Title TextWhere Have All the Dollars Gone?

Utilizing KPIs (Key Performance Indicators)to track your design spend phototype.com

“That’s what it costs”For years, the time it took for a designer to develop the big idea was very hard to challenge. Design often took as long as needed, with rounds of revisions adding up quickly.

Marketers were often left feeling reactive vs. proactive as costs escalated. It felt like no one was in control.

But those days are gone.

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“What am I paying for?”Today, Marketing is being asked to manage budgets more closely than ever. The demands of less expensive, better and faster have made their way into design. Delivering the big idea may still take longer and cost a little more, but finding out late in the game causes an unwanted ripple effect.

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The truth is, every “what if” and each additional color study takes time –

and time is money.

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“Why so much?”

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) trackyour spend in near real-time, so you…

• Know where you are relative to budget, at any given point in the project

• See overarching trends by department, brand or activity

• Get an objective overview of your process and identify areas for future improvements

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Create an Executive Dashboard of all your KPIs

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See, at a glance, an overview of all yourcustomized reports,manage your spend

at a high level,or “click” to evaluate

specific details

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Review overall

category spend

Drill down to individual custom reports

Compare spend to

see trends

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Customize reports to

view month, year or any date range

needed

Review data by custom date ranges

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Isolate costs based on

activities such as design,

production art, separations or print materials

Create spending reports

Review and share customizable

charting for best analysis and comparison

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Identify which categories are generating the most rework

Track costly revisions at a high level

Review rounds of project

revisions

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Drill down to see revision costs at a

brand level

Get an in-depth view of revision costs

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Get easy to read details about who is requesting

changes

See who is requesting revisions

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See what’s driving the change requests and how frequently they

are occurring

Review why they are making revisions

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Look deeper and see the number of changes within the

scope of the design brief, as well as how many were

out of scope

Understand revisions and budget needs

KPIs are a valuable tool to help you...• Make informed process

improvements by focusingon areas causing delaysor increasing costs

• Plan yearly budgets • Have an accurate idea

of the cost and time associated with gettingan idea to market

• Make high-level business decisions while you havetime to affect change

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How to get started…• First, meet with your design teams and see how

they’re recording project information: estimates, budgets, allocated hours, revision requests, etc. If they are usingany form of database for order entry, you’re on your way.

• Next, determine how to track and publish the information, creating KPIs that are actionable andproduce effective results. This will require some type of business reporting software.

• We’ve developed our own system, Phototype BizIQ™, but several business intelligence software solutions are commercially available.

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What to track• Work with your design teams to determine what to track; they have a

unique perspective on your business and may suggest metrics you wouldn’t have considered.

• Remember to keep the metrics actionable – for example, tracking the number of times the color blue is used may not be an actionable metric.

• It’s as important to track the reasons for a change as it is to track the number of changes. If you are tracking design brief revisions, establish criteria for the reason behind the revision.

• Lastly, be honest. When tracking revisions, incorrectly attributing the reason for the change will produce false data and make it difficult to make real process improvements.

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Sample metrics...Many of our clients find it useful to track: • Total number of projects by category or sector • Number of projects by brand • Types of projects by brand or category • Project duration, time budgeted versus actual • Budget versus actual spend (by brand and/or project) • Design brief revisions (scope creep) • Revision requests and costs • Reasons for revision requests

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We’d be happy to share specific information with you!

Where Have All the Dollars Gone? was written by thought leaders:

Keith Beckelheimer,Director of Brand Strategy at gravity (a subsidiary of Phototype)

Chuck Rovito, Vice President of Creative Servicesat gravity (a subsidiary of Phototype)

Want to know more about KPI technology?

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