I spent most of my career in the creative agency world on the commercial side of the business, so I know how hard it feels to balance investment in creative talent with investment in operational technology. I’m no longer running an agency, but I’m still connected to the agency world in my current role at Canto through the technology services we provide. In my role now, I work with hundreds of agencies worldwide and witness them endure the grind of deadlines, cash flow, client procurement, and talent retention. That’s why I want to share a better way to address the unique challenges today’s agencies face: building digital operational resilience.
One challenge I faced in my previous agency life — and still see in 100-500 person agencies pushing to grow — is the constant battle to protect the bottom line while chasing top-line growth. Winning pitches and landing exciting campaigns feels incredible. But poor planning, unrealistic timelines, or thin operational data can turn those wins into profit leaks and erode the creativity that won the business in the first place. Processes crumble, basic tasks drag, and a once-agile agency starts to feel slow and lumbering.
Now, layer in AI-driven creative. Clients expect faster turnarounds and lower costs, while creative talent costs keep climbing. Balancing the books gets harder every quarter. Still, while technology puts additional pressure on agencies, it also offers a sustainable path toward growth.
A View From the Vendor’s Seat
From my vantage point working with agencies of every size, I see the same challenges repeat across geographies and business models. The good news: wherever you operate, you’re not alone. Here are the operational themes I hear time and again:
- Fragmented tech stacks and integration debt: Agencies collect best-of-breed tools across analytics, creative ops, martech, and collaboration. Teams try to stitch them together for clean data flow and governance, but the work is technically complex and often stalls. When integrations slip, responsiveness slows, headcount swells, and the advantages of a connected agency fade.
- Data visibility and quality: Future-ready agencies know where profit comes from, where losses happen, and how to use operational data in billing. Yet many teams prioritize delivering standout creative and then struggle to invoice accurately on retainers and projects. Creative shines; the numbers don’t.
- Commercial model misalignment: Traditional retainers or project pricing rarely reward tech investments that create downstream efficiencies. Clients push for lower rates and higher KPIs. Agencies either renegotiate toward value- or performance-based pricing or absorb modernization costs.
- Rising cost of creative resources: Talent costs more every year. Leaders must keep creatives focused on billable, high-value work instead of administrative minutia.
- The speed-budget gap: Clients want faster campaigns, more agility, and constant iteration — but budgets lag. Agencies must deliver more with the same (or less) resources.
With headwinds like these, you might ask: why choose a career in the creative industry? Because creative problem-solving matters more than ever.
AI will shift production and accelerate delivery, but it won’t replace the magic of a campaign that moves people, sparks emotion, and changes behavior. Make no mistake, great creative still wins. The job now is to balance profitability, while protecting space for creative work to thrive.
Future-Proofing the Agency Business Model
So, how do agencies set up for long-term success and balance operational efficiency, AI adoption, and creative excellence?
Any agency with more than 50 employees and real growth ambitions needs to lay the foundations of an agency operational tech stack. A strong digital infrastructure lets you scale efficiently and make smarter, data-driven decisions.
The best part: you don’t need a disruptive, expensive, or slow overhaul. Focus on three connected tools — work management, content storage, and cost estimation. Pair these tools with disciplined change management, and you move from chaos to control and toward healthier profit margins.
Work Management Software
I came from the commercial side, but I’ve always respected the creative process. I still believe: the better the brief, the better the creative. Getting briefs right requires constant evaluation, learning, and refinement — and you can’t do that without a clear workflow.
Digitize the process. You gain agility, reveal the problem areas, enforce version control, capture hours, and clarify department structures. One of my biggest wins after digital transformation: we held data-led conversations with procurement leaders (specifically for retainer-based clients). Instead of pleading our case emotionally, we showed evidence. That shift changed the relationship dynamic for the better.
Content Storage
Start with work management or content storage — just don’t skip either. Optimizing workflows without an intelligent place to store, find, and share output wastes time and invites errors.
Digital asset management (DAM) delivers one of the highest-value, fastest wins an agency can make. When I implemented DAM, I saw immediate improvements. Nothing upset me more than watching my creative teams (my billable engine) waste their time hunting for imagery, the latest logos, or old campaigns when those assets should be easily accessible.
The instant a job kicks off, the billing clocks start to tick. Add in the chaos of lost emails, relentless client pings about delivery, pitches with incorrect brand materials, or last-minute requests to dig up historic campaigns and billable hours get sacrificed to menial work fast. These are the kind of roadblocks a DAM prevents. When I implemented DAM software, I saw immediate improvements: no more creatives hunting for assets, no more lost emails, no more “Where’s the file?” threads. What’s more, DAM stops mistakes like outdated logos in pitches and answers client questions about delivery before they flood your inbox.
Connect your DAM to work management and the rest of your creative stack, and you shift from content chaos to operational clarity.
Campaign Costing, Billing, and Hourly Rates
The third pillar: financial clarity. Many agencies we work with rely on blended-rate models, where one hourly or day rate covers all aspects of agency delivery. This approach has a place, but two common issues quickly erode its usefulness. First, when teams lack data that connects departmental costs to overhead utilization and time by discipline (think DTP vs. development or strategy), leaders can’t see true margins or overhead coverage. Second, when teams don’t have tools to build cost estimates by department — with different rates where appropriate — they default to a one-size-fits-all price that hides reality.
Connect billing and cost estimation to work management. You’ll price projects accurately, give creative teams clear guardrails to forecast available time on jobs, and equip leadership with insights into which departments generate profit and which ones leak it.
Together, these three tools create a simple, powerful foundation for sustainable scale. Along the way, I learned the most important lesson: operational efficiency protects your creative product. Without the right infrastructure, growth turns painful and stressful. With it, you gain control, profitability, and room for the standout work clients value most.
At Canto, we help organizations build this kind of scalable content engine. I love watching prospects become customers and unlock outsized wins as they implement our digital asset management (DAM) technology and connect their content ecosystem. The visual below demonstrates the connected content world a first-class DAM provides. It lays out the vision we set for our customers to map their projects against, and the streamlined operational future your agency can achieve with support from DAM software, like Canto.
