On July 18, the Stamba Hotel hosted the annual general meeting of the Georgia Global Compact Network, where members of the ACT Development Advisory Group, senior consultant Natia Rukhadze and analyst Keti Antadze took part in the work of the Georgia General Agreement Network (GCNG). Presented are the results of a study commissioned by this network last year - “The role of the private sector in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals”. The event was initiated by the Global Compact Georgia network. Currently, the Georgian network has 110 members.

Research and consulting company ACT presented itself to society with a renewed concept, brand, and business model. After successfully coping with the world challenge – the pandemic year of 2020, with new energy and ambitions, ACT sets global goals and offers high standard, proactive vision-oriented on the market needs to its clients. With the main slogan – Power of Changes we support our partners in the process of big and much-needed transformation.

ACT is a global research and consulting company that supports leaders and organizations of the future and empowers them for significant changes. Our main advantage is a transformation of data, ideas, and competences into valuable outcomes. ACT’s history starts with the early 2000-ies when Georgia was still under important political, social, and economic fluctuations and the market economy still was under-developed. Throughout its 19 years of history, ACT made a significant contribution to the development of the research industry in Georgia, and nowadays, it implements successful projects in 28 countries. A new reality and long-term perspective pushed ACT towards large-scale transformation. We changed the business model, organizational structure, way of thinking, and approach, which logically was followed by the need to make changes in visual rebranding.

„For rather a long period of time we were proud that we were a research company and we conducted studies tailored to individual needs, we were proud of our analytical capacities. It’s all in our DNA. However, the time came when the company’s growth rate significantly slowed down and the growth rate varied from 3% to 5% in 2013-2018. 

Naturally, we started looking for answers to our questions, we asked ourselves – what does our client need today? What can we do to create values for them? We observed the market and saw how actively companies undergo transformation. This applies to the pandemic challenges, digital, mental, and other aspects. I don’t know any field which does not face an inevitable need of changes, that included us” – noted founder and Vision Lead of the company, Tinatin Rukhadze.

As a result of the transformation, now ACT has four business units: Management Consulting, Development Consulting, Research, and Business Analytics. The business model is no longer research, but ACT became a research-driven consulting company where a core is business analytics. The company pointed its strength – analytics and tools created for management consulting towards supporting organizations in making the right decisions.

The transformation started within the company, now ACT applies renewed approaches with a new target segment. As a result, the company had 80% growth only in 2019. This business model was the reason why the set plan was fulfilled even during the world crisis caused by the pandemic and thus, ACT proved that there are no good and bad times, we make time.

As explained by the company’s Vision Lead – “naturally, change of business model solely was not enough. In addition to organizational mindset, we have also significantly extended our team – new people of different competences joined us. The organizational structure underwent drastic changes –a change of business model was followed by the agile transformation that opened new ways of effectiveness and creativity. The company is driven by three main powers: vision, culture, and enforcement, this is why it has three managers each having their own element. We view the organization as a network that pushed us towards making changes in the traditional structure and makes the management model three-dimensional where all three elements – vision, culture, and enforcement serve the achievement of one common goal. Development is visible in every aspect – entire team, products, incomes, with this transformation we achieved what was the most important for us – we create more values for our clients”. 

Organizational transformation naturally resulted in the need for visual rebranding. ACT’s brand underwent a transformation, the company made a completely innovative and ambitious statement on the market. The brand transformation was led by the company’s Marketing and Strategic Communication Unit Lead Ana Ivanishvili. As stated by her “changes were large-scale. We naturally had a feeling that renewed team, products, or brand philosophy could not be pulled through by old brand. Stakes were high as ACT provides others with the same service. So, we decided to cooperate with a designer Gia Bokhua who worked on the initial branding of ACT – we had a belief that he would understand our new destination precisely and find the appropriate visual solution. 

When doing rebranding, we felt hesitant whether to fully get rid of ACT’s identity or keep it at least partially. This renewed logo of ours still carries our DNA – data – that are presented in smaller font, while the name ACT is distinctly visible. This indicates that we kept our core, but now we are more complex than ever and ready to become more valuable for our partners”. 

As intended, the renewed brand was supposed to fully reflect organizational transformation. Rebranding should show ACT as a modern, ambitious, global company that offers much more than research. This is why the visual style was completely altered. Such a familiar red color was replaced by blue. Typography was developed. Changes affected our slogan too – Think Big was replaced by encouragement to positive change: Empower the Change. For all those years, our clients were those who thought big, who had big dreams and goals. Modern challenges and reality transformed our vision – today, our clients are leaders and organizations of the future – those, who try to change the world for the better every single day. We see ourselves as supporters of those changes, that is why our new slogan reflects faith in positive changes.

A graphic designer Gia Bokhua worked on renewed visual branding, he is an author of ACT’s previous visual identity.

„I worked on ACT’s branding 13 years ago for the first time. Now, as ACT undergoes transformation, I decided to jazz up the logo. We sized up the name and made it more apparent, as the name itself – ACT also means “motion” it complements the slogan – Empower the Change even more. The main concept of the logo – data – is preserved. In a new positioning, action is a core, leading – encouragement of the idea and inspiration which is driven by data. As for identity, we decided to choose B&W photos as a unique style, main visual touch is a globe that emphasizes the global nature of the company and makes an image more dynamic. We also developed a new design for the slogan” – explains designer Gia Bokhua.

According to a new vision, ACT operates as a “Mall of Business Processes” – “we wish to become a hub for business services that will provide clients with all the necessary services and the company will not have to interact with completely different providers which are time-consuming and overall, less effective. We cannot imagine a business without expansion. This ambition follows us since the day we founded this company, we always wanted to be a successful Georgian company on the international market. We wanted to export Georgian intellectual capacities. During the last year only, ACT worked in 28 countries. In this digital era, you don’t even need an office to work, which opens up a broader horizon for opportunities. We also plan on strengthening partnership alliances and become extremely valuable for clients in business consulting” – states Tinatin Rukhadze.

As a result of transformation and rebranding, ACT continues to operate with a renewed concept. In response to modern challenges of the global market, Research and Consulting company ACT already made a successful step – underwent a transformation to discover and take advantage of new opportunities.