as a business we’re struggling to succeed in the current climate
The Puzzle
- An employee engagement, branding and events management agency was hard-hit by the recession as clients had less money to pursue big live events and conferences. The production team had idle hands.
- Undertook a client review. A few niggles, some pretty serious negatives and some extremely strong positives came out. The clients loved the agency’s creativity, their fresh ideas and their unique perspective. They weren’t happy about the interaction between them, the client, and the agency, and felt like simple details were getting missed, and an eye for detail was lacking.
- Realised that the agency could no longer expect people to come to them looking for an amazingly creative solution, but they had to really engage with their clients, and provide an integrated service, working together for the client’s strategic goals.
The Prize
- A new structure to support the way they needed to engage with the clients focused around a dedicated and commercially minded account management team. These Account Managers would be responsible for the detail, for making clients happy and for up-selling and developing accounts.
- The resulting restructure meant redundancies within the production team. All the Production Team members were invited to apply for Account Management positions. Despite the upheavals and the redundancies, the Production Team members agreed the change was necessary. Two came on to the new Account Management team, agreed new job descriptions, and worked towards agreed objectives to help them step into the new role. The others were successfully exited from the business.
- A reinvigorated team needed structure and processes to support the business functions. With the introduction of regular Board and Management meetings, a sales process and very open and inclusive staff meetings, the Company started to take its new shape.
- 8 months later the Company is firmly settled in its new client-focused teams.
“It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” President Harry S Truman
