News and Insights

In today's competitive job market, attracting and retaining top talent hinges on more than just salary and benefits. The Employee Value Proposition (EVP) has emerged as a critical factor, defining what makes a company an exceptional place to work, and ultimately a commercial success.  

At a recent webinar we ran for our portfolio as part of our ECI Unlocked series, we hosted Christine Armstrong, a communications and management expert, and recently named sixth in the top 50 Global Future of Work influencers. Here, she outlines 5 ways to create a competitive EVP that sets your company apart in the war for attracting top talent: 

1. Your working model really matters

The flexible/hybrid work model has become a cornerstone of modern workplaces, promising flexibility and employee autonomy.  

However, many companies are now rolling back the concessions they made during the pandemic, shifting hybrid policies to be more office-focussed. Businesses like Disney, Twitter, and KPMG - once strong advocates of flexible work - have since reversed their policies, pointing the need for productivity, collaboration, and stronger company culture. As a result, many organisations are struggling to strike the right balance, leading to confusion and frustration among employees and inconsistent policies across industries. 

What the data is showing us now is that in reality, what employees want the most is predictability. People want to plan their lives and understand when and where they're needed. Inconsistency and unclear guidance, often in the name of flexibility, makes this harder to achieve. 

A key tactic is to provide the “why” to employees, as simply requiring them to be in the office without a clear purpose can be counterproductive.

2. Clearly define your EVP and what it says about your company

To define your unique EVP, it’s important to ask yourself about the ‘promise' and the 'deal’: 

• The Promise: What unique value do you offer prospective employees? What does it mean to work at your company?  

• The Deal: How does the reality of working at your company – including pay and benefits, growth opportunities, training and development, and the sense of connection and community – align with the promise you make? 

A strong indicator of success  is employee sentiment, reflected through platforms like Glassdoor or certifications such as Great Place to Work.  Positive feedback not only improves your company’s reputation as a great place to work, but also directly impacts your hiring efforts. Research indicates that companies with robust employer brands can reduce recruitment costs by 50% and experience a 28% increase in retention rates. Additionally, organisations with a strong culture have seen a fourfold increase in revenue growth.  

However, overpromising in you EVP and failing to deliver on those promises can lead to employee disappointment, ultimately damaging your company’s reputation in the talent market. A strong, authentic EVP is key to fostering trust and maintaining positive sentiment. 

3. Addressing the unique needs of different employee generations

It’s important to understand your own talent pool, and part of that comes down to the different priorities amongst the generations.  

Unlike previous generations, Gen Z have largely entered the working place in the remote/hybrid era and are fluent in modern technology. This has shaped their higher expectations around flexibility and seamless digital tools, with poor technical onboarding likely to be a big turnoff. As a result, their approach to work-life balance is different. The mindset sometimes associated with Gen Z isn’t about disengagement; it’s about rethinking traditional work structures.  

Younger generations are much more aware of their own mental health, give more importance to how they feel, and are much better at communicating that. Managers need to ensure they can adjust their leadership styles to accommodate these evolving perspectives.  

Fundamentally, it’s important to be aware of this as you plan for the future, and how your workforce will adjust over time.  

4. Communicate it effectively 

Numerous successful companies leverage their EVPs and online presence strategies to create powerful employer brands, allowing potential employees to quickly assess whether the company’s culture and values align with their own. For example, Salesforce prominently features its commitment to equality and sustainability across its careers page and social media channels, attracting like-minded talent. Similarly, Spotify’s Life at Spotify Instagram account shares employee stories, office life as well as creative projects, giving potential hires a peek into their company culture. When thinking about promoting your EVP, the goal should be to evoke an emotional reaction to it, so people know if this is the right kind of place for them or not.  

It’s also a good story to tell internally, especially when creating those moments of progress. Bringing your current employees along on the journey and sharing the wins will improve the sense of pride of working for your company and improve retention.  

