«Michel Couture talks about Tink and Digital Profitability in the Lien Multimedia»
Novembre 26, 2009
Charles Prémont, a journalist with Le Lien MULTIMEDIA, met with Michel Couture last Friday. The purpose of the interview: to learn a little more about Tink and digital profitability. Here is the article, published Monday, November 23.
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As a new entity resulting from S2i Web’s acquisition of BMG Multimedia, Tink immediately positioned itself as the first consulting firm dedicated to digital profitability. “We believe that we are opening a new niche, positioned somewhere between the agency and laboratory levels,” explained Michel Couture, Vice-President Strategy and planning at Tink. “We want to restore the true meaning of the term ‘profitability’, in the digital world – the art of deriving utility, optimizing the benefit of digital rather than simply seeking to profit from it or use someone to one’s own advantage.” Le Lien MULTIMÉDIA met with Michel Couture and Jean-Sébastien Giroux at the Tink offices.
Tink seeks primarily to forge business relationships with clients who believe in the potential of digital. “We see digital more as a business solution than as a communications or promotion tool,” explained Michel Couture. “We feel that intelligent use of the Web should result in added value for an organization. Processes are made more effective in areas ranging from internal coordination and external communications to B2B and B2C.” While some might say that this finding simply states the obvious, Michel Couture asserts that a great deal of oratory needs to be done before this vision can really take root in the business world.
Although Tink’s priority is to build long-term relationships with its clients, the firm is also able to take charge of a company’s entire digital strategy. “The nature of our services means that we’re more involved with sites of that have a certain amount of scope than with smaller solutions,” explained Michel Couture. “We see ourselves as sherpas, in a sense, who venture into an organization in order to identify areas in which going digital can produce actual benefits. We work directly on-site in clients’ offices, to determine which good practices can be implemented within the organization.” Tink’s challenge is therefore centered on the return on investment its clients obtain by using its services.
Tink has also developed a profitable project for the St-Hubert restaurant chain. In working to make on-line ordering possible, its team needed to centralize the Web interface while also ensuring efficient localization. “We needed to make sure that people visiting the site would reach the right outlet, since the restaurants don’t all have exactly the same menu,” explained Michel Couture. “The order, once placed, goes directly into the individual restaurant’s system, and customers are able to manage the number of bills for their orders. It doesn’t sound like much, but this project was quite complex.” The results were extremely impressive. According to Michel Couture, nearly 30% of St-Hubert orders are currently placed on line, and this figure was achieved without any real marketing of the service. “People love this service because the information in their first order remains in the system memory, which makes future ordering easier,” explains Jean-Sébastien Giroux. The firm is now working with the data generated by this service, to improve it and ensure that the platform evolves to achieve increasingly better performance.
As part of its continued monitoring of new trends, Tink closely observes what’s happening in the world of Web 2.0. and mobility. “We integrate 2.0. tools into our projects extensively, but this occurs more frequently within companies rather than as an external communications tool,” explains Michel Couture. “I’m a firm believer in Web 2.0., and feel that this trend will impact on future Web evolution in a lasting way; for all that, however, we mustn’t forget the importance of mobile applications. This is, in fact, why we use the term ‘digital’ rather than ‘the Web’. Our aim is to be non-restrictive, and to reflect on how these new platforms and their applications can be profitable for our clients.”
[Charles Prémont]
Le Lien MULTIMEDIA. Vol 15 No 49, p. 2
