Is better, faster, cheaper possible?
The phrase better, faster, cheaper have been like a mantra for many brands a while now, especially when it comes to marketing. Even if it has been talked about a lot, very few have actually succeeded with achieving all three. Increasing automation and building up in-house capabilities have often helped in becoming faster and cheaper but it’s highly questionable if things also got better? Using really good creative shops and agencies however usually helps in getting highly creative and innovative solutions that could be considered as being better but almost never as being faster or cheaper. It’s also very rare that these creative solutions are part of the brands ecosystem and properly integrated.
The hybrid way for the win
Historically when new things get traction it’s almost always polarized and put up against the old ways of doing things. It usually turns into two camps advocating that their camp is the best and that the other camp sucks. Our brain loves to simplify and categorize so it’s only natural that this happens. But after a while when things mature we usually see the winning camp being a hybrid of the old and the new. Like a cherry picked camp. A good example of this is physical retail vs. e-commerce that matured into the winning camp of omni-channel. This is how we try to think about We Were There. A cherry picked alternative from different camps, functions and theories. Regardless of if it’s things like branding vs. performance or agencies vs. in-house we break it apart and try to assemble it into something that removes the vs. In doing this we have found a solution that we actually think can be better, faster and cheaper. Here are five steps we think is needed:
1. Find your north star
The balance between autonomy and alignment is hard and becoming siloed and sub optimized is easy. We always encourage you to start with creating a shared and prioritized roadmap between units/teams. We have created a fairly simple process to help you with that.
Why? Increases alignment, removes siloed initiatives and prevents sub-optimization. Forces all initiatives to be prioritized and part of an eco-system.
2. Identify the right competences
When you have a common view on what should be prioritized you should do an audit and assessment of what competences are needed. We can help you to understand what makes sense to have internally vs. externally and then we help you to find the right competences needed through our network.
Why? Avoid recruiting in-house competences that is not fully used over time. Avoid paying for competences that’s not needed. Get the best competences suited for the task and not only the available FTEs.
3. Remove the middle men
When you know what competences are needed you also understand what you shouldn’t have. We help you with replacing all key account managers, project managers and coordinators from the agencies with one neutral team lead and a set of suitable collaboration tools and methods.
Why? Saves money, removes the middle men and increases alignment. The team lead represent you and the whole team. Not parts of it that usually happens when an agency is so called lead.
4. Create a core team
When we have found all the right competences you should let the external experts and creatives sit together with the in-house competences as one team. We help in getting that team up and running.
Why? Being co-located has proven to be essential when building strong and efficient teams. Treating everyone as equals and part of the same team removes the siloed work and the us vs. them mentality, making everyone feeling collectively responsible.
5. Supercharge the team when needed
If you want to go from good to great you need external help from time to time. It could be creative or strategic input or just expert execution. You can use our network to up-skill and supercharge your core team when needed. We try to predefine competences that is needed but not core in the earlier phase so they can get the proper introduction to you and your team well in advance.
Why? Creativity and innovation needs diversity and other perspectives to flourish. A lot of in-house teams flatlines rather fast. It’s also common to try to do things internally that someone else can do better and faster. Main reason being that you haven’t a proper process in place to get that help in an easy and effective way.
With this approach we actually think you could have a better, faster, cheaper setup. What do you think?