5. Employee advocacy

A strong employee advocacy strategy should extend to external platforms like Glassdoor, where company culture plays a crucial role in shaping perceptions. These platforms are increasingly influential, with 77% of job seekers considering company culture before applying. However, even the most impressive EVPs, can be undermined if their Glassdoor ratings tell a different story. 

Work with your current employee base to share their reviews on a public forum, ensuring that public brand perception aligns with employee experiences. Positive Glassdoor reviews attract a larger pool of high-quality applicants, often leading to a shorter time-to-hire and reduced recruitment costs. 

To talk to us more about this, please contact Rich Pearce.

In a recent webinar we hosted as part of our ECI Unlocked series, where we bring together our portfolio leaders to discuss shared challenges and opportunities, we looked into one pillar of growth: the Ideal Customer Profile (ICP).  

Hosted by our Commercial Team Partner, Lewis Bantin, we were joined by Dave Kirby, CEO & Founder of Coppett Hill Growth Advisory, and Jon Stead, CRO of ECI portfolio company CMap. 

We've distilled the key takeaways on why defining and developing your ICP isn't just a nice-to-have – it’s imperative for growth.  

What exactly is an ICP?

Let's start with the basics. Dave Kirby defines it as, "An ideal customer profile is a description of the customers that you'd most like to acquire for your business." It goes beyond simple demographics and delves into the specific characteristics, needs, and challenges of the customers who will derive the most value from your offerings and, in turn, be the most valuable to your business. 

Getting your ICP right isn't just about ticking boxes; it's about creating harmony within your organisation. When you have a clear understanding of your ideal customer, Dave explains "The business should feel simpler... Like musicians in tune with each other, there’s clarity and simplicity." This alignment permeates every aspect of your operations, from sales and marketing to product development and customer success. 

Conversely, lacking a defined ICP can lead to challenges. Without a clear target, Dave flags "you’ll see sellers ploughing their own furrow, high variability in customer profitability, and difficulty forecasting growth." Resources are spread thin, efforts are diluted, and achieving consistent, predictable results becomes an uphill battle.  

Why ICPs matter: the tangible benefits

Investing time and effort in developing a robust ICP yields significant returns:

• Laser-focused efforts: Dave illustrates, "It allows us to customise our product and service, tailor our messaging, and know exactly where and how to find our customers."

• Improved efficiency and ROI: A great ICP leads to higher conversion, shorter sales cycles, better retention, and ultimately, stronger profitability.

• The power of narrowing focus: CRO of CMap, Jon Stead, explains "Once we narrowed down our sectors, that’s when everything clicked. Doing less, but better, has led to our success." Resisting the urge to be everything to everyone can unlock significant growth. 

• Strategic reprioritisation: Jon continues, "We aligned the business around just two sectors, two geographies, and a size range, and our team finally had brain space. That laser focus changed everything." Committing to your ICP may require making tough decisions about where to invest your resources. 

• Cultivating internal alignment: Jon shared, "Internal culture shifted: The sense of ownership in their sectors changed how we worked together." ICP-based teams can foster a stronger sense of ownership and expertise. 

How to define your ICP: A practical approach 

• Start with key dimensions: We think about our world principally through three dimensions: sector, size, and geography. These are often foundational elements for B2B ICPs.

• Ensure prospectability: Your ICP dimensions should be prospectable. If you can’t find data on a trait, it shouldn’t be part of your ICP. Focus on attributes that are measurable and accessible through market research, databases, and other data sources

• Tailor your go-to-market strategies: Your ICP is only as good as your ability to engage with it. Different ICPs require different outreach and engagement strategies. 

• Align operations with ICPs: Structuring your teams and processes around your ideal customer segments ensures targeted and effective engagement. 

• Iteration is key: Your initial ICP might focus on certain targets. However, as you engage with the market, you might discover unmet needs or features that make you adjust your ICP. Iterating allows you to fine-tune your understanding of what truly drives your ideal customers. 

