Accelo exceeds expectations in helping P4 Group tighten their agency operations, gain immediate visibility into the health of their business and increase their bottom line.

Background

Award-winning, fully integrated marketing and communications agency P4 Group had over 25 years of experience with a team offering a wide range of expertise including public relations, communications, engagement, creative and digital services. With offices in Sydney, Brisbane and the Gold Coast, the Australian-based company worked with a wide range of clients in corporate, lifestyle, government and non-profit sectors to deliver campaigns and strategic solutions that drive profit. 

The team would pride themselves on delivering quality work to their clients, but found that they had a lot to juggle in their day-to-day roles. It soon became clear that the team needed a reliable platform to store and update pivotal company information for project management and reporting. 

Challenges

The leadership team was spending a great deal of time on reporting and implementing operational efficiencies. Operations Director, Lauren Faulkner created, implemented and improved company processes and procedures to enhance not only client but staff retention. Lauren and the team also relied heavily on the Group Account Director to manage the team workflows and forecasted earnings. “Our jobs were extremely manual,” Lauren recalled. ”Both of our roles required hours of time on pulling reports, building out monthly workflows and managing team member billings.” 

Internally, it was difficult to accurately forecast and on time with their current toolset. The team also realized they needed a platform that would allow them to retrospectively review the business and employee usage on a daily, monthly or even quarterly basis. “Without a tool that could assist us with this, we didn’t have the information or transparency we needed to make educated decisions for our business,” Lauren said. 

The business was spending an average of 50 hours per month on administrative tasks. Lauren averaged around 20 hours per month on menial tasks - time that could have been spent on more meaningful work given her role. 

Solution

P4’s team first heard about Accelo through a new employee who implemented Accelo at a previous agency and raved about her experience and the positive outcomes. This glowing recommendation prompted this employee to work with the Group Account Director to present a short business case. "The decision was made almost on the spot,” Lauren said. “One of the reasons we looked favorably on Accelo is because we had someone in the business with experience using it. We also felt the customer service and sales experience was excellent.” 

Due to Accelo's usability, the team was able to fully implement it within two months – this was a major improvement as other platforms can take anywhere between 8-9 months to get up and running. One of the highlights Lauren recalls on the implementation process was the ability of the Accelo expert to respond quickly and their willingness to work with the team to get everything up and running.

Results

Since investing in Accelo in 2019, P4 Group has seen massive amounts of improvement in their operations. Time spent on administrative tasks has gone from 50 hours a month company-wide to 10 hours. In one year, that’s 480 hours now able to be spent on bringing in new clients, strengthening current customer relationships or internal projects to help the business grow. Lauren gained more time to develop strategic plans for the company - which was the purpose of her role. “My teammates have the ability to put more time toward actionable, billable work that will ultimately improve our bottom line,” Lauren said. 

Saving time isn’t the only thing the P4 Group loved about Accelo. There became a heavy reliance on schedule dashboard, utilization dashboard, profitability dashboard, invoicing and weekly timesheets for efficient operations. Having all teams working in the same platform supports their one collective goal: provide quality work to their customers. 

Accelo has also given us a much clearer picture of the agency’s performance as a whole, meaning we’ve been able to make educated decisions about clients, staff and the future direction of the business.
Lauren Faulkner, Operations Director

After 25 years in business, P4 Group joined with Ruby Communications and now operates as Sabio.

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