The document outlines ten essential steps for improving agency efficiency and profitability, emphasizing the importance of effective capacity and resource management. It highlights the need for real-time tracking of projects, accurate estimations, and the avoidance of idle time and scope creep. By implementing a comprehensive studio management system, agencies can enhance workflow, improve client satisfaction, and increase profitability.

1. Your agency exists to be creative – you
use your imagination and hope to come
up with award-winning campaigns for
your clients. However, you still need to
have effective business processes in
place to make money.
Step One - Capacity Management
The staff at your agency are your biggest asset and your
largest single cost. They define your capacity to service
clients. If know how much capacity you have, you’ll know
how many projects you can take on and how much you
are spending on resource. Managing capacity effectively
cuts down on freelance costs and makes you more
profitable.
Step Two - Resource Management & Planning
Track your resource effectively. Your creative’s should be
giving their best work to clients without over-running, or
under-servicing clients. It affects the bottom line if they
do, so you need to be aware in real-time, if it’s not real-
time it’s too late to make adjustments accordingly.
Step Three - Avoid Idle Hands
If you have creatives who are consistently under-utilised,
you need to know about it. You can look for ways to
up-sell the kind of creative talents they offer, or perhaps
review whether that skill set is even needed by your
agency.
Step Four - Keep Your Clients Happy
Let’s be honest, how often do you turn down work?
Instead, you’re likely to take on freelancers to keep your
clients happy but this often means increasing your costs
dramatically and running the risk of missing deadlines if
your team is unable to cope.
Having a view of your total capacity in real-time can help
you spot these potential problems and solve them well
before they occur.
Step Five - Avoid The Danger Zone
Spending time on something than you are not being
paid for erodes your profit margin; it’s the biggest single
destroyer of value in your agency. You need to know in
real-time what you’re doing as opposed to what you’re
getting paid for.
You can then take the decision to re-negotiate with the
client or offer extra time as a gesture of goodwill - but
make sure the client has visibility of all the work you are
doing.
Agency Profitability:
10 steps to increased agency efficiency and profitability
• Automated Work In Progress
• Flexible Accurate Instant Billing
• Tender For The Best Price
• Purchase Order Automation
• Expense Reconciliation
• Business Information Cube Based Reporting
– Bring Facts To The Table
• Time Approval – Sarbanes Oxley?
• Customised Client Invoices
• Automated Ledger Posting – No Re-Keying
• Export To Excel

2. Step Six - Estimate Accurately
In order to estimate accurately, you need lots of
information. The more detail you can find out from the
client, the better. An accurate history of past projects can
help you to predict how long a similar project might take
for the same, or similar type of client. Track your project
history and use it effectively to estimate new projects.
Step Seven – Control Scope-Creep
Once a project brief begins (no matter how detailed),
items will be changed or added so the scope of your
project changes. As well as a good account manager,
you also need an early-warning mechanism for everyone
within your agency to be able to see this occurring in
real-time. Coupled with an audit trail to track scope-creep
and determine what is billable, you’ll be able to pinpoint
the change of the project immediately.
Step Eight -The Power Of The Human Brain
The human brain is the most powerful resource you
have. Traffic/studio managers have been around for
years with good reason - they make your studio work
more effectively and contribute directly to increased
profitability. Just make sure you give them the right
Traffic LIVE is the creative project management and workflow system that gives
you the tools to manage all the key financial aspects of your agency.
Traffic LIVE is the only creative management software to link with leading ERPs
and finance systems such as DDS, Brandocean, Adserve, Maconomy and
many more.
“You need a comprehensive studio
management system that does the
dull, difficult bits and allows your
team to get on with the actual work.”
tools to be able to do their job properly. Leaving all
the knowledge of workflow to one person causes a
bottleneck of communication.
Step Nine - Use The Right System
You need a comprehensive studio management system
that does the dull, difficult bits and allows your team
to get on with the actual work. These are the essential
elements you need to look for in any system:
• Time as-you-go recording
• Manage workflow and make scheduling easy
• Enable everyone’s visibility with real-time alerts and
tracking
• Capacity for now and future weeks/months
• Client profitability
Step Ten – Put It All Together To Make
More Money
If you have the right business processes, the right
human resources and the right system in place, you are
well on your way to increased efficiency and profitability.
Your creative team want to be imaginative – free them
up to do what they’re good at, which is keeping your
clients happy and building your bottom line in the
process.
Who’s using it...
For more info on Traffic LIVE, get in touch:
info@sohnar.com or www.trafficlive.com
For more info on Traffic LIVE, get in touch:
info@sohnar.com or www.trafficlive.com