Smart targeting with AI: The future of ICP engagement

Tools powered by AI have changed the way ICPs can be identified and targeted. Sophisticated AI tools now autonomously analyse company websites, intelligently categorising them into precise ICP segments. This automation dramatically reduces the resource burden on your team, freeing up valuable time:   

• Precision targeting with automated account scoring: Allowing for a more precise approach to the most promising leads.

• Data analysis & insights: Uncover valuable patterns and insights from in-depth data analysis, allowing for highly personalised messaging and a deeper understanding of your target audience.

Key learnings: essential takeaways for having a successful ICP

• The discipline of saying no: Resisting the temptation to chase every opportunity is critical for maintaining focus. 

• Effectiveness before efficiency: Initial experimentation and iteration are necessary to refine your ICP and go-to-market strategies. 

• Tailoring your approach: Recognise that different ideal customer profiles will require different go-to-market strategies. What works for one segment may not work for another. 

Developing a well-defined Ideal Customer Profile is not a one-time exercise but an ongoing strategic process. By understanding who your best customers are, where to find them, and how to best serve them, you can unlock significant efficiencies, drive sustainable growth, and build a more resilient and focused business.  

Please reach out to Lewis Bantin in our Commercial Team if you would like to discuss this more, or if you would like to see a copy of the recording.  

The pharmaceutical industry is evolving rapidly. Increasing regulatory requirements, market fluctuations, and technological advancements are making it more challenging for companies to manage everything in-house. As a result, many firms are turning to outsourcing to remain efficient, compliant, and competitive. 

After some of our team attended the 2025 EPA Conference in Amsterdam, Europe's largest conference for market access, pricing and evidence, George Moss and Sarthak Sawlani look at five key trends - from new EU health regulations to AI-driven innovation – driving increased outsourcing in pharma today:  

1. The impact of EU HTA

The new EU Health Technology Assessment (HTA) regulation, passed in 2021 and coming into effect from this year, is set to transform how pharmaceutical companies bring new treatments to market across Europe. While it standardises assessment processes, it brings with it new compliance challenges. Under the new framework, companies must submit HTAs within a strict 90-day deadline, while also comparing treatments across multiple EU countries and managing large volumes of clinical data.  

To manage this, many pharma companies are outsourcing rather than building these capabilities in-house. Regulatory consultancies can provide guidance on submissions, helping to reduce potential delays or rejection. Market access specialists can support pricing negotiations and reimbursement strategies, making it easier to enter different European markets. Meanwhile, health economics and outcomes research (HEOR) experts can assess cost-effectiveness, helping companies prove the value of their treatments to regulators and payers. 

At the 2025 EPA Conference, it was highlighted that global drug spending has stayed at a steady percentage of total healthcare costs for the past decade, however pricing is coming under increased pressure and scrutiny. It raised the importance of communicating the value of new treatments and using the best technology and advice to position them in the market so as to succeed.  

2. Policy shifts and Inflation Reduction Act in the US

The US remains the largest pharmaceutical market in the world, but ongoing policy changes and pricing pressures are creating a more unpredictable environment for drug manufacturers. The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) has introduced new Medicare price negotiations, and with the possibility of further changes under Trump, pharma companies need to rethink their pricing strategies and market access plans to stay competitive. One of the biggest challenges is the new Medicare price negotiation process for high-cost drugs. This could have a major impact on how companies set their prices and generate revenue.

Whilst pharmaceuticals products were initially exempted from the first tariff announcement, uncertainty remains whether specific pharmaceutical tariffs will be targeted in short order, and there clearly is now significant uncertainty across all sectors for global supply chains off the back of last week’s US tariff announcements.

With so much unpredictability, many businesses are turning to specialist expertise to help them navigate these changes. By outsourcing to regulatory and market access specialists, pharma companies can ensure they stay ahead of evolving FDA requirements, keep development pipelines focused and drug approvals on track.   

3. The rise of AI & Technology in pharma services 

Many pharma companies have access to huge volumes of data, opening up AI transformation possibilities, from drug development to commercialisation. The challenge is using the data effectively - most lack the in-house expertise making it difficult to fully unlock AI’s potential.

