At the end of my last installment of this ongoing series, I alluded to the acronym ERP or enterprise resource planning tools. These applications are growing in use in many kinds of organizations in many kinds of industries. The typical manufacturing company will have one of these rolling along as widgets get popped off an assembly line. Many folks think these packages do not fit in with professional services companies, where creative people are doing creative things.

Not so fast on the draw there, pardner. What are we ultimately selling but our time and effort to produce compelling advertising? Our most valuable resource is our people, so why not account for their efforts in a way where we can really understand what it costs us to service our clients? Now, some folks get angry about this idea of measuring “productivity of the creative process.” The creative process can be an evolving, ongoing one, and yet our client’s budgets are absolute numbers. A balance needs to be struck. 

In addition, what mechanism do you have to leverage disciplines in other offices which are underutilized? Burning out resources in one office while others are looking for things to sink their teeth into is not going to win any morale awards. One of the key challenges for us is to look beyond our offices and tap talents (and down time) from satellite offices in a productive and profitable way.

There is no perfect system out there, but many are close to the specific needs of various organizations and can be tailored. Be prepared to make a few compromises and start to look at your most valuable assets in a very simple way: time = money. ERP is the new law man in town, and he’s here to clean things up—namely profitability.