Elevating the Role of Marketing Procurement

Posted by VJ Ratnam on Dec 2, 2012 11:13:00 AM

 Elevating the Role of Marketing Procurement – ANA Survey Results

The ANA's Procurement Taskforce conducted a survey of 113 marketing procurement executives at ANA member companies in December 2012 / January 2013 to better understand the metrics used to measure the success & contribution of the marketing procurement organisation.

The Report was released this month and we've summarised 2 of the key findings, below.

Decideware is, of course vitally interested in this subject area because our solutions address key areas for process improvement identified by the respondents and we align closely with the mission of the ANA Procurement Taskforce who's role is to: a. define and elevate the role of marketing procurement, and b. close the 'gaps' on the value of procurement between procurement and internal marketing as well as procurement and external agencies

Purpose

The purpose of the survey was to better understand the metrics used to measure the success & contribution of the marketing procurement organisation

Scope The survey focused on:
  • The ideal and current metrics used to assess the success & contribution of the marketing procurement department
  • The importance placed on each metric
  • The alignment of success metrics between procurement and marketing
Issue #1: Which Metrics Should Define the Success/Contribution of Marketing Procurement?

The top ranked metrics currently used to measure the success/contribution of marketing procurement, are:

Cost reduction 94%
Cost avoidance 84%
Agency/Supplier Performance Improvement 72%
Process Improvements 62%
Risk Mitigation 56%

However, while the current focus is on cost reduction/avoidance, when asked to identify the ideal metrics to measure the success/contribution of marketing procurement, the results, were:

Cost reduction 81% down from 94%
Cost avoidance 81% down from 84%
Agency/Supplier Performance Improvement 84% down from 72%
Process Improvements 82% up from 62%
Risk Mitigation 75% up from 56%

Conclusion #1

So we can perhaps conclude that marketing procurement executives would ideally prefer to have less focus on cost reduction/avoidance to measure their success/contribution and greater focus on metrics including Agency Performance Improvement, Process Improvement and Risk Mitigation.

Issue # 2: What do ANA marketing procurement executives want from Agency Performance Improvements?

In additional qualitative work with about a dozen members working in marketing procurement, the ANA sought to gain a deeper understanding of the Innovation/Process Improvements and the Agency/Supplier/Performance Improvements sought by the respondents. The results are summarised below.

Agency Management

  • 360 degree evaluations
  • Agency collaboration
  • Reduced number of agency contact points
  • Compensation models

Briefing

  • Standard agency briefing tools

Creative Reviews

  • Upfront agreement on the number of rounds
  • Improve the efficiency of the number of hands touching work
  • Create more efficient review and approval processes

Media Management • Centralised media budgeting, approvals and billing • Leading marketing mix studies

Production

  • Preferred suppliers
  • Agency regional production directors
  • Decoupled production
  • Upfront talent negotiations
  • Better management of production assets
  • Consider state production incentives
  • Offshoring production

Scope of Work

  • Standard SOW templates and standard time/staffing for specific projects
  • Centralized management of SOW
  • Align client and agency understanding of what's important and how it's measured
  • Weed out the noise of legacy items
Conclusion #2 Significant opportunities exist for marketing procurement executives to help their marketing stakeholders to achieve better marketing ROI. Observation

Decideware has been providing marketing procurement executives with software to address many of these areas for process improvements. For example, 
Decideware's Evaluation Manager offers features to address:

  • 360 degree evaluations
  • Agency collaboration
  • Compensation models
Decideware's Briefing Manager is a solution to address the need for:
  • Standard Agency Briefing Tools
Decideware's Scope Manager addresses the requirements, to offer:
  • Standard SOW templates and standard time/staffing for specific projects
  • Centralized management of SOW
  • Align client and agency understanding of what's important and how it's measured
  • Weed out the noise of legacy items

Additionally, Decideware is currently in the process of conducting research with major advertises to define a tool to address Production efficiencies.

The full survey is available from the ANA.


 

Topics: Marketing Procurement