Recently we have had that call for help from two existing clients, one from Malaysia, and the other from Hong Kong. The help they needed was to speedily implement time sheets because they had won some new business based on the retainer remuneration model.

It was a bit surprising that neither agency already had clients on that remuneration model as most of our other clients, like marcomms organisations in general, have clients on that model. In fact it is now the norm not the exception.

One of these agencies is of Japanese origin so the fact that they have eschewed time sheets up to now is not that surprising and the other projects themselves as a creative boutique, so again that sort of explains why they have avoided the dreaded timesheet ogre as long as they have.

So they both now face some cultural issues internally but the new business win is a great opportunity and excuse to “release” the dreaded ogre so I’m confident, with management buy-in and honest explanations to the staff of the need for time sheets, that they can overcome those issues.

What we were able to bring to the party was a suit of alternative methods of time sheet capture in the form of the a) traditional weekly timesheet dialogue, b) a right mouse click “quick entry” dialogue, c) an app on the user’s hand held device and d) a unique pop-up app that tracks the user’s work activity on their PC or Mac and prompts them at regular intervals to allocate time to the tasks.

retainer, time sheets, advertising, marketing, budgeting

Ntuity Retainer Tracker

This range of alternative and optional capture mechanisms accommodates the differing personal preferences and operating environments across all disciplines within the organisation. When supported by automatic alerts and escalation procedures 100% compliance is assured.

Obtaining the timesheet data in a timely and accurate fashion is only part of the problem. What is also needed is the ability to constantly and easily measure the time recorded against the retainer so action can be taken if the two are out of sync.

What is needed here then is the budget for the retainer to be broken down into it’s component parts and those that are head hour based, and generally they are the majority of components, be broken down by discipline or job role. That done, we can then map the time recorded by discipline or job role so we can measure how the actuals are tracking against the budget.

It is essential that any work done that is out of scope should be identifiable. One important metric in this challenge is the classification of the project. They must be identified at the outset as “In scope” or “Out of scope”. There are of course other wrinkles, activities within individual projects may also be “In Scope” or “Out of Scope” and possibly individual Disciplines or Job Roles may also be out of scope.

Accurate capture of these metrics and the ability to report on them is crucial to managing the profitability of the client and of course is very handy in the case of dispute or fee re-negotiation.

Another issue to be taken into account with retainer based clients is that generally they impose the right to conduct audits so having reliable, accurate and accessible data is essential to passing those audits and retaining good relations with the client.

Trying to do this manually, using spreadsheets or with non integrated systems is demonstrably problematic and I guess that is why our clients called upon us to help.

If you would like a personal one on one demonstration of Ntuity follow this link: Book a One on One

With over 30 years experience in the industry I am well placed to co-author with good friend and experienced CFO, Stan Bennett, a free eBook on managing profitability in marcomms organisations. If you would like an advance copy, drop me a line.

www.ntuity.com

One trend I have noticed recently is the move away from the weekly WIP meeting. The introduction of real time, interactive traffic functions and automatically generated To Do lists and calendar entries with escalation alerts, has meant the need to meet face to face to work through the current production work load is less than was previously the case.

I am co-authoring an eBook on marcomms organisations and their profitability and I would really like to know, does your organisation still hold regular WIP meetings?

Early in my career, many an early morning Monday was spent going through the WIP spreadsheet, poring over resources and negotiating priorities and compromises. The status of the various jobs in progress was discussed both in terms of where they were up to in execution and in financial status. Are we on schedule, could we bill anything?, how were we tracking in terms of the budget? etc.

The tools employed were coffee, croissants, more coffee, whiteboard, markers, pencils, erasers and printed WIP spreadsheets.

The traffic manager would mark-up the master spreadsheet with any new work and note any changes to existing status.

One significant attribute of the WIP meeting was the negotiation, involving interaction between the various disciplines within the agency. Sometimes heated but most times collegiate, such interaction generally reflected the culture of collaboration within the group. Because of the early start there was the odd prank played, shoe laces tied together, 10 sugars in the coffee, curdled milk swapped for fresh, that style of good natured activity.

Later in the day we would all receive an email with the updated WIP sheet attached. That WIP spreadsheet was out of date even before it was published however, it was fortunately superseded by a large whiteboard in the traffic area where the day to day movements were penciled.

