The tool to help the effective management of statements of work

Within Marketing we all know that there are various levels of individual and business capability and competency in place. For many Marketing professionals, you join a community whose processes are somewhere on the scale between the Wild Wild West and a NASA Control Room. The lucky ones have the latter.

Business now hold an abundance of information that not only provides them a factual view of the past, but also the future. The information to know which agencies are doing what, and why, are available at the touch of a button. Having access to this sort of information is amazing as it enables you to drive, not only your category strategy and plans, but also real business change and future performance that will help you outstrip your competitors.

Home early, nice glass of something and put your feet up… Yeah right.

For us at Flock our purpose is to support, inspire and transform the lives of marketers. Marketers include Marketing Procurement, Marketing Finance, and all ranges of roles that are dynamically involved in marketing activities.

So, you may have read the above and giggled to yourself about the NASA Control Room… yep, it’s there but rare… it’s also at NASA… which isn’t where you work.

Most Marketers (and yes that includes Marketing Procurement) live in a world where tech and data is something that is for others; it doesn’t really impact their lives, their working day, but is the responsibility and for the use of others.

We at Flock have been working on a service that is designed to make your working life a better place. A service that enables and delivers when facing and interacting with the wider agency world. We call it our Agency Scoping Tool.

So, what is it?

The Flock Agency Scoping Tool is a flexible and agile database driven commercial tool supported by these 4 main pillars:

• Standardised Agency Role Type
• Statement of Work
• Agency Response Templates
• Reporting

The beating heart of the tool is built around the Flock Procurement Engine. A practical bit of kit that has been successfully utilised by scores of large and medium sized global and national, centralised and decentralised clients – covering Creative, Media, PR, Production, Digital, Events, and Social Agencies. We know it works….. and so do our clients.

What does it do?

Stay with me people – 1 sentence, 4 seconds.

• It enables marketers to specify unique or repetitive deliverables and request Agencies to submit proposals in a pre-formatted manner as part of a singular or “always on” event thus enabling comparative analysis through transparency of agency resource type, hours allocated, overhead, profit and cost.

What does it do for me?

The tool provides:

• Marketing/Procurement teams a platform to develop “building blocks” of required Agency deliverables across geographies, driving consistency and the delivery of strategic objectives

Everyone starts talking the same language on the same platform in a meaningful way…

• The Client markets with guidance for “Best in Class” SOW completion and cross fertilisation of SOW content and Agency responses

Everyone starts to brief and contract for Agency deliverables in a consistent way You now know what’s going on, before the work is committed to!

• The Agencies structure in providing a standardised Client SOW approach detailing the required deliverable, output and frequency

All the agencies respond in the same way. Wooow you can actually start to know what’s going on and with whom

• A known Agency roster (PSL) who are invited to participate

Amaaaaaazing you now know who might be doing the work before its committed to

• Historic information to track not only costs but Value – Value being defined as = Function / Cost. SOW client specific database

You can now start to track what it cost last time, what it will cost, and connect the two to what they’ve been asked to deliver

• Clear information relating to all Agency submissions, by: geography; brand; SOW type; resources deployed; and cost (hours, overheads, profit margins)

You know how all your Agencies are commercially performing against others

• Ability to roll up and roll down information as required
• Ability to manage budgets in terms of Agency deliverables, committed and budgeted

Reporting you can download super quick and some STD reports that kick out visual stuff for your internal decks

• Drives cost optimisation by transparency, reduced duplication, benchmarking, whilst highlighting negotiation opportunities

Gives you the insights you need to be enabled and shine like the star you are…..

So, if you would like to start making your working life a better place, that enables you, and that delivers for you; contact the people who can – Flock Associates.

For more information please contact – julie.marshall@flock-associates.com