Omnicom Transfers Omni Engineering Workforce to Endava, Retains Platform Ownership and IP

Omnicom has transitioned a substantial segment of the product and engineering workforce supporting its Omni marketing intelligence platform to Endava, a global technology services contractor. This move forms part of a multi-year partnership designed to enhance engineering scale and accelerate delivery, while Omnicom retains ownership of the platform, client relationships, data science, and AI intellectual property.

The transfer encompasses teams across multiple countries, including the United States, United Kingdom, India, and Malaysia. Approximately 468 employees were transferred to Endava, while around 50 US-based employees were laid off. This restructuring impacts Omni’s product and engineering operations across several markets.

Omnicom emphasizes that despite outsourcing a significant portion of engineering delivery, it continues to own the Omni platform, its AI innovations, intellectual property, and client relationships. Endava’s role is to provide technical capacity and execution within a product strategy that remains formally under Omnicom’s direction.

Omni serves as a critical connective layer integrating strategy, creative, media, commerce, and measurement disciplines within Omnicom’s agency offerings. The platform is central to how Omnicom presents its integrated agency proposition, particularly following the combination of Omnicom and Interpublic capabilities.

The decision to externalize engineering functions to Endava offers Omnicom access to a broader and more flexible delivery bench. Endava’s expertise in product engineering, cloud, data, and AI positions it as a credible partner rather than a generic staffing supplier. This arrangement may also facilitate standardization across legacy teams and systems.

However, the shift introduces organizational distance between platform ownership and engineering execution. Product knowledge extends beyond source code and documentation; it resides in the judgment and experience of engineers familiar with design decisions, client-specific exceptions, and data dependencies. Transferring these personnel to a contractor preserves knowledge but alters incentives, reporting structures, and retention dynamics.

For clients and communications leaders, the key considerations revolve around governance and accountability. While the transfer does not inherently diminish Omni’s capabilities, it raises practical questions about who holds authority over product roadmaps, who is accountable for service quality and incident response, and how data governance is maintained when engineers operate under a third-party employer.

Contracts and client agreements will need to clarify which Omnicom executives retain final decision-making authority on product priorities and how Endava’s engineering teams receive and implement those directives. Additionally, service-level agreements should specify responsibility for response times, remediation, and client communications in the event of platform failures.

Data controls are another critical area. Clients should inquire about how contractor access to client data is provisioned, monitored, and revoked across different markets and environments to ensure robust data governance.

Omnicom’s approach contrasts with other major holding companies such as WPP and Publicis, which also leverage external technology partners but emphasize integration with internal expertise and group-wide systems. This distinction highlights the evolving importance of talent location and organizational structure in platform credibility.

Ultimately, the effectiveness of this model will be tested operationally. Omnicom must demonstrate that delivery speed and engineering scale improve without compromising institutional knowledge or creating ambiguity between its product leadership and Endava’s engineering management.

As proprietary AI platforms become central to agency operating models, decisions about who employs the engineers building these systems increasingly influence client perceptions of control, resilience, and service quality. Omnicom’s transfer of Omni engineering to Endava exemplifies this dynamic and underscores the need for transparent governance frameworks in outsourced technology partnerships.