Tribe Global's MD Ian joined several other Independent Agency Networks at  Virtual Mirren  in May to talk about some of the key topics facing our industry. Here's a summary of his discussion points.

Everyone is talking about pivoting.

But the challenge for all of us is – what does our pivot look like? We see change all around us, we know there are going to be more changes, we know there are going to be many futures facing us, but do we really know what things are going to look like?

I mentioned earlier our research. We asked the Pivot question. And as you would expect we got a range of answers.

For many of our Member agencies, it is about sticking to their core offering and looking at how they fine-tune and adapt as we emerge post Covid-19. It doesn’t have to be radical change, but we all need to have our fingers on the pulse.

Our Member agencies are thinking about their business models, their offerings, skill-sets and behaviours. A few areas that will be getting extra focus are – delivering business solutions, digital , e-commerce, work efficiency, data along with empathy, flexibility and resilience.

For our specialist Member agencies who focus on a particular industry or sector, they plan to continue with this focus, however they see two opportunities – 1) now is a great time to broaden their skill-sets, in order to provide a more comprehensive offering. For me that’s about locking in the client business and 2) look at related industries where their skills and knowledge are transferable.

The generalist agencies who offer a broad range of services across various sectors will be turning the volume up on sectors that are growing which means investing in areas of profitable returns, and almost abandoning no growth/low growth sectors. No longer over servicing low paying clients. It’s about a laser focus.

The other pivots that our Members are discussing are – greater focus on e-commerce, identifying the growth sectors, looking at creating their own products, developing new revenue streams, embracing partnerships and collaborations, and within the agency a radical review of people, skill-sets, working practices and pricing structures. 

So, everyone is still talking about pivoting, the next few weeks and months will show us what pivoting actually looks like.