To Charge or Not to Charge?

[BillGa]

Hi there: We're an active in-house agency, with 50+ team member, 200 external requester's and 1200+ requests a year. Our work ranges from simple copy changes on a brochure or a web page to full blown rebranding campaigns. We've been using Workfront for over 7 years very successfully. And we think we're pretty good at managing our work - getting it in and out the door without a lot of fuss and generally on time. But we have a dilemma - we are always beyond capacity. We are continually playing catch-up because we have no way to limit the amount of work requested by our internal clients. If they need it, we have to do it. (We do set priorities but still...). And of course, there are always corporate hiring limits so we don't have unlimited resources to hire or outsource so we can't increase our workforce. We have batted around various concepts of a "user-pay" system. That's always worked in the outside agency world and we were wondering if it would work for internal agencies as well. But we've never gone too far with it. So perhaps it's time to ask what other in-house agencies do. Do you have the same issue of more work than you have time available? Or are you able to throttle the work back to fit FTE's and Job Roles in your shop? Do you charge-back your creative and production time? If so, what happens to that revenue that your activities is generating? And so on. We would love to hear what other in-house agencies are doing and how you handle that thorny problem. Thanks! -- Bill Gattinger Contractor Mobile 780-717-6209 If you have received this email in error, please let me know by return email so I can make sure it doesn't happen again. Because emails can contain confidential and privileged material, I'd ask for your help by deleting it and any attachments. Thanks! We like to keep people up to date with information about new products and services at ATB or changes that could affect you. You can check out more about ATB and CASL at "http://www.atb.com/important-information/privacy-security/Pages/ATB-and-CASL.aspx" http://www.atb.com/important-information/privacy-security/Pages/ATB-and-CASL.aspx If you would like to unsubscribe from our updates, please use this URL - "http://www.atb.com/important-information/privacy-security/Pages/unsubscribe.aspx" http://www.atb.com/important-information/privacy-security/Pages/unsubscribe.aspx

[PaulaMi4]

Hi Bill, we have a very similar organization. We developed a robust contractor list that we call when those things happen. We can staff up or down and it doesn't make a difference what our company does. In fact, we keep our full-time staff small and ramp up with contractors when needed. this keeps our costs down. We only need to cover our costs - not make a profit. Paula Mitchell Creative Services

[LouCl]

What you're describing is an age-old problem for all of us with in-house agencies. Part of our quarterly metrics is a recap of resource utilization so we have trends on uptick in work and when we are over capacity. Those trends are invaluable to tracking source of requests and the effort it takes to service them. I would however, highly recommend an ANA memberships (Association of National Advertisers) -- an organization that supports in-house agencies through quarterly forums and regional meetings. You'll interact with folks in the exact same position as well as those who have gone through it. Their online resources and white papers are pretty stellar too. Lou Claude Allianz Life

[CalvinFold]

We have an inhouse agency and have been doing cross-charging for over 20 years. So yes, our clients "pay" (some by the job, and new to us is doing some on an agency-style retainer). We don't operate as a profit center, we merely aim to work at-cost including overhead, personnel, equipment, supplies, etc. In doing so, we have created a premier full-service inhouse agency of over 175 people including FTE and contingent workers: design, production, separations, comps, experiential, multimedia, trade shows, you name it. The way we pitch it is: we can do it faster, less expensive, and with more dedication and enthusiasm than any agency could. Over the years this has turned us into the experts at our brands; we partner with our clients (brands, sales, etc.), we don't just do work for them. Kevin Quosig

[Govdaniel_3820]

Bill, You are in good company - as a consultant, I work with clients who have constrained resources with increased workloads similar to your situation. Having Workfront to build comprehensive request lists is essential to managing the workload, but may I suggest a few more options. First, with management buy-in, create and empower a review board for requests along with a governance model. Promote it internally as a method for fairness and to ensure that the work you do accomplishes something (I'm leaving some wiggle room here because you might do building signage or other non-ROI type work). This review board is a triage team that looks at the project request queue and available resources and makes a judgment call about what moves forward, what needs clarification, and what does not move forward. You would be surprised at how many projects when given some scrutiny, fall apart for lack of clear goals or are discovered to be unnecessary. Workfront helps you manage the request queue and keeps requestors up to date on review status. Second, establish a formal annual and quarterly planning process. Have your PMO take teams with the most work (which you can identify using Workfront) through a process of identifying future work and loading it in as a plan to "hold time" for key initiatives. In this way, you'll almost pre-approve a subset of your work and know how much resource time remains available for other, or last minute, projects. I won't take the space here to fully explain a planning process but would be happy to discuss with you offline. Finally, bringing change means selling this internally with full management support. Consider doing a one-quarter test on a segment of your work to see if resource allocation improves, then share the results throughout the requester community. Follow this with a communication program to sell the benefits of adopting a project review process, then implement. Does anyone else use a review "committee" at the front end of their production process? Mayer Becker - ZeeJay Digital Zee Jay Digital

[chrisjuno456]

Bill, We are an in-house agency with around 150 employees and occasional freelancers. We charge our clients mainly by retainer and compete in the open market for the work we are awarded. Although we are in-house, our clients have the option to go to outside agencies. We find this model keeps our work fresh and allows us to control the influx of work and not be taken advantage of by the company at large. All profits generated go back to the main company. Chris Jackson CheckMark

[ChristineZh]

Hi Chris! I'd love to hear more about how you guys have designed the retainer model for your in-house agency. We're trying to do something similar at our in-house agency at Anheuser Busch.

[ChristineZh]

Hi Bill! I know your message is from over 4 years ago, but I am curious to see if you ever came up with a solution of charging back your internal 'clients'?