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21 Bennett’s Hill,
Birmingham,
B2 5QP
The old phrase of “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” was coined some 20 years ago in the tech’ industry and it pointed to choosing a large, established vendor as the obvious and sensible choice.
It’s a concept management consultants gave it’s very own term – “Satisficing”.
As time went on, people started to find more holes in this mantra than slices of Swiss cheese.
Why?
Simply put, people soon started to realise that these large outfits were slow to implement their services, came with large invoices and, in a number of cases, didn’t actually deliver what was promised.
Anyone remember Accenture’s project to automate Sainsbury’s new logistics system back in the early noughties? Yeh, that went really well… not.
Back to the plot.
This safety-first approach of ‘hiring a big gun’ wasn’t a bad choice for anyone looking to save their own ass if the shit hit the fan. You could always claim “But I hired a big agency boss!” as an iron-clad defence.
However, adopting this IBM-style approach for agency selection can give less than ideal results and will always keep your brand or business broadly in the safe zone.
The latter point is key – the safe zone.
Nobody ever wins a competitive match by staying in their own half and playing it safe, as England sadly found out at Euro 2024.
So how do brands do what England couldn’t – namely, get out of the safe zone?
Enter stage left the smaller boutique agency.
Boutique agencies don’t have a swollen balance sheet to rest on. They have to be on the front foot day in, day out because there’s over 22,000 agency ‘shops’ just in the UK.
They have to take calculated risks to win against their ~21,999 peers.
They have to innovate to stay ahead of the game.
They have to be ‘at it’ every day just to survive, a mentality the good agencies take into their client’s business all the time.
That’s precisely what we do.
Hiring a ‘big shop’ is no longer a smart commercial move for many.
Why pay for all their overheads when comparable talent can be found in boutique agencies that are just as creative, just as ambitious, just as experienced but nowhere near as pricey?
Kinda stacks to add a boutique agency into your next pitch mix, right?
Feel free to add us – shameless plug!
And getting a ‘thank you’ from your procurement team is a rarity but this would do it for sure.
So maybe the old adage of “Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM” should be reworded.