These are changes I led inside agencies. They show how operational decisions, clear ownership and sustained implementation produced measurable results.
RAPP UK
£300k → £100k
Used permanent capacity better and reduced freelance spend
I consistently used utilisation and realisation data to identify available capacity, then worked with teams to use permanent people before defaulting to freelance support.
Over time, that change in behaviour reduced average monthly freelance spend from £300k to £100k without losing the flexibility the agency needed. Creative realisation eventually rose above 80%, the highest in the business.
Using permanent capacity more intelligently is a proven lever for improving margin and materially reducing third-party spend. It can improve the bottom line quickly, although the behavioural change needed to sustain it takes longer.
Proximity
40% lower cost
Built an offshore model that worked for clients
Well before offshore delivery became commonplace across agency networks, I researched potential partners and built a relationship with Provision, a digital agency in Bulgaria that specialised in building and deploying email campaigns at speed.
I visited their team in Bulgaria, brought them to London and established a shared way of working. To protect quality, every job was checked in Bulgaria and again by a dedicated QA in London.
This allowed us to offer clients a genuinely different delivery model: commercially more efficient, faster to turn work around and without compromising the accuracy they expected.
Proximity
+8 percentage points
Improved profit margin over my tenure
Operational decisions have commercial consequences. Over my tenure at Proximity, I helped increase the agency’s profit margin by eight percentage points.
The result came over time, not through one short-term cut. It reflects a sustained focus on how the agency staffed, delivered and managed its work.
Ogilvy
Days → hours
Challenged the traditional big-agency process
At a time when large, complex agencies typically put every brief through the same lengthy process, I introduced a fast-track operational route within the creative department for straightforward executional work, such as design adaptations and copy changes.
The model retained clear ownership and appropriate quality control while removing unnecessary stages. It allowed the agency to respond to these client requests in hours rather than days.
Today, that might sound like common sense. At the time, it represented a significant change in how a large agency operated.
Case study · RAPP
Create, Direct, Engineer
This was more than an organisation chart. It was an operating model and a change narrative that helped people understand why the creative department had to evolve, not simply what its new structure looked like.
Why the model had to change
Client expectations were changing while network economics placed greater pressure on agencies to use offshore capability properly. Senior people were spending time on work that could be produced elsewhere, yet a blunt cost-cutting exercise would have put creative quality, accountability and trust at risk.
We needed to examine the purpose, cost and value of every role. The answer was to separate three distinct contributions and make the routing decision explicit.
CreateOriginate ideas and the highest-value creative work.DirectSenior leaders interpret the brief, protect quality and decide the right delivery route.EngineerUse network and offshore capability to execute appropriate work efficiently and at scale.
A clearer route for every brief
CreateDirectEngineer
Senior expertise was focused where it created most value. Repeatable execution moved to the right delivery location, while quality and client accountability remained protected.
The model gave people a shared language for why the department had to change, how work would move and where each role created value.
Case study · Proximity
One shared language
Made change easy to understand
At Proximity, “How We Tick” explained how the agency worked in straightforward language. It covered departments, processes, standards and shared services.
The booklet did not create the change. It gave people a clear narrative for why the agency was changing, what had changed and how the new way of working fitted together.
Discuss the work
Every agency starts from a different place.
If one of these examples feels familiar, tell me what is happening in your business and we can work out whether I can help.
