Each year presents a new set of challenges for every business. But what challenges do UK in-house agencies (IHAs) face in 2023 and the post-pandemic world?
1: How to do more for less
The cost issue looms large as the UK enters recession. Directors are under pressure to prove the ROI of their campaigns and projects. It’s hardly surprising that over half (56%) of UK, in-house agencies say the biggest challenge they face is having to do more for less!
How do you do more for less though? Well, creative production outsourcing has the answer. An article published by Campaign Live highlighted how Nestlé was able to reduce production costs by as much as 80% by using offshore production partners. For creative and artwork, production, and digital work, using an offshore production partner can deliver savings for in-house agencies without any loss in quality.
2: Finding time to be creative
EKCS findings from 2022 show that 27% of IHAs in the UK say their biggest challenge for their team is finding time for creative work. British actor and Monty Python star John Cleese recently said, ‘the greatest killer of creativity is interruption.’ And, working in-house, there are plenty of interruptions!
Our findings show that one-fifth of IHA leaders still felt that they were a production entity, running as a central production team over and above being creative-led.
3: Managing workflow
Our challenges for IHAs in a post-pandemic world survey reveals that 24% of UK IHAs say the biggest challenge for their team is managing workflow. For creative teams, nothing is more frustrating than having a timely produced campaign get delayed only due to countless rounds of reviews and approvals.
By making the most of technology and automation, creative teams and their clients can request and make changes, track progress and set up alerts and actions. All of this enhances the efficiency of the approval process and ensures that deadlines are met and teams are happy.
However, with so many solutions, from Trello, Asana, Monday, Workfront, and Wrike being popular among UK agencies, it often results in different people using different systems!
At EKCS we have Mediaferry, a cloud-based workflow management system that enables creative teams to streamline approvals, saving time and money. Mediaferry enables users to share proofs with stakeholders, mark up changes, post comments, and give and receive feedback and approval in real time. And, what’s more, it can be integrated with systems including Trello.
Creative production outsourcing with EKCS
Creative production outsourcing is about enabling staff and your IHA to do more. IHAs consists of talented individuals who should always be leading creative strategy. Download our How to deliver more for less guide to see how your team can benefit from outsourcing the production and keeping the creative in-house.
