Editor’s note: the release was initially published in April 2011.
BOSTON, MA, Apr 27 (MARKET WIRE) — Two industry veterans are launching a new company, East Coast Catalyst, Inc. (“ECC”), a digital strategy management consulting firm. ECC’s mission is to help executives optimize their companies’ performance through the strategic application of digital tools and techniques.
The firm’s founders are Tim Bourgeois and David Polcaro, who, over the past decade, ran a full-service interactive marketing and web development firm working with companies like Comcast, Black & Decker and Thomson Reuters. Their firm was acquired in 2009.
“Corporate executives are starving for digital strategy planning support from an independent firm,” says co-founder Tim Bourgeois, the firm’s Chief Digital Strategist. “Digital strategy is more complex — and more critical — than ever before,” he asserts, “and executives need objective advice from a partner that understands the entire digital system, and who isn’t depending on big media buys or large-scale web development for profits.”
East Coast Catalyst offers services in three primary areas: digital strategy and planning, creative and user experience strategy, and digital platform management and optimization. The firm’s entry-level solution is the Digital Strategy Marketing Audit, which allows clients to quickly establish a detailed understanding of the various digital assets they already have in place, and is typically the first step in formulating a comprehensive digital strategy that the organization can rally around.
“There is currently a huge void in the marketplace for expert guidance and advice on digital strategy management,” says Michael Barnes, Vice President at Springboard Research, a global technology research firm. “Companies have been throwing money at digital initiatives since the 1990s, with little in the way of structured thinking to guide decision-making. After years of aggressive investment, they’re now struggling to make sense of sprawling digital ecosystems and ever-increasing budgets, while simultaneously seeking out additional digital programs necessary to stay competitive.”
Of course, strategic planning needs to be considered within the context of follow-on implementation activities. Co-founder David Polcaro, who serves as Web Architect and Creative Director at ECC, remarks: “Too often over the years we’ve seen clients struggle to devise even baseline interactive strategies and then be left at a competitive disadvantage as a result; or, worse, they invest aggressively in digital platforms and then let them die on the vine because of inadequate or non-existent optimization and promotion plans. ECC’s mission is to address the area where corporate, marketing, and digital strategy collide.”
ECC launches with an established and growing client roster — including TIBCO Spotfire, The New York Metropolitan Library Council, and True Power, LLC. The firm has also established a series of thought leadership pieces that articulate its vision for how to successfully address digital strategy and related methodologies, and manages its Digital Strategy Blog. The firm’s signature paper — Defining The Interactive Vision — is a manifesto detailing the challenges that executives face when formulating digital plans, and a structured approach for examining the issue.
About East Coast Catalyst, Inc.
East Coast Catalyst, Inc. (“ECC”) is a digital strategy management consulting firm. Located in Boston, the firm’s mission is to help client executives optimize their companies’ performance through the strategic application of digital tools and techniques. ECC’s core offerings
include: digital strategy and planning, creative and user experience strategy, and digital platform management and optimization. The firm was founded by two industry veterans — Tim Bourgeois and David Polcaro — who each rely on more than a decade of experience delivering digital strategy, implementation, and interactive platform optimization services to globally recognized brand and emerging companies across all major industry sectors. For more information contact East Coast Catalyst at 617-314-6400 or visit www.eastcoastcatalyst.com.