At the 2025 EPA Conference, AI was a key topic, with discussions on how it’s shaping pricing strategies, payer sentiment analysis and regulatory decision-making. The benefits of HTA sentiment analysis were highlighted as well as the opportunity to use AI to assess payer perceptions to help predict launch prices. Wayne Speechly, CEO of Global Pricing Innovations, emphasised that AI’s effectiveness depends on the quality of its datasets, noting that LLMs (large language models) can be affected by bias which is why GPI runs multiple models that can learn from one another. 

Despite its advantages, integrating AI into regulatory and commercial workflows remains complex, as they must meet strict FDA and EMA regulations. Pharma companies are taking very different stances on this, with some embracing AI and progressing trial deployments of it internally, while others are taking a much more cautious approach. Clearly, AI can speed up compliance, improve drug pricing strategies, and help design more efficient clinical trials. However, these benefits come with significant regulatory requirements. This is why technology-focussed outsourcing partners are playing an increasingly important role, enabling pharma companies to leverage AI’s full potential without the cost and complexity of building their own tools in-house.  

4. Real world data in clinical trials

For a while, regulators and payers have been looking beyond traditional clinical trials and asking for real-world evidence (RWE) to assess how well a drug works in everyday life. While clinical trials provide data from controlled settings before approval, RWE comes from real patient experiences, using data from patient registries, insurance claims and electronic health records both during and after trials.

Managing this large volume of data while ensuring accuracy and compliance can be a significant challenge, but significant leaps forward in technology and AI in particular are now starting to really unlock the potential here and deliver insights into how a particular drug or therapy performs in a patient population. This will ultimately result in better patient outcomes.  

5. M&A in pharma outsourcing

The pharma outsourcing industry is experiencing significant consolidation, with larger firms acquiring specialised providers to offer their customers full-service solutions. This means that instead of working with multiple vendors, customers can now partner with a single outsourcing partner that can offer services and technology across multiple areas from clinical trials delivery to addressing commercialisation and regulatory considerations. With increased costs on businesses through tarriffs, there are also strong drivers for providers to sell in the current market.

This trend is making outsourcing more accessible, mission-critical and efficient. As the industry grows and professionalises, pharma companies can more easily find partners with both the scale and expertise they need, helping them navigate everything from regulatory approvals to market entry without building these capabilities in-house.

If you would like to chat to ECI about how we can help your pharma services business – please get in touch with george.moss@ecipartners.com or sarthak.sawlani@ecipartners.com 

Each month, we turn the spotlight on the leadership teams in our portfolio to find out what drives them, who inspires them, and the biggest lessons they’ve learned.

This month, we chat with John-Paul Savant, CEO of Auction Technology Group (ATG), a global leader in online marketplaces and auction technology. Since joining ATG in 2016, John-Paul has led the business through a period of significant transformation, growing its impact on the circular economy while scaling operations to facilitate over $13 billion in annual sales.

John-Paul shares what motivates him, his thoughts on leadership, and the one rule he expects his employees to live by.

Q: Which one rule do you expect your employees to abide by?

Be honest. Whether it be within my exec team or within our overall team of 600, I want people to tell it as it is and to give me the reality.  I’m not saying I take what everyone says without challenging whether their truth is THE truth, but I want people to tell their truth. Without that, it leads to a cascade of other issues, not the least of which can often be a cascade of bad decisions. Colleagues, the management team, and the Board cannot make good decisions unless what they hear is truth, so yes, my one rule is Be Honest. 

Q: What motivates you?

Seeing the full picture of what I envision become a reality. I’m a fairly intuitive person and I love seeing potential in things that others may overlook whether it be people, buildings, objects, or whatever. But when I see the potential in something, often a whole picture of “what can be” emerges in my mind at a gut level that feels right, and then I start looking for data, people, and other elements that can help me make it become reality. But the motivation is building something that encompasses the fullness of what I envisage and turning it into a reality. 

Q: What are you most proud of in your career?

