Pace and performance vs process and procedure

We asked ourselves: Which leads to more wins?

And by wins we mean where the campaign achieves its objective – not the shiny awards agencies covet. Running an agency – particularly a creative one – can be tricky. Getting it right means the campaign soars. Miss the mark and you’re back to the drawing board again. At Worx Group, we’ve found that it’s rarely the creative offering that is the failing. With the right team there’s almost an endless font of great ideas and themes to explore.

In truth, it’s often the client’s operating style that derails most creative trains.

Recently, we’ve been working with two important clients - both in the demanding financial services space. The first, is all about process and procedure. The second, is centred around performance and pace. These are all admirable business practices, but not all conducive to results.

With the first, it often feels like everybody is circling the opportunity, accumulating the necessary approvals, compliance, permissions and procurement authorisations, while the opportunity fades with every box ticked. By go-time, the opportunity that motivated the campaign is often already gone.

The second is all about the opportunity. Getting at it fast, first and making the most out of it. Their systems and teams are arranged in a way that gives autonomy to move quickly, freely and with licence to experiment and systems that allow for and enable the sheer pace.

But speed isn’t the critical metric. Performance is.

It isn’t always perfect, nor accurately executed, but the goals scored per season are just so much higher. They concede through errors and plays that didn’t land, but the sheer volume of attempts, and the drive they are delivered with, mean they simply create more scoring chances.

The differentiator? Revenue.

The fast-moving client’s team is responsible for revenue. And that’s a specific and easily measured metric. Either you put points on the board or you didn’t. If it did, then we double-down on it fast and hard. If not, we quickly re-evaluate the opportunity. If it was an execution failure, we repeat without the error. If it was a strategic error, we revisit the strategy for direction. No overthinking, no decision-by-committee, and no egos to navigate.

It is critical to remember, however, that strategy always trumps tactics. Tactics may bring pace and deliver the performance - but strategy brings the ultimate win.

There’s no doubt that improving processes and procedures is good for any business. It was good for us too. The changes we made brought us efficiencies and accuracy but the biggest impact came from changes that enabled us to be better at servicing clients at pace and scale like never before with performance to match.

At Worx Group, we relentlessly focus on the opportunity, ultimately, it brings more wins.

2021 is filled with new and unique opportunities. Reach out to discuss how we can help you grab yours.