{"id":1342,"date":"2012-08-17T14:47:00","date_gmt":"2012-08-17T14:47:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/projects\/horsesforsources\/pwc-ants-eye-view_081712\/"},"modified":"2012-08-17T14:47:00","modified_gmt":"2012-08-17T14:47:00","slug":"pwc-ants-eye-view_081712","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.horsesforsources.com\/pwc-ants-eye-view_081712\/","title":{"rendered":"Why does PwC want an Ant’s Eye View of the world?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/p>\n

Hey brother, can I score some billable hours?<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Now if someone had told me a couple of years’ ago that Big 4 consultants would start acquiring firms with names such as “Ant’s Eye View” I may have remarked that you may still be suffering from those over-indulgences of the ’60s and ’70s. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

However, we are now living in an age where things like this are actually happening… so without further ado, here is HfS’ social business impressario Jonathan Yarmis<\/a> on why PwC just went and bought a social business strategy firm with a hallucinogenic name…<\/em><\/p>\n

So what on earth’s an “Ant\u2019s Eye View” …and why did PwC acquire one?<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

On August 14, PwC announced its intent to acquire social media strategy firm Ant\u2019s Eye View (AEV).\u00a0 There are all sorts of reasons to dismiss this acquisition \u2013 this is neither the first nor the last acquisition we\u2019ll see by big companies attempting to acquire their way into the social business space \u2013 but we\u2019re actually guardedly optimistic about this one.<\/p>\n

From its inception 3-1\/2 years ago, Ant\u2019s Eye View has been more than an opportunistic company.\u00a0 With its focus on real-life practitioners and with a sweeping vision for the impact of social business, AEV is differentiated from the thousands of agencies chasing \u201cthe next hula hoop.\u201d\u00a0 Time will tell whether AEV can preserve its distinctive culture under the PwC umbrella but the parties are entering this relationship with their eyes wide open. \u00a0Despite these concerns, we nonetheless expect PwC to be able to drive at least some incremental traffic and awarenessto AEV, so If you\u2019re a PwC client looking for an agency to help develop a social strategy, I\u2019d get in the AEV queue quickly (after, of course, talking with HfS).<\/p>\n

The Social Gold Rush<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Seemingly anyone who has more than 50 friends on Facebook or 500 followers on Twitter has set up a social business consultancy.\u00a0 Noted social media observer Peter Shankman penned a blog post a year ago entitled \u201cI will never hire a \u2018social media expert\u2019 and neither should you\u201d (http:\/\/shankman.com\/i-will-never-hire-a-social-media-expert-and-neither-should-you\/<\/a>) where he noted the similarities between the original dot com furor and our new fascination with social media.\u00a0 Back then, numerous agencies popped up with names like Scient, Viant and Agency.com.\u00a0 Many of them got acquired, at astronomical (and in retrospect, insane) valuations; a few exist in quasi-independent status to this day.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re now seeing a similar frenzy in the social media space.\u00a0 From big acquisitions like Salesforce.com\u2019s acquisition of social media monitoring powerhouse Radian6 and Microsoft\u2019s acquisition of social platform company Yammer all the way down to acquisitions like this one, there\u2019s a feeding frenzy to acquire social media skills and market presence.\u00a0 Unfortunately, most of these deals are focused on the latter: companies who were slow to react to the explosive growth of social media are now buying their way into the market.\u00a0 Ultimately, those kinds of acquisitions may bring along a few clients but the ability to scale the acquisition, or even retain the existing client base, is questionable at best.\u00a0 These kinds of acquisitions simply don\u2019t scale, the skills of the people acquired are of great variability (and the better ones are often the first to go), the IP acquired is scanty at best and the integration into the acquiring company is often problematic.<\/p>\n

Reason for Optimism<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Against this largely negative view, we actually believe PwC\u2019s acquisition of Ant\u2019s Eye View stands to be better than most.\u00a0 What differentiates AEV?<\/p>\n