Marketing & Media Agencies
Decisions wait on month-end. The owner flies blind between closes, and the three numbers that actually run an agency, utilization (billable share of paid hours, by person and team), realization (collected share of rate-card value, by client) and per-client margin (net of media pass-through and pass-through costs), are arguments, not numbers. Bench time, over-loaded seniors, under-water retainers and a campaign drifting over budget are all invisible until the quarter is gone.
Who has it
Every segment; the screen the owner actually opens and the moment the whole engagement clicks.
What we build
Always-current dashboards over the connected layer: utilization by person and team, realization by client, margin by client and project (net of media and pass-throughs), pipeline and bench, and budget burn on live productions and campaigns, on one screen the owner opens daily. The hard part is agreeing exactly what utilization, realization and margin mean for this firm and wiring it once, correctly.
What is automated, where AI helps, who signs off
The reliable spine
The reliable spine is definitional and arithmetic: utilization, realization and margin defined once for this firm, then computed by rule off the connected layer and shown live. The hard, valuable work is agreeing exactly what each number means and wiring it correctly, not the display.
Where AI helps
AI plays a small part, reconciling the messy inputs the dashboard reads, for instance matching a platform's spend export to the right client and campaign, so the figures arrive complete. It never sets a target, re-defines a metric or acts on a number.
Who signs off
A named person signs off anything touching money, stock, a customer promise, a regulated filing, a payment, a price, a credit decision or a people decision.
What changes day to day
The owner and team leads run the week off live numbers instead of last month's ghost; bench, over-loaded seniors, under-water retainers and over-budget campaigns become visible while there is still time to act.
Illustrative outcome
Utilization and per-client margin visible weekly, surfacing the under-water accounts and the bench cost in time to act.
Illustrative; final numbers come from your own data.
Path to the build
Book a free 60-minute call, then a free Blueprint on the firm's own records. Deep-dive and build, followed by run and govern so the workflow keeps paying back.
Related builds
A free 60-minute call. No cost, no obligation, just a clear read on what is worth building.