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Insight
Five years ago, this design agency made the significant decision to reinvent ourselves as a
business, as opposed to how most design agencies operate – which is essentially 'buying
themselves a job' by setting up a one-man-band and growing organically. The latter path often
sees growth in personnel numbers, but without the discipline of a true business. And that was
where we were.
While some agencies are very happy to stay in that space (creatives being genetically averse to
discipline!), that decision limits growth potential and undeniably constrains profitability and
productivity. And that profit leakage grows as staff numbers grow. If only they could measure
that leakage, they would look at their daily work in a whole new light. Imagine being able to
produce great work and put good money in your pocket as well! The holy grail for most
creative businesses.
It's a fragile tension between high creativity and business discipline. Accordingly, any
structure injected needs to do the awful officious stuff almost invisibly if it is not to make a
creative managing director feel as if his very soul is being sold to the devil.
It was this desire that led Insight to JobBag. It gives us structure that sits lightly on our
organisation. It guides us gently to a business framework and a business way of thinking,
without destroying our creative spirit. And we slowly learn that business disciplines and
business analysis can give us the best of both worlds – a strongly creatively-driven culture,
and more profitability and pocketable earnings than we've ever experienced before.
It manages our jobs, saves otherwise enormous but unavoidable duplication of data entry, it
points out scaringly clearly exactly where our profit leakage is – and even more scarily,
quantifies it. It helps us plan our workflows for much increased productivity, and it churns out
all the accounting reports you'll ever need at the end of the month to keep your accountants
happy.
Even better, the developers listen to your needs and constantly improve the software based on
the feedback their users give them. And they're a small enough crew to establish a personal
relationship with you.
This product is profound. And the difference it can make to a creative business is even more
profound.
We wouldn't have seen our consistent year on year profit and reputational growth without
JobBag underpinning our entire way of working. We have found it easy to grow from 10 people
in one office, to 30 people in three offices in two countries, because the foundation systems
were in place.
Mike Tisdall
Founding Director
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