Beyond the Campaign: Havas India Bets on Business Transformation with Gate One Launch 

Havas India has strategically launched global consultancy Gate One, moving beyond traditional advertising to integrate deep business transformation expertise. This initiative merges data-driven strategy and AI with creative marketing, addressing the critical need for holistic customer-centric change. Led by Karan Ingle from Bangalore, the practice will tailor global frameworks to India’s dynamic digital landscape. The launch positions Havas as a partner capable of guiding entire organizational transformations, not just crafting campaigns. It signals a major industry shift where marketing success is measured by tangible business outcomes and operational agility. For Indian companies, this offers access to unified expertise that can engineer brands for the digital age from the inside out, ensuring meaningful and measurable impact.

Beyond the Campaign: Havas India Bets on Business Transformation with Gate One Launch 

In a move that signals a significant shift in the advertising and marketing landscape, Havas India has announced the launch of Gate One, a global business and digital transformation consultancy, within its “India Village.” This isn’t just another agency opening; it’s a strategic play to embed deep-rooted business strategy at the very heart of creative marketing. 

For years, brands have struggled with a common dilemma: their marketing agencies craft compelling campaigns, while their management consultants design efficient operations, but the two rarely speak the same language. This often leads to beautiful creative that doesn’t drive business results, or robust operational changes that fail to resonate with customers. 

Havas India’s introduction of Gate One aims to bridge this exact gap. 

More Than Marketing: The New Strategic Imperative 

The launch speaks to a fundamental change in what clients demand. It’s no longer enough to have a great ad campaign. Businesses in India and across the globe are seeking partners who can help them navigate complete digital transformation—rewiring their entire organization around the customer. 

Gate One brings to the table expertise that goes far traditional marketing: 

• Customer Experience (CX) Strategy: Designing every touchpoint of a customer’s journey, from initial awareness to post-purchase support. 

• Data & AI Integration: Moving beyond data collection to leveraging artificial intelligence for predictive analytics, personalization, and operational efficiency. 

• Marketing Transformation: Restructuring internal marketing teams and tech stacks (like CRM and automation platforms) to be more agile and data-driven. 

• Operational Performance: Applying strategic thinking to internal processes to ensure the entire company can deliver on the brand’s promise. 

This positions Havas not just as a creator of messages, but as a architect of the modern, customer-centric business itself. 

Why This Launch Matters for the Indian Market 

India’s market is uniquely primed for this kind of offering. With an explosion of digital adoption, tech-savvy consumers, and businesses in every sector from traditional manufacturing to booming tech startups undergoing rapid digitization, the need for guided, meaningful transformation is critical. 

As Rana Barua, Group CEO of Havas India, South East Asia and North Asia, stated, this fusion of “consultancy strength with Havas’ creative prowess” could set a new benchmark. The potential is to create business strategies that are not only effective but are also brought to life with world-class creativity, ensuring they truly connect with people. 

Leadership with a Local Lens 

A key insight in this expansion is the appointment of Karan Ingle as Client Director to lead the Indian practice. Based in Bangalore—India’s tech capital—Ingle’s role will be crucial. His challenge is to translate Gate One’s global methodologies and frameworks to the nuanced, diverse, and fast-paced Indian business environment. 

His leadership will be the linchpin, ensuring that the solutions offered aren’t generic international templates but are tailored to create “meaningful change with measurable impact” for Indian enterprises, as Ingle himself highlighted. 

The Bottom Line 

The launch of Gate One in India is a clear indicator that the future of marketing is holistic. The most successful agencies of tomorrow won’t just compete on creative awards; they will compete on their ability to drive tangible business outcomes, streamline operations, and build brands that are engineered for the digital age from the inside out. 

For Indian businesses, this means access to a new kind of partner: one that can help them conceive a bold transformational idea in the boardroom and ensure it resonates beautifully with the consumer in the marketplace. 

What this means for businesses: If you’re looking for a partner to help you not just talk about change, but actually execute it across your customer experience, data strategy, and internal operations, the playing field just got a lot more interesting.