© JANE FRANKLIN 2008

Case Study - CMS


Challenge

The company had been through several leadership changes and had not been re-audited for three years. In that time a lack of CMS focused management was compounded by staff turnover; there were several team members who had not experienced an audit and were not introduced to CMS during induction. While the principles of quality campaign management remained, there was inconsistency in how this had been recorded. I was tasked with getting the company through the audit.


Response

I undertook a company-wide pre-audit was undertaken to assess the extent of the challenge and developed a preparation plan. Key management team members were assigned areas of responsibility for the business management areas of the audit. Account teams were assigned tasks related to the client and campaign management audit areas. Regular update meetings were scheduled and mock audits undertaken to assess progress. I developed a bible outlining all staff needed to know about working at that agency, an invaluable document which is now an essential part of the new staff induction process.


Result

Project-managing a company full of hard working client service teams, who have fee-earning work and new business targets to deliver, to devote their time to what is often regarded as ‘boring, pointless, admin’ is tough. However the biggest challenge is securing senior team buy-in to the plan (and CMS) and then ensuring they deliver against their objectives. This was achieved through a mix of encouragement, support and challenge. Where that failed, a simple rolling-up-of-sleeves prevailed. The agency bible was recognised as a work of industry best practice by the auditor. The agency passed the audit with flying colours achieving a pass rate of 94%.

Two years later, I project managed the agency’s re-audit, revising and updating the bible and achieving a pass rate of 97%.