For quite a few years we were recommending to our clients that they should undertake regular relationship surveys and score cards as a way of bringing discipline to the management of the relationships with their agencies.
There were a number of systems in the market place that all purported to provide 360 degree reviews of these relationships. But what we found was that as agency rosters became more complex and relationships became more interwoven, many of these systems no longer provided the scope required.
In 2006 we started to interview the many clients that were using some of these other systems and a picture emerged in two parts:
1. While the detail and level of data provided was good, the time it took to complete the surveys and collate and review the reports meant that often there were few actionable plans delivered as an outcome.
2. The cost, the amount of time required and resources required meant that the surveys were not implemented beyond the basic media and creative agency relationship and yet most marketers were aware that other disciplines, especially digital were increasing in importance.
It was due to this second insight that we understood why so many marketers were talking about the need for their agencies to collaborate or at the very least coordinate their activities.
From this we commenced development of a new system that became Evalu8ing. It took two years to design, build and test. The main features of the Evalu8ing system come directly from the insights of those we interviewed:
- The survey completion time is usually less than 15 minutes, depending on the amount of commentary the user provides
- The results are generated as soon as the survey closes and the report, with analysis can be ready within a few days, not weeks or months, when the report is virtually useless
- The results needed to be a balanced view of the relationships and not fall into the practice of many system which have different questions for each group meaning it was not really a ‘balanced score card’ that allowed like-for-like comparison
- The results needed to be accessible on a number of levels, both qualitatively and quantitatively, visual, numeric and written to allow maximum interpretation
- The system structure needed the flexibility to reflect any number of group relationships and reflect these relationships in the results
Since 2008 Evalu8ing has been used across hundreds of relationship surveys and in a multitude of configurations to improve and optimise a wide range of interdependent relationships including:
- Internal relationships between eight areas across marketing to increase collaboration, co-operation and co-ordination in NPD
- Multiple segment marketing teams working with the same creative, media and digital agencies to assist in brand management and consistency with a decentralised marketing structure
- Agency relationship management leading to increased collaboration between creative and media external agencies and internal SEO and Social teams across multiple brand teams
- Measuring and managing relationships between global and regional channel marketing teams and the media agency team structured to reflect the marketers structure
- Multiple market brand management and agency alignment for creative and media agencies working across a brand portfolio in multiple markets
- Aligning multi-discipline agencies to work more collaboratively across a brand portfolio with multiple brand teams
You can try Evalu8ing with a free trial and see the impact it has on improving:
- Relationship alignment
- Performance improvement
- Agency and team collaboration
I would be really interested in hearing your thoughts on ways you could see Evalu8ing being applied in your situation.
Please leave a comment here on ways you can see Evalu8ing assist with making your business relationships more aligned, collaborative and productive.
