Coming from the world of telecoms, where scale and personalisation go hand in hand, I’ve seen first-hand how internal fragmentation can stifle growth and efficiency. Now, as I shift into marketing services, I’m watching history repeat itself: agencies are consolidating, struggling with complexity, and trying to offer bespoke services across a growing number of channels.
But here’s the core truth—transformation and defragmentation are synonymous. Without sorting out the internal chaos, marketing agencies will struggle to scale personalisation. Just as telcos had to streamline their operations, marketing needs to do the same. Let’s dive into what that looks like.
- Why Are Marketing Agencies Consolidating?
It’s no secret—costs are spiralling. Marketing today means being everywhere at once: social media, websites, email, TV, and more. Each channel demands tailored content and personalised campaigns, and managing that at scale is becoming unmanageable. Agencies are consolidating, much like telcos did when their networks expanded and complexity ballooned.
Just as telecoms faced the problem of combining generations of technology, marketing agencies now have to manage a growing number of tools, platforms, and channels. The solution? Standardisation. Standardisation drives down costs, streamlines operations, and makes it possible to offer tailored services without reinventing the wheel every time.
- Telcos Solved This Problem—Here’s How
Telecoms faced rising customer demands with limited resources, just like marketing today. Their answer was simple: align their service architecture to be modular, flexible, and scalable. This allowed them to tweak the service for each client while relying on a strong, efficient foundation. They didn’t need to build bespoke networks from scratch for every customer—they just added custom elements on top of a standardised backbone.
- Orchestrating Internally for Customisation
If you want to serve more channels and customise services for brands, you need to get your internal structure right. Fragmentation—where teams use different tools, data sources, and processes—makes it impossible to scale efficiently or consistently. In telco, we overcame this through a connected operating model that allowed us to reuse everything from roles to processes to data.
A solid Operating Model for marketing requires:
- Reusable Roles: Defined roles that can be applied across different clients and campaigns.
- Standardised Processes: Workflows that are adaptable but grounded in consistent practices that teams can follow.
- Data Integration: Centralised data that allows for real-time insights across departments, ensuring customisation for each channel and brand.
- Unified Tools: Technologies that work together, reducing silos and ensuring consistency across teams and platforms.
- The Cost of Fragmentation
When marketing agencies are fragmented internally, it leads to:
- Operational Inefficiencies: Teams waste time managing different systems, repeating work, and struggling with inconsistent data.
- Inconsistent Customer Experiences: Fragmentation leads to disconnected touchpoints and inconsistent messaging.
- Higher Costs: Fragmented processes result in wasted resources, duplicated efforts, and the inability to scale services cost-effectively.
- Lessons from Telecoms for Marketing
Just as telecoms standardised their infrastructure to offer bespoke services at scale, marketing agencies can do the same. By consolidating and simplifying internally, you create the foundation for delivering personalised services across channels, without burning out your teams or inflating costs.
Here’s what marketing can learn from telcos:
- Modular Processes: Build a strong core that can be tweaked for each client, just like telcos offer customised packages without changing their entire infrastructure.
- Centralised Data: Just like telcos rely on unified data to deliver real-time personalised services, marketing agencies need to centralise data to offer tailored campaigns.
- Operational Alignment: Internal orchestration is key. By aligning roles, processes, and tools, agencies can deliver bespoke services that are efficient and scalable.
- More Channels, More Complexity—Why Internal Alignment is Critical
With the increasing number of channels marketing agencies must serve, the ability to orchestrate internally becomes even more important. The complexity of personalising across these channels demands a unified approach where data, processes, and tools are connected and scalable.
When internal systems are fragmented, teams end up reinventing the wheel for every new client or campaign. This leads to inefficiencies, higher costs, and missed opportunities. Just like telcos mastered service orchestration to handle large, complex networks, marketing agencies need a framework that ties everything together. This is how you achieve scalable customisation, allowing for quick adjustments while maintaining control over costs.
Conclusion: Transformation Through Defragmentation
Transformation doesn’t mean tearing everything apart and starting fresh. It means defragmenting your business, consolidating your internal operations, and building a foundation that allows for both scale and personalisation. Marketing agencies, like telcos before them, need to build modular, connected systems that enable customisation across channels without becoming inefficient or fragmented.
By orchestrating internally—through standardised processes, integrated data, and reusable roles—marketing agencies can offer bespoke services at scale. It’s not about starting from scratch for every client, but about making small tweaks to a strong, consolidated foundation
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