Item 1. Business

Our Business

Omnicom is a strategic holding company and a leading global provider of advertising, marketing and corporate communications services. We operate in a highly competitive industry and compete against other global, national and regional advertising and marketing services companies, as well as technology, social media and professional services companies. The proliferation of media channels, including the rapid development and integration of interactive technologies and mediums, has fragmented consumer audiences targeted by our clients. These developments make it more complex for marketers to reach their target audiences in a cost-effective way, causing them to turn to global service providers such as Omnicom for a customized mix of advertising and marketing services designed to optimize their total marketing expenditure.

On a global, pan-regional and local basis, our networks and agencies provide a comprehensive range of services in the following fundamental disciplines: advertising, customer relationship management, or CRM, which includes CRM Consumer Experience and CRM Execution & Support, public relations and healthcare. Advertising includes creative services, as well as strategic media planning and buying and data analytics services. CRM Consumer Experience includes Omnicom’s Precision Marketing Group and digital/direct agencies, as well as our branding, shopper marketing and experiential marketing agencies and CRM Execution & Support includes field marketing, sales support, merchandising and point of sale, as well as other specialized marketing and custom communications services. Public relations services include corporate communications, crisis management, public affairs and media and media relations services. Healthcare includes advertising and media services to global healthcare clients. Our business model was built and continues to evolve around our clients. Our fundamental business principle is that our clients’ specific marketing requirements are the central focus of how we structure our service offerings and allocate our resources. This client-centric business model requires that multiple agencies within Omnicom collaborate in formal and informal virtual client networks utilizing our key client matrix organization structure. This collaboration allows us to cut across our internal organizational structures to execute our clients’ marketing requirements in a consistent and comprehensive manner. We use our client-centric approach to grow our business by expanding our service offerings to existing clients, moving into new markets and obtaining new clients. In addition to collaborating through our client service models, our agencies and networks collaborate across internally developed technology platforms. Annalect, our proprietary data and analytics platform, serves as the strategic resource for all of our agencies and networks to share when developing client service strategies across our virtual networks. Omni, our people-based precision marketing and insights platform, identifies and defines personalized consumer experiences at scale across creative, media and CRM, as well as other disciplines.

Driven by our clients’ continuous demand for more effective and efficient marketing activities, we strive to provide an extensive range of advertising, marketing and corporate communications services through various client-centric networks that are organized to meet specific client objectives. A comprehensive listing of our service offerings includes:

As clients increase their demands for marketing effectiveness and efficiency, they have made it a practice to consolidate their business within one service provider in the pursuit of a single engagement covering all consumer touch points. We have structured our business around this trend. We believe that our key client matrix organization structure approach to collaboration and integration of our services and solutions has provided a competitive advantage to our business in the past and we expect this to continue over the medium and long term. Our key client matrix organization structure facilitates superior client management and allows for greater integration of the services required by the world’s largest brands. Our over-arching strategy is to continue to use our virtual client networks to grow our business relationships with our largest clients by serving them across our networks, disciplines and geographies. In addition, in 2018, we substantially completed the process of forming practice areas within our global network structure to bring together agencies operating in common disciplines. This action leverages existing resources and, in close coordination with our key client matrix organization, enhances the development of custom client solutions.

The various components of our business, including revenue by discipline and geographic area, and material factors that affected us in 2018 are discussed in Item 7, “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations,” or MD&A, of this report. None of our acquisitions or dispositions, individually or in the aggregate, in the three-year period ended December 31, 2018 was material to our results of operations or financial position. For information about our acquisitions, see Note 5 to the consolidated financial statements.

Our Clients

Our clients operate in virtually every sector of the global economy. In many cases, multiple agencies or networks serve different brand, product groups or both within the same client. For example, in 2018 our largest client represented 3.0% of revenue and was served by more than 225 of our agencies. Our 100 largest clients, which represent many of the world's major marketers, comprised approximately 51% of revenue and were each served, on average, by more than 60 of our agencies.

Our Employees

At December 31, 2018, we employed approximately 70,400 people worldwide. The skill sets of our workforce across our agencies and within each discipline are similar. Common to all is the ability to understand a client’s brand or product and their selling proposition and to develop a unique message to communicate the value of the brand or product to the client’s target audience, whether through traditional channels or emerging digital platforms. Recognizing the importance of this core competency, we have established tailored training and education programs for our client service professionals around this competency. See the MD&A for a discussion of the effect of salary and related costs on our results of operations.

Executive Officers of the Registrant

At January 31, 2019, our executive officers were:

Each executive officer has held his present position for at least five years, except: Mr. Wren was named Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer in May 2018 and previously served as President and Chief Executive Officer from 1997 to May 2018; Mr. Angelastro was named Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer in September 2014 and previously served as Senior Vice President Finance and Controller from 2002 until September 2014; Mr. Castellaneta was named Senior Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer in January 2015 and previously served as Assistant Controller from 2000 until January 2015; and Mr. Swiecicki was named Senior Vice President, Finance and Controller in January 2015 and previously served as Director of Business Operations from 2013 until January 2015 after holding various positions with BBDO Worldwide from 1983 until 2013. Additional information about our directors and executive officers will appear in our definitive proxy statement, which is expected to be filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC, by April 10, 2019.

Available Information

We file annual, quarterly and current reports and any amendments to those reports, proxy statements and other information with the SEC. Documents we file with the SEC are available free of charge on our website at http://investor.omnicomgroup.com, as soon as reasonably practicable after such material is filed with the SEC. The information included on or available through our website is not part of this or any other report we file with the SEC. Any document that we file with the SEC is available on the SEC’s website at www.sec.gov.