Efforts to save money are common across media departments, with the debate often centered around how video and communications enhance a company’s core business, and how accessible production tools have become. With new discussions of pending financial forecasts, free-flow spending is very rare in today’s economic landscape, as companies of all shapes and sizes face pressure to do more with less. Media and AV leaders are using data to develop creative cost-savings methods, while still producing quality messages and events.
Our Media & AV Insights Survey finds that senior media and AV executives aren’t immune to this trend. In fact, more than half (54 percent) of senior executives in media and AV organizations report cost savings tops their list of business concerns in 2016.
Keeping a close eye on spending is an integral part of most successful creative media & AV organizations, as this leads to ability to recover costs, develop competitive internal pricing for company stakeholders and increased ROI. At the same time, though, organizations must also prioritize innovation and production of top-quality deliverables.
This is reflected by our survey results, as many of the media and AV leaders we heard from have their eyes on maintaining a forward-thinking, customer-focused, efficient operation.
What Adds Value to An Organization?
Following closely behind cost savings, executives said their three next areas of focus are centered on adding value to their organization are:
1. Business Process Improvements
These can be varied, but are most focused on implementing software tools, cutting down on inefficiencies, redundancies and bottlenecks that affect productivity.
2. Customer Engagement
Making the extra effort with clients to consult, meet their needs and help drive their business forward is key.
3. Revenue Growth
Keeping internal dollars in-house and expanding relationships to provide more services.
Cutting Costs
While achieving all of these goals media and AV leaders must use their creative skills to their advantage, and consider a variety of strategies that help keep costs low while growing the business.
A combination of numerous different cost-cutting tactics, across departments can work together to cut hard costs:
1. Use In-House Staff First
With many organizations doing a bulk of work with mid-level production budgets, consider using in-house staff first before hiring externally.
2. Cross-Train
Cross-training internal staff to handle projects from start to finish is common
3. Capitalize on UGV Content
Taking advantage of User Generated Video (UGV) and incorporating it into a finished piece saves costs on capturing content.
4. Use the Right Technology
Utilizing streamlined technology such as drone cameras or Go Pros for small and mid-budget videos reduce the need for expensive dollies and jibs and the labor associated with them.
5. Keep An Eye on the Trends
Evaluating quarterly spend to identify labor categories and when it makes financial sense to either convert freelancers to full time, or hire freelancers for peak periods and not commit to annual overhead.
Leveraging talent, staying on the bleeding edge of technology and monitoring metrics will help media and AV leaders strike a balance to ensure they’re being as cost efficient as possible, while keeping growth and innovation at the top of their to-do list.
