Are you wondering if your agency fee is fair and reasonable? When we benchmark agency fees against a scope of work, there are a number of ways we can do this: we can assess the performance of the past, we can benchmark the present, or we can calculate the fees for the future.
Many marketers favour focusing on the future. They want to ‘fix’ the issue of agency fees going forward. At best, they will simply want to benchmark the present to ensure the fee is the right level for the moment. However, it is more insightful and valuable to assess the immediate past and use these findings to inform the present and the future. Here is why.
TrinityP3 developed and uses the Verificom tools, which calculate the agency resources required to produce everything from brand strategies to Facebook updates and everything in between. There are more than 3,500 distinctive outputs for creative, digital, and media. For content, these are classified as origination, extension, and adaptation. For media, the outputs are based on media channels, investment levels, and campaign and stakeholder complexity.
Calculating the future
Verificom can and is used to calculate the agency resource requirement for the future. By projecting a future scope of work for the agency, Verificom will calculate the agency’s resource requirements by capability (Account Management, Strategy, Creative, Planning, Buying, Analytics, Production, etc.). Then, depending on the required mix of senior, mid-level, and junior resources, we can calculate the agency resources to give a proposed total fee.
This approach has several assumptions. The first is that while Verificom will calculate the agency resources based on agency practice and data, it will not necessarily reflect any anomalies that exist in the current relationship. If the relationship is more or less productive, this will not be reflected in the future calculations. The second is that the proposed scope of work for the future will often be uncertain. Changes in the future scope of work will make changes in the calculated agency resources based on the Verificom tools.
Validating the past
This is where looking to the immediate past works. Rather than simply jumping to the future, we recommend benchmarking the past to assess the variance between the current state and the calculated Verificom resources. The great thing about the past is that the scope of work is definitive. It has happened, and therefore, defining and quantifying the scope is easier.
It also means that comparing the calculated resources required, according to the Verificom algorithm, to the actual agency resources required can give insights into the relationship’s effective productivity. This assumes that the agency resource requirement is accurate.
The biggest benefit of using Verificom historically is the ability to identify where productivity, and therefore value, is lost in the current relationship. Imagine having your agency produce more or better work at no additional resource time or associated cost.
We have become particularly adept at diagnosing areas where complexity in process and structure is negatively impacting agency productivity across the thousands of agency scopes of work. Higher than expected levels of account management, high levels of account management to creative, and excessive production hours are all indicative of productivity loss.
Perfecting the present
But in a world that demands agility, how can you manage an agency retainer or an agency fee to be flexible with the needs and demands of the advertiser’s changing needs? We have found that once the agency level of resources has been determined (usually historically) and then optimised (to maximise productivity and value) Verificom becomes an effective management tool. It allows marketers and their agencies to stop looking at timesheets and focus on the agency outputs and the marketer’s outcomes.
It becomes a way dynamically to manage the agency’s level of resources aligned to changing needs. Better still, it does not require the constant negotiation of many project-fee models and still provides the agency with the continuity of fees to ensure you maintain a core agency team on the account.
It also means that brand teams can explore different combinations of outputs to maximise their projected return on investment. Because each output effectively has an associated resource requirement and cost, this means that as part of the planning process, you can optimise the scope of work in real-time to ensure the best marketing investment.
The choice is yours
Past, present or future? Calculating and benchmarking agency resources and fees can provide significant insights. The past gives you an accurate diagnosis of the relationship’s current productivity and helps identify areas for improvement.
The future provides a way to establish the resources required to deliver a pre-determined scope of agency work. But the present provides a dynamic way of managing agency resources and fees in a world where the scope constantly changes. The only decision is which one is the most important to you right now.
Defining and managing your scope of work is the easiest and fastest way to deliver greater value for your marketing budget. Find out how we can help you do this
