes down to it, it is where you were raised and how you are with people, isn't it?”
The power of that approach was reflected at the company's 25th anniversary celebrations at The Langham in London, where former and current clients, suppliers and colleagues from across YES’s history came together.
“It was an emotional evening, but it was a really, really smiley, happy, emotional evening,” Gill says. “There was no end of an era. There was just a great celebration of fabulous contacts, fabulous people in the room.”
Gill is similarly resistant to describing the ALTOUR move as the end of YES.
“I don’t think I’m ever going to admit it being an end of an era,” she says. “We all have eras, as Taylor Swift does, and I think it's exciting to see where the business will now go to with the possibilities of the new structure. It’s exciting that the journey continues.”
The next chapter may carry a different name, but Gill’s ambition for the business remains much the same as it was when she started it from a bedroom in Halifax: growth, happy clients and a team that continues to enjoy what it does.
“With the merger I was particularly keen to protect the culture. You know, there's a heart on the end of the Yes brand for a reason. Customers, suppliers, and the team have always been at the heart of what matters to me.
“Nobody more than me wants it to go on to bigger things,” she adds. “It’s been my life. It was my first baby.
“This is one way of giving a super boost to something that has been beautifully organic and growing for 25 years, all from that bedroom startup in Halifax.
“I suppose we can say the baby's grown up, it's left home, it's gone to university - and that's life, isn't it?”