These days with sophisticated tools like Ntuity, the whiteboard has been replaced by a 76 inch digital screen and the markers replaced by mouse clicks dragging and dropping tasks on a digital timeline. The WIP report is replaced by a To Do list, calendar entries and alerts with tasks being updated on-line by the participants from basically anywhere.

Resources, traffic, timeline, workflow, marcomms

Ntuity Resource Allocation

But what about the coffee, the croissants, the heated discourse, the collegiate collaboration and of course, the pranks?

Do they still work in the digital age?

Are WIP meetings still relevant?

So I really do want to know if your agency still conducts regular WIP meetings. I would genuinely appreciate it if you could simply add a comment. Yes or No, I will post the results (if the sample is sufficiently representative).

Many thanx in anticipation. Marshall……………..

www.ntuity.com

Timesheet Entry is a Stressful Function for Most People.

There are many reasons causing timesheet stress rendering people resistant to registering the time they spend on client’s work. Some reasons are cultural and some are operational. It is up to the organisation’s management to fix the cultural issues. Ntuity fixes the operational issues by affording the user the option of up to four different but complimentary methods of entering their time. They embrace both “Push” and “Pull” techniques. By that we mean three options expect the user to initiate the entry “Push”, whilst one monitors the user’s activity within Ntuity and periodically presents them with a list of what they have worked on and prompts them to allocate the time to the relevant activities “Pull”.

The four options accommodate the differing job roles, responsibilities and work environments within the one organisation. Irrespective of the method that a user opts to employ, the jobs/projects they touch during the course of their work activities will automatically appear in their timesheet. The four options are:

1. Traditional Weekly Timesheet.

A user initiated conventional timesheet entry dialogue with jobs/projects listed down the page and the seven day weekly grid across the page. For those people who prefer to enter their time periodically in a single session, like at the end of the day for example.

2. Right Mouse Click

Right mouse click on any client, campaign, job/project, traffic task or communication and you can launch the single entry timesheet dialogue pre-populated with the context. Simply choose the work type and enter the units of time. For those who like to “do it as I go”.

3. Mobile Timesheet App

Click on the Ntuity icon on your hand held device, choose the Client, Campaign or Job/Project and register the time spent whilst you are “on the go”.

4. My recent Jobs Pop-up

This is the secret weapon, the “Pull” option. An app that is installed on the user’s PC or Mac which will monitor the user’s activity on the organisation’s Clients, Campaigns and Jobs/Projects and pop-up at a preset interval to present the list of recent activity to the user. The app prompts the user to allocate the intervening time since the last pop-up to the jobs/projects listed in the dialogue.

My Recent Jobs Dialogue

The user can click on a job/project to access all relevant communications so this option is ideal for Creatives and Studio staff who only need to access communications and register timesheets and leave requests. They may never even have to login to the full Ntuity application interacting with the system via the app.

This YouTube video will provide an overview of the My Recent Jobs Pop-up app:

My Recent Jobs Video

Ntuity includes automatic monitoring processes that will generate alerts advising of overdue timesheets with appropriate escalation procedures for recalcitrant users however these are rendered largely obsolete, our experience is that compliance increases exponentially with the implementation of the Ntuity timesheet entry options.

At Ntuity we realised that we can relieve the stress surrounding time sheet entry by providing the operational solutions to best suit the user’s requirements hence making it both easier and more pleasant to perform.

www.ntuity.com

Before we get to the subject of profitability for marcomms companies do this for me:

Picture an oak paneled boardroom in the early ‘80s,

an assembly of suits in suits, media and creatives in casual corduroy & denim,

Forrest Mars Jnr. in dark double breasted, and wife in high fashion fur seated at one end.

The Account Director on the Mars pet food account is addressing the Harvard Graphics presentation on the big screen (remember Harvard Graphics?).

All you can hear is the hum of the projector fan and the mono tonal drone of the AD. The presentation is colourful with plenty of graphics as is de rigueur for such presentations, but a bit boring. The AD deftly highlights the budget row with his newly acquired laser pointer.

Suddenly Forest Mars Jnr. Leaps to his feet, his chair careening backwards on it’s castors and crashing loudly into the one glass wall, one hand explodes out of his pants pocket and spays the boardroom table with coins, one bounces off the projector and neatly clocks the CD in the left eye, he goes down moaning and clutching his face.

