Agencies are facing the enormous challenge of maximizing their creative and administrative potential in the context of an ever-changing and increasingly competitive market.
How can they improve their operation and adapt to changes without suffering long-term consequences? And what tools facilitate this in the current context?
We recently met with Juan David Jaramillo and Sandra Milena Gerena Gomez of SANCHO BBDO, one of our most established clients. Juan, Executive Head, and Sandra, his deputy, talked to us about all the advantages COR has provided them, as well as the strategies agencies should adopt to succeed in the current situation.
Jaramillo highlighted the 4 things businesses need to do to be successful in times of change and crisis.
Be flexible and adapt to changes quickly
To stay ahead of the curve, agencies need to identify and meet the ever-changing needs of the market, which means maintaining a sociological understanding of their audiences.
They should restructure to avoid becoming obsolete. Companies with rigid internal structures and engrained working practices often have a harder time when it comes to implementing change. So, firms should aim for a more fluid internal framework, which in turn will help them adapt to more modern workflows. This is especially true for larger and more long-standing companies that, set in their ways, often find it difficult to adapt to new working practices
That’s why it’s essential for agencies to have the ability to transform themselves in a crisis. Being adaptable and learning from the current situation allows us to make more informed and timely decisions.
Technology
The reality is businesses these days want more parts, more capacity, and more communication without investing in or expanding their team. This is where project management tools like COR need to come into play.
““It’s often the case that clients expect to be able to triple their workload without upsizing their team. So someone who has to complete more work in the same number of hours will need the tools to help them do so. These tools should facilitate ease of communication and availability of information, as well as centralizing data and points of contact”
Agencies had to quickly respond to the new remote working trends forced upon us by the Pandemic. Technology allows us both a holistic and minute view of each project, providing clearer tasks and making information more quickly and readily available to our teams.
Technology is an important tool in the new reality to which we’ve all had to adapt. Although these tools already existed beforehand, much has changed. Maximizing your team’s capacity is essential, and this is something that COR permits through its project management tool.
““Technology plays a key role in the new reality we’ve all had to adjust to. And many of these tools existed beforehand, much has changed. So it’s fundamental for businesses to maximize their capacity, and this is exactly what COR’s project management tool does”
It’s through technology that businesses will deliver higher quality work and achieves better results
Education
Another way to maximize performance and output is through education and training. A well-trained team has the skills and tools necessary to complete their tasks and achieve better results in less time.
Agencies can be proactive by offering in-house training programs for their employees to expand their knowledge and gain new skills. Providing education opportunities is a valuable benefit for agencies to offer to their teams. Not only does it allow the business to expand its capacity, but it also gives employees the chance to grow and develop professionally.
Customer Success Manager
These days, technology exists to make our lives easier. This is why COR’s Customer Success Manager plays an important role when transitioning your team to the tool, as every agency is different. Understanding how each different type of agency and business can get the most out of it is essential to achieving peak performance.
According to Juan Jaramillo, CORs help agencies make the best use of the tool by working with them and personalizing it to their needs.
COR allows for better client communication
According to Sandra Gomez “The wealth of information available in COR means we can have more data-driven discussions with our clients around a project’s progress, and this is a powerful negotiating tool. All the information is transparent and accessible, which allows us to quickly generate easy-to-understand reports for our clients. This is crucial in having a more meaningful dialogue with them.
By being able to break down a project into the exact tasks required, the time needed and resources invested, agencies are now more equipped than ever to negotiate better deals with their clients.
COR: A value proposition for agencies
For Jaramillo, COR’s value lies in its ability to be at the heart of an agency’s overall operation and not just its projects. He describes COR as the master flow of processes, and even uses it when negotiating with long-standing clients.
And for Gomez, the tools at their disposal have allowed them to scale their business, as they can now back up their claims to their clients. Having a transparent project management platform means they have sufficient arguments to support what they are, or aren’t, doing.
Jaramillo adds that it’s during implementation when the many project management platforms that exist are put to the test. As he found with COR, the adaptability of a tool is key.
““Implementing COR is a very quick process. The fact our whole team managed to adapt to the tool in less than 6 months proves it’s a fast learning curve. It’s improved our communication both internally within the team and externally with our clients”
How to capitalize on the experience and improve your services
Incorporating your clients into project management tools is a fantastic way of giving them greater visibility over your agency’s work. By letting our clients see how their project is progressing, we strengthen our relationship with them and unify our efforts towards the same common goal: providing the best possible service and getting the best possible results.
“Bringing the client’s team into COR means we’re working together towards the same objectives and have a greater level of transparency. This means we can share things with the rest of the team, such as the hours we work as well as when we’re overwhelmed with tasks. Visibility is of prime importance!”, concludes Gomez.
Project management platforms not only help to improve client relations but also internal communication within a business. They allow you to see who’s in charge of a task and its completion time, as well as centralizing all team communication and coordination.
““Our teams stopped messaging each other via other channels and started to communicate mainly through COR, which has made its implementation quicker and more efficient” Juan David concludes.
There’s no doubt that leveraging technology is essential in strengthening an organization’s creative and administrative capacity. It allows for better project performance and results, as well as improving transparency and streamlining both the agency’s and client’s efforts into one, common objective.
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