M&C Saatchi-owned LIDA finds a solution in
Tempora that allows it to capture and analyse data
on costs to the level of detail required by clients
without disrupting day-to-day agency business.
Overview
While the success of a campaign may still be the defining factor in
determining an advertising agency’s value, clients are now more
cost conscious than ever.
Under the scrutiny of procurement specialists even the most
established of agency client relationships are no longer assured.
Clients are demanding more bang for their buck and this is putting
pressure on agencies to report in detail on their costs.
Agencies too have been forced to take a look at their own spend.
High running costs and the pattern of ‘billing low servicing high’ can
have a severe impact on profit margins.
The challenge for LIDA
To meet these demands, London-based marketing and brand
response agency LIDA (part of M&C Saatchi, the fifth largest agency
group in the UK) recognised it needed daily access to data on the
time it was spending on clients.
The problem facing LIDA was how to retrieve that data accurately.
LIDA’s existing system was not up to the task. Conceived as a bolton
to the existing finance system, the time and costing software
they were using was user-unfriendly and couldn’t compel staff to
complete their timesheets.
What’s more, it couldn’t report costs at the level of detail the clients
wanted.
With a turnover in excess of £10 million and a client list that
includes Vodafone, RBS Group and Mini, LIDA is working on any
number of complex multi-layered projects at one time.
LIDA needed to be able to report at multiple levels within a project
and accommodate variants such as sub-projects, locations,
departments and different billing structures.
The solution
LIDA adopted time recording and job costing software Tempora, a
web-based application that could be integrated into agency life with
minimal disruption. More importantly, with its ‘nag’ feature,
Tempora was able to provide the compulsion LIDA required to get
users to fill in timesheets on a regular basis.
The nag automatically connects with the Tempora server to check
whether a user’s timesheet has been completed. If a timesheet is
incomplete, the nag opens a full-screen Tempora login page over
the top of any other applications that the user currently has open.
The nag is entirely configurable but, at its most insistent, prevents a
user from closing or minimising the Tempora login page until time
has been recorded and submitted. This is how LIDA has it set up.
The agency also runs the nag daily, which compels staff to fill in
their timesheets in small manageable chunks, rather than once a
week.
Stephen Blackledge, Financial Controller at LIDA, believes this
functionality delivers real advantages.
“With our previous time recording system we knew the data we
were getting back wasn’t particularly accurate,” he says. “Staff were
having to remember back to what they were working on days or
even weeks before, and this inevitably led to errors.”
With the nag prompting them on a daily basis, staff at LIDA only
have to remember what they’ve been working on in the last few
hours.
“Not only it is less of a chore to fill in timesheets using Tempora,”
says Blackledge, “but the data we can pull out of the system is
much more reliable”.
Client reporting
Tempora’s reporting functionality also allows for the snap-shot
views of data at multiple levels that LIDA needed to report on.
Users are able to select one or all clients, and configure sub
categories (such as region, product, sub-product and project)
according to the reporting requirements of each client. Optional
filters can be applied too, allowing users to report on a specific type
of work, such as pre-sales, across all clients.
Blackledge says, “Whatwe liked about Tempora was that it allows
us to structure our reporting and time recording according to our
own needs.”
“This flexibility makes Tempora a really powerful tool,” he adds.
Results
Above all, because Tempora provides LIDA with meaningful and up
to date information, the agency can plan effectively and report to
clients when required.
“The quality of analysis and data produced is very good in terms of
detail,”says Blackledge, “and thisallows us to get to the core of
each issue”.
“Best of all, staff feel Tempora’s easy to use and not a hindrance to
their time,” he says.
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