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Procurement within the Automotive industry is currently focusing beyond simply cutting costs and making savings, instead they are looking towards influence, value and longevity.
And that’s where Marketing Procurement Benchmarking comes in…
Marketing Procurement has been evolving into a function that goes beyond numbers. They are crucial to ensuring marketing spend and agency selection are allocated according to the organisation’s budgets and objectives. Marketing Procurement within automotive companies are both performance optimisers and strategic allies to their Marketing colleagues.
They are doing this thanks to effective benchmarking.
Marketing Procurement benchmarking ensures they have accurate insights, metrics and numbers which can be relied upon to save the business significant sums of money, without the need to compromise on output or quality. In fact, with the right focus, Marketing Procurement can access more from their agencies for less investment.
The benefits of Marketing Procurement benchmarking within the Automotive industry.
In our experience Marketing Procurement benchmarking can save companies on average 20% on every dollar of their marketing spend.
A significant amount of money that is otherwise left on the table, particularly when there is large sums of money being invested into marketing.
Money identified as potential savings via Benchmarking, is either reinvested back into the business or into more marketing activity which, in turn creates an advanced ROI.
There are other benefits to adding Marketing Procurement benchmarking tools to your toolbox…
1. Marketing Procurement Benchmarking Reduces Competitive Resourcing
As automotive companies use Marketing Procurement benchmarking to gain visibility into their agency performance, they are also gaining a better perspective of the overall agency relationship. Quite often, this means there is less risk of simply choosing cheap, as there is more of an appreciation for value.
Choosing an agency partner simply based on price can be risky – because of the implications it can have on both quality and reliability. Cost savings don’t often result in a maintained level of performance. In fact, in our experience, it often means the opposite. And that can end up being counterintuitive for both Marketing and Procurement.
Marketing Procurement benchmarking can encourage open conversation about why your agency is above benchmark. It can give you the information to make informed decisions internally – are you comfortable investing extra for that specific agency because the data has enabled you to understand the additional value? Or are you able to negotiate a reduction to bring that agency inline with the benchmark?
With Marketing Procurement benchmarking you have all the information at hand to make better informed decisions.
2. Marketing Procurement Benchmarking delivers Quality Performance
In addition to creating potential savings, Marketing Procurement benchmarking provides the automotive industry with additional insight into the quality of their agency’s performance. The data provides the Marketing Procurement team with the information needed to review performance within specific metrics including regions, markets and channels.
Adding value to marketing and the business as a whole, Marketing Procurement benchmarking provides transparency around agency performance that can help teams refine their marketing spend and create foundations for long-term agency relationships.
3. Marketing Procurement Benchmarking Supports Improved Processes
Using benchmarking to support agency selection ensures a streamlined procurement process. Contracts and agreements are built upon transparent foundations. Automotive companies are able to curate their agency rosters based on proven metrics across multiple KPIs and, crucially, ensure that the KPIs are established within contract negotiations.
Having this benchmarking data at your finger-tips helps to streamline the entire process, speeding up contract negotiations and enabling a more efficient agency review process.
Marketing Procurement teams can provide a shift in the value proposition – from simply contracting an agency based on budget to leveraging data, insights and metrics to negotiate improved deliverables that align with the overall objectives.
4. Marketing Procurement Benchmarking for Data-Driven Decision Making
So far every benefit we’ve discussed is centred around data-driven decision making. But it’s more than simple metrics, savings and performance.
With the right data, Marketing Procurement can ensure improved alignment between the brand and their agency partners. Data and transparency are a two-way street. Brands need to be clear to their agencies what their expectations are, what metrics they are assessing and ensure that this is all communicated clearly.
Data and insights that have been assessed thoroughly means Marketing Procurement can paint a clear picture of how each cog fits into the marketing wheel and the value that each one provides. It’s vital therefore, that every party has visibility and the data needed to maintain alignment. Data-driven decision making can deliver best practice performance, and put you on the right track to success.
Marketing Procurement benchmarking: the tools
Technology is an invaluable asset for Marketing Procurement benchmarking as it enhances the process, sets new standards in best practices, streamlines manual comparisons, improves visibility, ensures accuracy, and reduces errors.
The right tools make it easier for Marketing Procurement teams to benefit from an accurate benchmarking process that delivers savings and efficiencies their business needs.
RightSpend provides robust Marketing Procurement benchmarking capabilities that offer visibility into marketing agency data to refine cost expectations and marketing spend.
Designed specifically for Marketing Procurement, the RightSpend platform provides information that ensures teams enjoy all the benefits of data-driven decision making within clearly defined metrics and KPIs. RightSpend benchmarking data is rigorously vetted and customer-driven and assesses more than $10 billion in agency fees each year across multiple agency types, deliverable items and global markets.
With RightSpend, your Marketing Procurement team gains intense visibility and control while ensuring procurement, agency relationships and contracts are fair and sustainable.