What a conference!!! The ANA Financial Management rates 10 out of 10

Last week we attended and were major sponsors of the 2010 ANA Financial Management Conference in Boca Raton. I had the pleasure of opening the conference and introducing Bob Liodice, President and Chief Executive Officer of the ANA.

Focused excitement

A record breaking 450 people attended (up from 320 last year), a clear indicator of the level of excitement and interest in the area of agency management, marketing procurement and financial management. Clients, agencies and consultants provided clear feedback that the presentations were all right on the mark, with something for everyone who attended.

From a Decideware perspective, the three items that I felt were most interesting were the panel discussion around the ANA's Marketing Procurement Survey results, Bruno Gralpois' (from Microsoft) thought provoking presentation around the creative briefing process, along with the newest update of the ANA agency compensation survey.

ANA Marketing Procurement Survey - perceptions of value of the marketing procurement function.

The most vibrant discussion was that around the ANA's Marketing Procurement Survey. This year agencies were asked to contribute and their feedback indicated a huge gapin the perceptions of marketing procurement practitioners versus the perceptions of agencies as to the value and performance of the marketing procurement function.

The survey indicates that while marketing procurement practitioners feel that they are contributing in a positive way to the client/agency relationship - agencies tend to disagree!

Some thoughts on the survey

Does this gap exist because while leading marketing procurement teams (as represented by panel members from Pfizer, P&G, J&J and Heineken) have the skills and capacity to provide high levels of value to the organisation, other marketing procurement teams are not adequately skilled and resourced?

(There has been an active debate in the marketing media about the difficulty of recruiting procurement professionals with experience in the marketing category)

Are smaller organizations using traditional sourcing techniques - more akin to supply chain management, which may be destructive in the agency relationship domain? For example, do they see marketing as a commodity and not as a complex services category requiring appropriate management techniques and processes? 

Or is it because agencies do not believe they are exposed to the benefits that arise from marketing procurement processes?  

And in any case, is this a natural friction that will always exist between these groups?

Certainly Jim Akers expressed concern that this gap exists and is tasking all members of the ANA to explore and see how it can be closed - urgently!

Author: Richard Benyon (Decideware)

Comments

[Casey Jones]

Richard,

I was sorry not to get a chance to stop by and introduce myself last week. Thanks for your quote above about the Microsoft (and BriefLogic) presentation being one of your three highlights of the conference.

We're impressed with Decideware. Very best of luck with the vital work you're doing.

Casey Jones
CEO
BriefLogic
www.brieflogic.com

[Darren Woolley]

Richard, I agree with you.

Seeing well resourced, capable, experienced procurement professionals engaging in marketing with a long term plan to develop and deliver improved efficiency, linked to delivering increased effectiveness is the ideal.

But unfortunately relatively rare in practice. Too many times we have seen under-resourced, inexperienced procurement professional engage with marketing and their agencies and then no be able to deliver anything more than a fee reduction as they try to quickly harvest the low hanging fruit before having to move on to the next sourcing project, leaving the agencies needing to deliver the same or an increased scope of work with less resources and less fee.

Perhaps the focus for the ANA is to continue to lead by example with the calibre of the people on that panel, but to also facilitate the development and best practice for sourcing and procurement in the indirect categories such as marketing.