Is Your Advertising Agency Ready for Workflow Software?

Quite often I ask agency owners, creative directors and CFOs this question.

“What is the profitability per project in your agency?“

Generally, the answer is “That’s the million dollar question!” or “I wish I knew!”

The reality is, many agencies owners don’t know which clients are profitable and which jobs are over budget. This is a common theme for ad agencies that still manage all of their jobs using Excel sheets, Word documents and mainly rely on their management’s memory to estimate jobs and projects for their clients.

Below is a brief example of a business intelligence dashboard showing a high-level overview of what is happening in an agency. Visibility on what jobs are over budget, timesheet summary that tells billable hours versus non-billable and task management are some important KPIs your agency should track. Ask yourself: Do you have access to this data at a click of a button? If the answer is no, you are definitely ready for workflow management software in your creative studio.

Function Point has released an informative EBook called “Are You Ready For an Agency Management Solution?” with helpful information for any decision maker that’s in the process of selecting workflow and traffic management software.

I’ve shared this eBook with many people in the creative industry who were looking for agency management software and received excellent feedback.

Our readiness test was by far the favourite part of the EBook. Agencies could identify how streamlined they are by answering some simple questions, such as “We often don’t know if a project will be profitable until the final check comes in.” or “We’re having problems billing our jobs properly because we don’t know exactly how much time we’ve spent.”

If you are finding yourself saying yes to these questions, then your agency is definitely ready to implement workflow software.

We also talked about the benefits of choosing a SaaS type of tool so you have a lower cost of ownership with high upfront costs, which will reduce your Capital Expenditure (Capex). Not to mention the fact that there is no need to get your IT personnel involved since your service provider will be responsible for data security and backup.

Our EBook identifies the different agency personas’ roles and responsibilities and their corresponding needs. For instance, a project manager mainly needs a system to help with creative briefs, estimates, project management, timesheets, expenses, online collaboration and asset management.

If you are looking for a new solution for your ad agency or if you are unsure if you need a workflow management system, we are here to help you with your search. Don’t be shy; give us a call so we can help you streamline your agency! You can also book a no-obligation demo to benchmark our tool with other options available in the marketplace and confirm the right fit for your agency.

This article was written by former Function Point team member Leonardo Maia.