Cg42, a Wilton-based management consulting firm, has carved out a niche specialty business that helps the full business gamut — Fortune 100 corporations to midsize and small companies — gain market share through building competitive strategies and brand-marketing tactics.
The firm was founded in 2010 by Steven Beck, who has 20 years of management consulting experience, helping companies market their brands and set up competitive business strategies.
Beck started his own firm after working at Deloitte in Stamford, Marketing Corp. of America in Westport and Organic, a company owned by Omnicom Group in Manhattan, where he met his future business partner, Hugh Tallents.
Steven Beck
When Tallents started his own brand innovation and growth consulting firm last year, he stayed in touch with Beck.
The two entrepreneurs recently decided to merge their businesses. Tallents’ Tallents + Co is now a part of Beck’s cg42.
The merger was seamless for both entrepreneurs’ teams, Beck said.
The founders envisioned building a firm that generated out-of-the-box plans for business problems, invested substantially in intellectual property and established tools and approaches that are designed to meet the needs and challenges of senior executives today.
“Whether you’re a large company looking to change or a small company looking for a challenge, you need to be very well equipped with a good understanding of what’s happening in the future and have the market intelligence to scale quickly and well,” Beck said. “Ultimately, you don’t want to grow very rapidly for 18 months and flame out.”
Hugh Tallents
Sustained growth is the firm’s motto. When cg42 works with its clients, it conducts research on what makes the clients’ competitors’ customers frustrated with certain brands and predicts how long those customers will stay with that brand over time. With that knowledge, the consulting firm devises a strategic plan for winning over those customers on the loose.
“We explore each of our clients’ level of credibility and permission and frustration it has with their customers,” Beck said. “The work we do on competitive strategy helps us answer two questions: How do I keep customers I already have? And how do I be more attractive to the competitor’s clients who are in the process of leaving? We do work with our clients strategically across multiple categories that have proven to drive double-digit market share gains.”
Building a strong brand allows businesses to expand their offerings without losing their clients. Hugh said that once customers fall in love with a company’s brand, they’re going to allow that brand to move into other areas of the customers’ life. The aim is to establish brand loyalty so that as a company grows its business strategies and expands its services and products, it has already established a dedicated customer base that’s interested in the new additions.
“If you love a company like Apple, for instance, the company is going to think about what are new areas that Apple might want to move into that customer’s life,” Hugh said. “Apple launched Apple Pay, so from having a core business of consumer technology, it has now branched out into a business of financial services and payments.”
Currently, cg42 works with companies in telecommunications, technology and financial services. It also has relationships with small to midsize firms that are trying to make their marks in established industries such as the professional services sector. Although Beck said he can’t say who his clients are, he did say two are from Fairfield County. Cg42 has clients across the U.S. and in Europe, Asia and South America.
“We can easily claim double-digit growth,” Hughes said. “We’re investing in new offerings of intellectual properties that will differentiate our clients’ firms.”
The biggest challenge for the company going into its fifth year is building its staff, Beck said. The help-wanted sign for the new year includes a consultant and marketing director.
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