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Below is our recent interview with David Lancashire, Chairman and Co-CEO of geniant:
Q: Why did geniant choose NewTerritory specifically, and how does this acquisition fit into your broader global expansion strategy?
A: When we were first introduced to NewTerritory, we quickly discovered a shared belief: the experiences delivered by modern companies ultimately define the brand. Luke Miles and his team, along with all of us at geniant, agree that this is more true than ever.
Yet many companies still struggle to deliver on their brand promise – the customer experience (CX) they intend to provide. With countless moments and touchpoints to manage, the challenge is knowing where to focus. Our role is to give clients the answers, assistance, and guidance they need to prioritize the moments that matter: which to optimize, which to elevate as signature expressions of the brand promise, and how to create a practical blueprint for delivering them. That blueprint must also account for service recovery, so that when we fall short, we can still demonstrate what the experience should have been and transform it into a positive moment.
Our emphasis is on providing a premium service for identifying those critical moments, supported by a rigorous methodology. NewTerritory brings deep expertise in this discipline. Combined with geniant’s ability to build the supporting infrastructure that brings these experiences to life, we believe this partnership will set us apart going forward.
Q: What makes this acquisition different from others we’ve seen in the brand, design and experience space?’
A: geniant can now deliver three things…
First, world-class insights into the real people we design solutions and experiences for.
Second, we assemble world-class teams of craftspeople spanning the entire customer and employee journey – top-tier digital designers, specialists in human interaction and experts in physical spaces. This, under one roof, is rare. We combine a rigorous understanding of what is happening, why it is happening, and the business priorities for change with multidisciplinary teams ready to design across every touchpoint.
Third, we bring deep technology capabilities, especially in emerging AI, to enhance and continually evolve both the customer and employee experience.
Q: You’ve said the current approach to experience design is “broken.” What exactly do you mean by that, and how are you rethinking it?’
A: When we look at how services are delivered today, companies often turn to different specialists for different needs, such as a brand-experience firm for brand work, an architecture and design firm to create a new luggage check-in area at an airport, a digital design agency to build a new web experience, and service-design experts to shape human interaction moments.
The problem with this approach is that siloed parts of the client organization usually purchase these services independently, resulting in a fragmented set of solutions. We believe it’s time to bring these craft teams together, to view the entire end-to-end customer journey and deliver cohesive, intelligent improvements across it.
Q: How does your business model differ from traditional consultancies and agencies in this space?’
A: As we touched on in a previous question, we’re focused on three things. First, we deliver high-caliber insights into the people (customers and employees) for whom we design improved experiences, fueling smarter decisions through a deep understanding of motivations, pinpointing critical moments that genuinely matter. Second, we bring end-to-end design capability under one roof across all relevant disciplines. Third, we have the capabilities required to do the heavy lifting to implement the right technology, environments, and robust systems, bringing these experiences to life.
Q: Who is your ideal client -what type of organizations will benefit most from geniant and NewTerritory working together?
A: Our combined capabilities mean we can work from the desired brand experience a company aims to deliver all the way through to the technology that brings that experience to life for customers and employees.
We can serve a wide variety of companies that think about their business end-to-end. In a retail environment, for example, we can define the critical moments that matter – how customers checkout, how long checkout takes, and how staff engage in the aisle – and improve the level of in-store service. We help organizations serve visitors at a more personalized level and capture immediate feedback through AI agents working 24/7. These agents surface specific, actionable data about the in-store experience, allowing teams to correct and improve delivery in real time.
Equally, consider an airline. We help shape the customer journey from arriving by Uber and checking a bag, through boarding and the in-flight experience, to arrival at the destination, alongside the many behind-the-scenes moments where employees work to ensure first-class service. Today, we can define that experience, plan service recovery for moments of failure, design any and all touchpoints, and implement the technology environments required to bring those moments to life.
Q: You emphasize being “AI-first.” How exactly will AI be embedded into brand and experience design in a way that adds real value?
A: For example, in a convenience store, many retailers target a checkout time of around 120 seconds. If we define that as a signature moment, the goal is to achieve it every time. Today, we can use computer vision to track the exact duration of each checkout, detect when a line exceeds a set threshold, and automatically alert staff to open additional registers, then measure how quickly those registers come online.
Another example comes from financial services. Here, AI can be used to “coach” conversations and correspondence – surfacing insights, aligning behaviors and processes, and boosting associates’ confidence in delivering on the brand promise.
By integrating these tools, we can directly enhance the signature moments we’ve defined as brand experience advisors and ensure consistent performance.
Q: What can clients expect from geniant in the next 12 months – what’s at the top of your priority list post-acquisition?
A: geniant will continue to expand its footprint through acquisition. We expect to add locations across the United States and in Europe. Typically, we pursue one to two acquisitions per year, so it’s likely you’ll see a couple of moves in the next 12 months.
Q: Longer term, what are your plans for scaling this model internationally, and where do you see the biggest opportunities?
A: While we’ve expanded into Europe with our London studio, a key synergy is that many of the capabilities developed by our London team can be applied to our existing and growing U.S. client base. As we identify complementary businesses in the United Kingdom and Europe, we will expand those capabilities to align with our U.S. operations.
This approach fits our broader global expansion strategy: ensuring the international companies we serve are supported across multiple locations. In the near term, we remain focused on scaling in the United States, while leveraging our London team’s strengths to deliver those capabilities back into the U.S. market.
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