A good creative team is the heart and soul of any advertising agency. The team involved in the production of creative services face challenges related to time, operational adaptations and tight deadlines. As a result, agencies and creative studios outsource the more creative or technical aspects of their work to third-party service providers while keeping their thought leadership process in-house. The term, creative process outsourcing (CPO) evolved as a result of this development in the global outsourcing industry.
According to an online business magazine, outsourcing of digital and search marketing functions are growing at a phenomenal rate, almost 80-90 per cent. The services include creative, digital creation and execution, production and animation functions such as video and audio editing, print and design, and image editing.
The Business Value
Creative process outsourcing has become a flexible and scalable solution for many advertising agencies. It benefits companies in numerous ways. The major advantages it offers to them include:
- Access to talent: A specialist company can provide segment knowledge and relevant skill sets for a particular project which requires these skills.
- Fast turnaround time: Depending on the projects or type of work, companies can distribute the tasks across a number of creative partners for faster project completion.
- Lower costs: Using internet as an appropriate communication and collaboration platform, companies can significantly reduce creative execution and production costs.
- Global marketplace: Most digital agency clients prefer to have dedicated teams working as extensions of their offices. Global interconnectivity makes it easier to outsource creative work any time.
- Project-based resource: CPO allows clients to tap into project-based resources for jobs they don’t staff for.
Pricing Creative Projects
Pricing creative work is one of the most difficult things in outsourcing creative services globally. Companies should price their projects in such a way that they look fair and encourage repeat business. A detailed cost analysis covering current internal department costs, number of project managers required to manage the outsourcing project will help in setting a competitive price for the project. Also companies should not consider positioning their services as “cheap shop”, but rather become known for their quality.
CPO As a Competitive Strategy
Creative process outsourcing is generally used as a competitive strategy. Larger companies outsource their creative workflows to complement their marketing teams. Small and medium enterprises outsource these services to get creative work done professionally with a cost-effective approach. By outsourcing creative services, companies retain the best creative minds while bringing down their total production costs. This enables them to deliver the services they provide to clients in time and maximize their share of their clients’ advertising spend. As a result, they get sufficient time to strategize and focus on their core competencies.
The Road Ahead
Creative process outsourcing is gaining prominence globally and is spreading its wings to newer areas each day. It offers a win-win solution to both advertising professionals and international companies. Given the wide-ranging advantages, it is likely to become a mainstream business practice. Large companies, unable to innovate, will either outsource or form a separate division. The benefits, coupled with economic pressure and disruptive technology, will make creative outsourcing a compelling new tool for businesses.
According to a business website, “South Africa, Russia and Argentina are considered as main hub for creative design outsourcing. There is also resurgence in the Indian market, which could be ascribed to the Bollywood-industry and its production facilities”.
– BackOffice Pro
