EADP Dispatch, Part Deux

Following up on yesterday’s post, days two and three from Prague continued with the march of thought-provoking presentations. Among them was Centrum Holdings, a Warburg Pincus-backed company that’s one of the few pure-play digital entities in Czech Republic and Croatia. It generated 35 million euros in the most recent year against a monthly unique audience of some 6.5 million visitors.

CEO Pavel Mucha sees tremendous growth potential coming from the transition of traditional branding dollars to digital or online branding. While the publisher has a stronghold in its markets in search, Mucha argues that the huge pile of branding money is ripe for the picking. During his tenure at Centrum Holdings, Mucha has had the difficult task of transforming the sales organization. This came with a significant number of sales rep terminations for those unwilling or unable to adapt to the changing market.

Next up was Phillip Snalune of Yell Interactive. When asked whether tradition is an asset or liability, Snalune argued that tradition is something that can be leveraged in pieces, not as a whole. He drew a picture that positions Yell squarely in the role of a marketing services company for SMBs.

While that is the aspiration and strategic goal, he was clear that there are many challenges ahead. This will happen as the company transforms from a single product, transaction oriented company to a multi-production marketing services provider.