Client demands, tight deadlines, and the ever-evolving landscape of tools and tactics. These are the things that shout the loudest in the agency world.
Behind the scenes, though, it's the internal operations - the unseen engine room - that often determines whether an agency thrives or merely survives.
At the core of these operations lies a powerful and often underestimated dynamic: the interconnection between people and process. When aligned, they create an agile, productive, and resilient agency. When out of sync, inefficiencies, burnout, and missed opportunities become the norm.
Your team is your greatest asset. Strategists, creatives, account managers – they all bring unique value, but without the right processes in place, their potential is limited.
Well-designed processes:
However, overly rigid processes can stifle creativity and slow down momentum. That's why process must be shaped by people, and for people. Regular feedback loops are essential to ensure that systems evolve with team needs.
Ok, so it's not as well-known as the saying, 'culture eats strategy for breakfast', but you see what I'm getting to. The right process can shape culture.
If an agency has a collaborative, transparent culture, then the right processes will amplify that. For example:
On the flip side, a toxic or siloed culture will twist even the best processes into obstacles.
The point here is that people don't resist process. They resist bad process, especially ones that feel imposed or disconnected from their reality.
Growth is the goal, but it's also a stress test. As you add new clients and hires more team members, cracks in operations start to show.
To scale sustainably:
Too often, agencies scale headcount faster than they scale infrastructure. The result? Bottlenecks, confusion, and disillusioned talent.
Processes should not only help people do their jobs but also help them improve how they do their jobs.
That means building in:
People empowered by data make smarter decisions. Processes informed by people make smarter agencies.
It's not a tug-of-war, it's a dance
In a B2B marketing agency, people and process are not opposing forces - they're partners in a dance. One provides the rhythm; the other, the movement.
When agencies treat internal operations as an evolving partnership between the people who bring campaigns to life and the processes that support them, they unlock a powerful edge: agility without chaos, structure without rigidity, and a workplace where talent is empowered to do their best work.
If you've ever Googled 'project management in agencies', you're faced with a long list of project management software tools. All the usual suspects are there – along with some that you'll inevitably have never heard of before.
You must have been there - at a wedding or dinner party, or (more likely for me, these days) a whole-class village hall birthday party...when the 'what do you do?' question comes up.
If you know me, you know it's my favourite colour. At one point I had on a purple coat, purple bag and was sitting on a purple chair, waiting to go in for a client meeting. My colleague at the time had the most unprofessional fit of the giggles.