How Collective Measures Transformed Their Agency Operations with Deltek WorkBook

An Interview with Luke Schlegel, EVP of Operations and Analytics, Collective Measures

This year’s Deltek 2021 MVP Award Winner, Collective Measures, is an employee-owned performance marketing agency. Rising on the ties of unprecedented growth, Deltek WorkBook enabled Collective Measures to streamline its project management and resourcing efforts and focus on what it does best: driving incredible results for clients. Collective Measures saw a 20% increase in work and projects as a result of the pandemic, taking on work at an increased pace facilitated by WorkBook, which provided one central ERP system for resource allocation, time tracking, and project management.

Collective Measures is an award-winning performance marketing agency that has been serving clients since 2005, solving complex marketing problems and uncovering actionable insights for their businesses. Over the last few years, Collective Measures has experienced tremendous growth, not only in the number of clients and revenue generated, but also in the size of their employee base. Given this maturity, Collective Measures recognized the demand for an integrated system that allowed for better reporting and visibility into their agency operations.

Luke Schlegel, Executive Vice President of Operations and Analytics at Collective Measures, recently shared how the systems they were previously leveraging weren’t providing the data-driven insights they desired. “The legacy systems we originally had in place weren’t able to give us the information that we needed to allow us to make the decisions that were important to make. They didn’t allow myself and other executive team members to get the information we required to make decisions on hiring and what projects we were able to take on.”

Collective Measures was making strides to optimize their business, but they struggled to pull the right data to make strategic decisions to accelerate project workflows and avoid scope creep. To future-proof their agency, Collective Measures knew it was critical to get access to real-time data by implementing a project and resource management system that delivered end-to-end visibility into their business.

"The growth that we've experienced with Deltek WorkBook has allowed us to gain better insights into our entire workflow of projects; we understand what our people are doing now and what they're going to need in the future. This data makes it possible to optimize our project delivery based on clients’ needs."

– Luke Schlegel, Executive Vice President of Operations and Analytics, Collective Measures

Access Operational Data Right at Your Fingertips

While in quarantine due to the pandemic, when many businesses experienced disruption and placed a pause on activities, Collective Measures made the forward-thinking decision to implement Deltek WorkBook, a total agency management system built specifically for agencies and in-house teams. The end-to-end visibility provided in Deltek WorkBook helped them see where their time, resources, and budget were being allocated and provided an opportunity to address deficiencies and improve workflows to maximize production.  

“Over the past two years, since we've implemented WorkBook, we've been able to more accurately understand our workflows, our deliverables, and our teams’ needs,” stated Luke. “WorkBook has been a great tool for us and has really helped us get to that next level of growth.”

Having access to an integrated project management system is crucial to any business and will help optimize the effectiveness of your agency operations, giving leadership a more accurate picture of agency health and keeping employees on task to meet clients’ needs. Similar to Collective Measures, agencies are often tasked with challenges related to managing their workflows, but by having an integrated software solution in place it helps streamline projects, people and finances from end-to-end, extracting maximum performance and value from your agency.

“We need to be able to accurately project future work and understand what's actually going to be needed from a resource standpoint. WorkBook has been able to give us the insight needed to make those decisions, as well as the ability to look backwards to understand the reality of where time went,” shared Luke. “This ultimately allowed us to optimize workflows and cut back on unneeded activities, so our team can focus on what we really need to deliver on for our clients.”

With Deltek WorkBook, Collective Measures has access to powerful data and the reporting tools they need to make tactical decisions to transform their business. They have the confidence and the ability to change and grow simultaneously, with accurate reporting on resource availability and utilization. Now that Collective Measures has gained valuable visibility across the company, they have the capability to maximize efficiency and profitability, and can continue on the path to long-term success.

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