I would have to say it’s what we’ve achieved at ATG over the last 8+ years as it’s been a financial success but also is doing something good for society as we are massively accelerating the circular economy. In 2016, when ECI hired me, we facilitated the sale of just over $1 billion, had ~$20m of revenue and $3m of profit and I think ATG was valued at about $30m. 

Today, we facilitate the sale of over $13 billion, we have $180m+ of revenue with over $80m of EBITDA and is valued at ~$850m. So we make a bigger impact on the environment and are more successful financially. I feel more proud of what we've done at ATG than having been part of the team at PayPal that built PayPal Europe from $0 revenue to $1.8 billion over 10 years. 

At PayPal you always wondered if it was really YOU making the difference. And if you have any humility at all you realise that maybe you made a bit of a difference but that it was a great idea at the right time and you were lucky to be part of the journey. But with ATG, I think the staff and the management team and I, especially Tom Hargreaves, Richard Lewis and Badr Khan in the early days and now my current exec team of Meghan Nally, Jeremy Stewart, Darren Ali, and Richard Lewis (still!) are the ones who can truly say we’ve led this transformation and made a difference.    

Q: Who do you admire / who inspires you?

My father. He was a true Renaissance Man in that he loved and was capable at everything - great sportsman, lauded university professor, published poet, excellent musician, great public speaker, and also great with building things with his hands, as he basically built half our home as we grew up. 

He was also a great grandfather - lying on the ground with my kids for 4 or 5 hours at a time. But above all, what I respected was that he always saw the best in people and people knew that and were drawn to him. He focused on what he saw that was good in people versus what he didn’t like. He was authentic.  What you saw on the outside was how he behaved at home as well. He used to say he was a French peasant at heart because of his love of manual labour and working with his hands, but I always saw him as someone who had natural nobility in him. 

Q: What do you think makes a good leader?

I think to be a leader requires passion and belief in what you are doing. As leading by definition means you’re taking others in a direction. And you don’t get paid to lead because it’s easy. So you have to have belief and passion to give you the energy to see you through the hard times, the times when things are not clear on what to do next, the ability to give others faith that you can reach where you’re heading, even if there’s doubt and doubters around you. 

Strategy, hiring well, prioritising, the ability to sell your idea, and setting up solid processes are all important but if you don’t have that next level of belief, I don’t know if you’ll be able to lead through the hard times or when things don’t go to plan.  When you have it, it’s what sustains you and also helps you remain focused on doing what’s right for the company regardless of short-term obstacles.

Q: How has leading a publicly listed company changed the way you approach leadership?

Since ATG went public in 2021, I think what’s changed most for me in how I lead is really two things:

1) Seeing truly the importance of hiring far ahead of the curve at the exec level to get the talent I need for the next level of aspiration for ATG. One great exec in a key role makes a huge difference and they are worth the money.

2) Needing to learn how to bring a public Board along my thought journey and how to better support the education process by sharing the right information and thinking further ahead on key questions.

I’ve worked with many good board members but I’ve learned the most from our Chairman, Scott Forbes, about seeing how all elements of running a public company - from Remco, Nomco, Auditco, ESG, Board meetings, Trading Statements, to Earnings Calls - can be run and organised and what you can achieve with each to the benefit of the company.

Q: How do you switch off from work?

Lots of things help me switch off. Primarily time with my kids as each of the 4 of them want and need different things and I enjoy the variety of it. But when it’s purely for me, it’s probably thinking about our home I am restoring in the Savoie region of France where my family is from or talking about it with my eldest son or younger ones. And, closer to home in London, I enjoy gardening and hiking or any National Trust property with the family. 

Q: What item do you own that you would you never put up for auction (no matter the price!)?

Our family home in France. Someone could offer me 20x the actual value of it and I’d not sell it because it means too much to all of us. Closer to home, probably the plaster imprints of the kids feet from when they were babies.

Q: Favourite film?

Lots of good films. I can't really choose. But something I can watch over and over again? Probably any of the Super Bowls of the 49ers where Joe Montana was quarterback.