Client (Process Based) Opportunities:

(part 3 in a series)

As brand “assets” travel through the process from strategy to design to production, many people – potentially across many locations, creative resources and departments– will work on them. And as brands push to expand globally, more facilities must coordinate efforts and resources.

Over time, bottlenecks develop and create lengthy roll-out schedules that make it difficult to isolate where there is waste and misappropriation of resources. The demand to get new products to market drives further inefficient use of resources on tasks that are redundant but are easily forgiven in the name of speed to market. When brands, such as consumer products, execute SKUs across a wide geography, the potential for pitfalls increases – but so do opportunities for workflow improvements that save money and make money simultaneously. Client-based cost savings opportunities include:

• Streamlining communication and work-flow

Managing the communication flow in-house – among brand managers, procurement, legal and other departments – and with vendors, across strategy, design and final execution (such as pre-media and printing) – requires stringent work-flow processes to save time, avoid expenses and eliminate costly errors.

• Maximizing internal and external resources

As corporations are struggling with headcounts, it is all to easy to expend unnecessary expenses on internal resources in the form of overtime,  or misusing external resources by not realizing their core-competencies.

• Easier, secure access to brand assets

In the course of a “brand’s” lifecycle, its assets (graphics, creative, copy, templates etc.) – will be used, re-used and re-purposed by countless people either in-house, at strategic partners, or distributors. Considerable time and money can be saved when assets are logically stored, easily accessible and don’t need to be re-created again and again. This eliminates costly errors and potential legal pit-falls, as well.

• Reducing design/revision cycles and costs

Properly engineered processes ensure that designers correctly execute on strategy, saving time and cost, especially since “upstream” errors are especially costly when discovered downstream. Similarly, when strategy and creative resources work with an awareness of “downstream” production requirements, resources are saved and potential errors are avoided. This is especially true where regionalized/global materials have distinct creative and production demands.

• Reducing production cycles and costs

Budgets are blown each year due to printed materials that are substandard or contain “branding” violations and must be redone. Even perfect materials are costly when bad processes force overtime printing charges. Obsolescence of marketing collateral also accounts for approximately 16% of every dollar spent on “print” Processes that deliver artwork on time and ensure that inks, substrates and printer capabilities have been taken into account, which save time and money.

Next up: Vendor (Production) Based cost savings opportunities.

Questions? Drop me a note!