Mr Mars yells: “Go on, take all of my money, take it all, take it all…….”

I was told that story early in the 1980’s when I worked at DMB&B in Melbourne Australia on the Mars pet food account. The story may be apocryphal and if not true or accurate I apologise to Mr. Mars, his family and heirs.

True or not it has stuck with me and I often go back to it when my thoughts turn to why it is not fashionable to refer to “profit” in our chosen domain. I suspect largely it is because “profitability” is viewed as being “unseemly” if not “dirty”.

To many, Advertising /Marketing is viewed as a higher calling than most and must not be demeaned by such a lowly concept as “profitability”.

Unfortunately, many clients feel the need to scrape every last percentage point off any compensation for work done. Auditing firms wade through the books of the agencies looking for any excuse to cut even further, the compensation base. Legislators close loopholes that may have allowed that little extra on the side. It is a never ending squeeze.

Given the situation it may be worthwhile evaluating why we do what we do in this particular chosen avenue of endeavor?

Is it to make good ads?

To sell more product?

To be recognised by our peers?

To exercise our particular set of skills?

To satisfy our interests?

To indulge our passion?

To create something of value?

To create a legacy?

To have an interesting and challenging career?

To earn a good living?

Maybe all or only some of the above, but if our endeavors do not result in income exceeding outgoings we will eventually and inevitably be unable to continue in that endeavor.

Income exceeding outgoings results in “profit”.

Even if profitability is not the motivation it should still be the end game because it is that profitability that allows the other reasons to be realised.

We owe it to ourselves, our colleagues, our partners and most importantly, our clients, to make a profit. It is very much in their interest that profitability is achieved so the relationship flourishes.

So profit is not a dirty word and we should not be reticent to talk about it.

After over 30 years in the business both working for and with literally hundreds of agencies of all complexions I have come to the realisation that I actually know a lot about how agencies can better manage their profitability so I am co-authoring with a long time friend and one time boss Stan Bennett, an eBook on the subject. If you would like an advance copy drop me a line at mduncan@tss.com.au.

www.ntuity.com

I recently received a nice email From Anthony Keck Managing Director of Havas River Orchid Cambodia about his personal KPI:

“Dear Marshall, Lovely to see you again and thank you for visiting Cambodia. The revenue tracker KPI is working really well and I’m happy with it, particularly the simplicity of use and the fact that it mirrors the Havas B1 forms.”

KPI Dashboard

What Anthony refers to is a simple but focused revenue tracker KPI delivered by way of his own personal Ntuity Dashboard. That is all he personally wanted from the entire Ntuity suit, one very focused revenue tracker. Of the hundreds of KPIs and standard reports that Ntuity can deliver it boiled down to that single KPI. It bought home to me yet again, the power of KPI reporting and Dashboards. People simply don’t have the time these days to wade through lengthy detailed reports, they want distilled targeted reporting based on their personal KPIs backed up by insightful exception reporting. Ntuity is a very comprehensive suit of modules and has a very rich database of financial and communication transactions. The Ntuity dashboard function allows users to distill that detail into targeted, meaningful, actionable information.

I am uniquely positioned to help marcomms companies improve their profitability irrespective of their remuneration structure. For that reason I am co-authoring with Stan Bennett, a long time friend and one time boss of mine and very experienced FD in our vertical, a free eBook on that subject. If you would like an advance copy drop me a line mduncan@tss.com.au.

www.ntuity.com

Have You Used All Of These Features?

Large file transfer is an issue in the marcomms space because so many clients limit file sizes in emails, Ntuity solves that issue, do you know how?

How best accommodate clients or suppliers providing you with graphics files? Did you know for example a photographer can upload image files directly into Ntuity and file them in a folder nominated by you?

Do you known how to copy and paste the link to communications filed in Ntuity so they can be used in documents or emails?

What about being able to send formatted links to communications filed in Ntuity to other staff, clients or suppliers, do you know how?

The answers will be found in this Youtube video:

Tips on Email Functions

Good viewing……

If You Are a Timesheet Manager

You may find this Youtube video helpful.

Tips For Timesheet Managers

It covers,

Alerts & emails,

Employee Leave Approvals

Employee Timesheet Approvals

Your Employee’s Leave Calendar

Your Employee’s Timesheet Summary