FOCUS™
Are you and your Agencies operating at Peak Performance? If not, do you know what, and where, the barriers are?

FOCUS™ is our two way assessment. Client assessing Agency; Agency assessing Client.  With the option to add in self-assessment as well.

Each assessment uses bespoke, matching assessment criteria. Crafted specifically for that engagement. And prioritised to rank order them in terms of importance.

The discovery is used to identify barriers to peak performance; culminating in agreed actions aimed at eliminating the barriers.

Resulting in engagements that last longer; are aligned; and achieve mutually beneficial outcomes, both operationally, and commercially.  Maximising the efficiency and effectiveness of everyone’s efforts.

Scope™
Does your Scope of Work align with your Scope of Purpose? Scope of Activity? Scope of Resources? And do you have the right Agency Portfolio to meet your needs?

All too often, people start, rather than end, with Scope of Work. And while a well-defined Scope of Work is an essential part of better practice, it is useful only in managing the ‘doing’, and not the ‘done’.

Our Scope™ Workshops start by articulating what needs to get done (Scope of Purpose). We then interrogate and determine: what needs to be done to get it done (Scope of Activity); and what’s do needed to get it done (Scope of Resource); then, and only then, what each Agency’s specific contribution will be (Scope of Work).

Quite often this disciplined approach identifies gaps, or overlaps, in the Agency portfolio.  Gaps that can prevent you from getting to ‘done’; or overlaps that can be trimmed, resulting in greater efficiencies as well as cost savings.

Self-Managed Pitch Guidance & Governance
Are you clear on what you actually need from your new Agency? And can your processes withstand scrutiny in terms of objectivity and governance?

Ours can.  And do.

It might be surprising to learn that we are heavily involved in pitches, but with an important difference.  We only work with companies that are self-managing their own pitch.  So we are not pitch doctors in the classical sense, as we operate behind-the-scenes only; never fronting the pitch.

Our expertise is largely in:

• Defining and agreeing the pitch Structure, Process and Timings
• Defining and refining the Scope of Need
• Building the Ideal Agency Profile
• Defining and refining the assessment criteria
• The co-creation and simplification of the RFI & RFP
• Decision-making scrutineering – aligning views to original Scope of Need and prioritised criteria
• Comparison of final proposals’ resource costs (against each other, and against the ‘market’)

Our independence also ensures a sense of fairness prevails – both internally, as well as with the participating Agencies.

collabor8™
Do you wish you could harness the collective talent of all your agencies? And turn their competitive focus from each other to your competitors?

Blunt as it may seem, success or failure of collaboration rests with you, the Client.  Agencies, left to their own devices, have little incentive to share – it goes against their natural instinct. Our collabor8™ application starts by helping you define your vision for collaboration. We then identify where the barriers are, either within your organisation, or within the Agency portfolio. And finally we work collectively with all parties to design a structure; set of operating principles; and a reward system that directs their energies collectively to the pursuit of your goals, not their own.

Interventions
Does your Agency engagement lack rhythm and harmony? You know there are problems, but can’t quite put your finger on it?

Not all of our Client:Agency discovery programmes are long-term.  Quite often we get called in for a one-off intervention to discover and identify barriers to excellence in that engagement.  And not just shortcomings with the Agency, as there is usually a matching lack of contribution from the Client.

During this precarious time, when the relationship is at best rocky, an impartial third-party intervention is called for.

This ensures that client discovery is delivered unfiltered; and that the Agency voice is fairly represented – at a time where the Agency may not have the opportunity, nor the courage, to promote their point-of-view.

 Most importantly, these views are rationally and impartially presented, accompanied by a plan for corrective action to be agreed; implemented; and assessed over an agreed timeframe.

Bespoke Consulting
Are there any other tricky areas that you are navigating, where third-party intervention might be useful? Or are you simply facing a problem that you need to talk to someone about?

Whether it is an Agency-facing issue like retainer overages, or an inward-facing issue like briefing or stakeholder management; we are only a phone call away.  We’ll apply our experience and wisdom to help you solve your most pressing problems.