The recent announcement of IBM’s acquisition of Unica prompted me to think about the current landscape of options for automated workflow systems and how it keeps changing.  For some companies, their history has included many acquisitions and changes in ownership, while others have been providing workflow solutions to the marketing communications market for decades.  So, [...]

Large corporations accept certain beliefs at face value. Among them is the myth that in-house organizations can never be as good or as responsive as outside agencies/vendors, particularly creative services groups. It is a daily battle to overcome the built-in prejudice against internal creative organizations.
As with most corporations, internal support groups are under intense scrutiny [...]

Time tracking in creative services is necessary in order to monitor utilization and productivity. Last month we published a blog about the benefits of time tracking, but also pointed out it’s no one’s favorite activity. Let’s examine some of the ways time tracking can be implemented and how to make it an integral part of [...]

As the economy struggled across the better part of the last decade and developing nations proved able to take on business services in addition to production tasks, outsourcing and offshoring conversations and activities increased. Business leaders looking to take advantage of the cost savings have asked their business unit heads to identify opportunities to offshore [...]

Throughout my career I have spoken to hundreds of creative leaders who have been challenged with finding the right Interactive Designer for their department. Hiring Interactive Designers is challenging because of the diverse and constantly evolving job descriptions, skill sets, and career paths that are associated with the role. And while on the surface two [...]

Whether you’ve recently inherited a team or you’ve been working with the same core group for several years, it’s likely your team is a mix of rock stars, steady performers, and underperformers—otherwise known as “A”, “B”, and “C” players. It’s important to have a healthy mix of “A” and “B” players on a team [...]

Internal creative organizations often struggle with whether they should be charging clients and if so, at what rate. This doesn’t seem like a complex challenge, until you try to solve it! In this post I’ll touch on good reasons for implementing a chargeback model, costs that should be considered for inclusion, key considerations, and implementation [...]

In-house creative services teams with an hourly chargeback model must track their time—often to the quarter-hour increment. The discipline of time tracking can be off-putting for many teams at first, but the advantages of time tracking can’t be ignored, and teams generally support the practice once they understand the potential outcomes. The advantages are so [...]

Many in-house creative services and communications groups grew organically as a result of an organizational unit deciding to hire a few people to do more cheaply (and perhaps more quickly) what the company was paying external agencies to do. The overwhelming majority of such groups start small with informal roles and processes. If there are only three or four people working in such a group, anyone can call up one of the designers and ask for work. This initial contact person becomes, by default, the requestor’s account manager and traffic manager. Such informality works well if it’s a small group of people who all sit together.

Speak to any executive, regardless of industry, and they’ll always be fascinated to hear how other companies run similar functions. When used correctly, benchmarking can be an extremely effective learning and validation tool for leaders who are trying to improve their corporate operation, but benchmarks can also cause leader’s to misstep when not reviewed in context.