Hoorah the race season starts!

For those of you who follow my blogs you will know I'm a marshal for motorbikes and motorcars, mainly at Brands Hatch.  This year I'm going to marshal at Snetterton for the British Motorcycle Racing Club, affectionately known as Bemsee.  Bemsee will be the first bike club to race on the new Snetterton 300 track so more volunteers are needed. 

A couple of weekends ago we had our marshals training day followed by a track day for the rookie riders.  We even had them practicing starts (one of the most dangerous parts) in the most controlled environment that we could give them(unfortunately it rained).  I was fortunate enough to go up to Race Control to learn more about how the club runs. What amazes me is that the entire club is made up of volunteers.  It is mainly down to the generosity of time and petrol money, that the club can run at all.  The majority of the revenue from the riders' entrance fee, goes to paying for the track hire and the large amount of insurance needed.

Each week people spend most of the weekend waving flags, checking bikes for their bhp, checking the riders clothing or running Race Control, just so the club can find the next Casey Stoner (our most recent famous rider).  Some even take a written test to be qualified to carry out their role and just because they have a love of bikes and bike's racing.  Then on a Monday they return to their day jobs, some as rocket engineers, teachers or acupuncturists.  It astonishes me that the club runs at all and infact I believe runs well (although there is the odd moan and groan) with this small army of volunteers. 

Over the years I've worked in a variety of businesses and I've come across a large number of individuals who will never be happy in their job and because of that have caused endless problems that took up more and more management time.  Never happy because unfortunately they do it to pay the mortgage, and not because they have a passion.

Big Five Production Agencies

Last November Adam Kirby the CEO of Mundocom UK was called away on business and asked if I would take part in a panel discussion about production agencies. You can see the video at  http://vimeo.com/channels/adstream  but if you were expecting us all to be arguing against each other, you'd be very mistaken.  As we all work in the same market we do have similar outlooks on our businesses and I'm sure that will continue. 

As for the question of decoupling, there is no right or wrong answer.  Last week someone said that they knew my views on decoupling which I thought was a naive comment.  Whether a client should or shouldn't decouple is entirely dependent on their business and their business needs, coupled with what they want to achieve and what they are achieving now. 

The cynics in you will say that in my past two roles I would have always said yes to a client's business but the opposite is true.  Twice I've turned down opportunities to pitch for a business that wanted to decouple on the basis that not only did it make no business sense for the supplier to pitch for it but also no business sense for the client to issue the tender.  The trend to decouple production away from the creative agencies, believing that it wasn't their core business, has taken away the very first thought that the whole idea started with.  Is your supplier fit for purpose? 

IPA Future of Creative Services

I recently attended the IPA, Future of Creative Services Debate http://creativeservicesuk.blogspot.com/. A great deal of the evening was given over to Phil Nunn (Executive Media Director, TBWA\London) and Andy Fowler (Executive Creative Director Brothers & Sisters) who both had some interesting things to say about what it is that agencies produce and are likely to produce in the future.

The actual debate was all too short and revolved around the question of what roles do people in creative services play in this multi channel world we work in and what they should be called?   I'm not sure it entirely matters what you call someone as long as their role is defined and understood.  Andrew Dobbs from the The Talent Business somewhat agreed maintaining that each agency has different requirements and demands.  A small agency can have a Project Manager who is hands on for everything, now deemed to be a Super Producer, something that the large agencies seem to be demanding.  I wonder though whether this is actually a case of multi channel demands affecting big agency working?  My discussions afterwards with one or two people in big agencies seemed to reflect this.  If you are in a small agency with just a handful of accounts it's easier to become a Super Producer than if you are working on a two handful's of accounts that are global as well as multi channel.   

Years ago when I moved from JWT to a small business-to-business agency, I had to become a Super Producer of sorts, as I no longer had departments that did art buying, production buying, typography and print buying.  Luckily though having worked closely with those departments over the years I had a good grasp of what was needed to get the job done.  And this is where I agree with Tim Bath (CSD of AMV) who likened a PM in an advertising agency to one on a building site. They don't have to be able to lay bricks, but they certainly need to know a good man that can! 

So did it work?

