How to fix the agency-procurement relationship that’s nearing breaking point

Marketing organizations certainly have experienced plenty of ‘events’: recovery from the Covid pandemic; exponential growth of digital; lack of digital transformation capabilities; a talent drain; inflation; and a lack of agency capacity.

Add in a horrific war in Europe the likes of which we haven’t seen since 1945 and you get the scale of the challenge for marketers and marketing organizations. What we are seeing is a perfect storm, and no business will be unaffected.

Marketers have always been under an extraordinary degree of work pressure, but this cocktail of issues can only make their work-life balance rock even further out of kilter.

Equally their procurement counterparts are also struggling, wrestling with costs and the need to deliver even more for even less – to the point where agency appetites to continue to engage with them is reaching breaking point.

Everyone needs to pause, take stock and reset. It’s time to appreciate that the events of the last two years, and particularly of the last few weeks, have changed the rules.

If we’re going to succeed in this new future, then we really need to look at the way in which we are thinking about marketing, its costs and how we work with those with the capabilities to move our brands forward.

There is no point in procurement hiding behind the ‘value’ argument, when the reality is that such an approach is a metaphor for simply driving costs down.

There is no longer any excuse for perennially poor briefing from marketers resulting in wasted time, wasted costs and frustration on all sides (plus not a small impact on sustainability).

At the same time, agencies need to look more closely at the cost/benefits of working with clients on ridiculously tight margins and perhaps make some difficult calls.

The best approach for everyone in the industry is to have a multi-dimensional focus that improves ways of working.

The first step is to work better together. We need to make sure that our people are better prepared when they engage with their counterparts – both client and agency side. Clarity of brief together with appropriate senior sign-off across the chain of command would be a good place to start.

The second step is to have a model specifically devised for your business, with efficiencies and improved ways of working, which is essential to ensure your agencies are in a position to deliver the maximum quality and quantity of work at an appropriate cost.

The third step is to ensure a financial framework designed to remunerate your agency appropriately, which enables greater investment in the talent you need to get ahead of your competitors. Geared around a collaborative working relationship, this will do much to bolster the positivity toward you as a company from those working at the agency.

It goes without saying that to navigate your way out of this perfect storm means you need the right skill sets, focus, foresight and will. You also need a mighty strong vessel and the best possible multi-talented crew working in unison.

While we are all impossibly time pressured, spending time to build relationships and understanding of everyone’s hopes, needs and desires has never been more important.

Few organizations have all these attributes, and many are simply banking on being able to do the best they can with what, in honesty, is a slightly leaky boat.

Navigating a passage of improvement, and getting every element of that vessel in peak working order, has to be the priority.

Those that fail to take this action will find their journey through 2022 consists of all hands to the pump, donning the life jackets and hoping for the best as your competitors sail into the sunset.