I read with interest this recent blog http://blog.procurementleaders.com/procurement-blog/2011/2/18/guest-blog-time-to-unbundle-your-advertising.html .  It's sentiments not dissimilar to a blog that Simon Steel wrote http://blog.supplymanagement.com/2011/01/decoupling-strategy/.

Having once worked at Schawk and recently consulted with Mundocom, the Publicis Groupe Global Production platform, these are comments I'm all too familiar with.  However what I'm not hearing is any clients talking about how successful their decoupling project has been and the savings they have made.  Some years ago the COI did issue some figures of savings they had made and how successful it had been but given what is  happening to them now, I'm not so sure that's a good advertisement.   

At my recent meeting with procurement about how they issue tenders, we did raise the question of what is it that procurement are trying to achieve.  What I asked is at the end of the tenders is anyone doing an analysis of whether they achieved their goals.

So if anyone out there would like to share their experiences or let me help them find out if they have achieved their goals, then drop me a line. 

Meeting with procurement

I had a great meeting with the CIPS Group on Valentine's Day last week.  They listened to my concerns and had some interesting thoughts and suggestions around the matters I raised in my previous blog.  They also had some concerns of their own, mainly regarding the creative agencies and their poor response times, lack of preparation. 

What did come out of all of this is that there is lack of resource on both the supplier and client side which doesn't help the process and indeed delays the result. They were surprised to hear that it can take from the issue of a tender to a supplier earning revenue as long as 18 months. What company (client or supplier) in these times of recession has 18 months to invest with the possibility of no return? 

But more importantly there seems to be lack of clarity as to what the client is trying to achieve which leads to confusion.  So whilst there may be a clear process outlined, that process tends to crumble under the weight of questions or issues arising that were not expected.  

There is no easy solution here, but we have to make a start.  Define what it is you are trying to achieve and engage all stakeholders.  Discuss your thoughts with a handful of suppliers that can help flesh out the issues you will face along the way.  Only when you are certain of the outcome you want to achieve, should you proceed with the tender.   This all sounds logical and sensible but it seems that with the recession biting at all of our heels, the tendency to react, and perhaps badly, rather than think has been our response so far. 

Working with procurement

I’ve been talking to Tina Fegent about RFI’s and RFP’s and my experience working on them over the past few years.  I'm concerned that there is duplication of effort on both sides and that the end result is often lots of work and a slower response to achieving real cost savings or efficiencies.   Tina has very kindly agreed to let me discuss these points at her CIPS Marketing Group, which I will be doing on Feb 14th.  I hope that by opening a dialogue we can start to improve processes and results on both client and supplier side. 

Outlined here are some of my findings.
No real structure on RFI's and RFP's with every company doing it differently, so duplication of effort on both sides

Deadlines quite tight for supplier but procurement then miss set deadlines and fail to communicate

Using old RFPs to create new ones thereby using the wrong terminology or category definitions

Lack of understanding re TUPE and it's implications

Sharing of supplier questions

Lack of understanding of volumes

Quality of debriefs (if there is a debrief) 

I'll let you know how our discussions go. 

And in my spare time...

Those of you who know me well will know that I'm a keen motorbike fan and ride a Kawasaki Ninja 250.  You can see it on the picture in my profile.  Well recently I decided to train as a marshal for both motorcar and motorbike racing. 


It's been a very interesting journey with a full days training at the Lydden track in Kent.  There we were taught how to remain safe whilst marshaling a track event.  We even got to set off fire extinguishers and wave a few flags. 


Then I had a taster day at Brands Hatch where I not only got a free breakfast but got to dress up in an orange bib which had marshal written across the back!  The basis of the job is to hang around until someone crashes out of the race and then help the driver back to safety, warn the other drivers and remove whatever is dangerous from the track.  It sounds simple but as everyone mentioned no two incidents are the same so you have to be prepared for everything.  And as all the marshals said, the quiet races are the best races.  Doing nothing is a plus.


The one thing that amazed me is how hard the marshals work and how difficult it would be to run a race without any marshals.  Yet amazingly the entire network of marshals is voluntary.  Hundreds of individuals give up their free time, often traveling miles and camping out over a weekend due to their love of motor sports.  The photograph shows a few of my marshal buddies when the track was 'dead' who guided me through the ropes on Post 2 at Brands Hatch. 


So if you are ever off to see or participate in a motor sport event, keep an eye out for me and be sure to give the marshals a thank you.