The Power of Harnessing Cross-Functional Expertise within a Marketing Agency
Within a marketing agency, success will rarely come from one department alone. The best service and output that we can provide to our clients will be achieved when we harness the power of cross-functional knowledge and expertise from within the agency, including those who work in the support functions of Operations, HR & Finance.
I have been working at Blue Array for the last year as their Senior Finance Manager. This blog explores the benefits of having teams that don’t work in complete silos and that aren’t divided by solid department lines, but instead united by an overall shared purpose. I’ll explore how these benefits are seen both externally in better outcomes for our clients and internally through the company culture and meaningful people growth.
What does Cross-Functional Working Mean?
Working cross-functionally is about bringing together teams with different skills, perspectives and responsibilities, then using these combined skills to contribute towards shared goals and value creation.
Typically, you would expect there to be collaboration between SEO specialists, Digital PR teams, and content writers, but true collaboration extends beyond the delivery teams alone. HR helps to ensure that the agency has the right talent in place and works hard to cultivate a company culture where people can thrive. Operations ensures the right tools and processes are in place to allow for efficient working and cohesiveness, while Finance helps validate that ideas are commercially viable, as well as providing clarity on budgets and forecasting.
Collaboration can also extend beyond this. Since working at Blue Array, some of the work I have enjoyed the most is where I have been able to directly contribute to client work through assisting the delivery team with ideation using my financial expertise.
The Advantage for Clients
As we would hope, one of the main benefits of driving for cross-functional working and collaboration is the increased value that it delivers to our clients. These are just some of the forms that it can be seen in:
- Innovation – taking the perspectives and insights from multiple areas reveals new opportunities.
- Agility – working together as one team allows the agency to respond to change with speed and precision, ensuring we are proactive and not reactive. Taking learnings from each other allows us to make quicker improvements for our clients.
- Holistic Strategies – the service an agency delivers is at its best when departments work as one interconnected system, as opposed to individual parts.
- ROI – ultimately, we can deliver the best ROI when every team contributes to optimising performance, reducing inefficiencies and therefore delivering commercial value to our clients.
The Internal Advantage
One of the most significant benefits of cross-functional working is the powerful internal advantages that can be created by bringing people together beyond their traditional team boundaries. It helps fuel personal growth and development as employees are exposed to new ways of thinking and challenged beyond their usual remit. It helps foster a culture of curiosity and innovation as collaboration will naturally encourage people to ask questions, challenge assumptions and explore new ideas.
Working closely across functions also helps build a stronger sense of connection across teams, helping individuals to understand the bigger picture of how the organisation operates and gain broader perspectives. This feeling of connection is especially important for those who work in more individually contributing functions, such as finance and HR.
Perhaps most importantly, cross-functional working reinforces the value that everyone in the agency has a voice – when people feel that their ideas and perspectives are heard, it boosts confidence, engagement and encourages a shared sense of ownership in working towards a collective goal. All in all, cross-functional working quietly helps build the culture of an agency, which we all know is at the heart of true success.
Working example at Blue Array
Earlier in the year, I provided support to our strategic SEO Lead on content ideation for a client that operated in the Business Finance space. They asked if I could take a look over the client’s existing site content based on a crawl they had conducted and identify any missing financial topics that businesses might be looking for.
For me, it was interesting to step out of my normal daily tasks and use my expertise to provide some ideas which will hopefully ultimately help drive increased traffic to our client’s site. It was also an opportunity to work with a member of the team that I hadn’t worked with before and to gain a deeper understanding of the work they do for clients —as mentioned earlier, it created a sense of connection. From our client’s perspective, they benefited from a human voice on what content businesses could be looking for when it comes to looking at their site.
Conclusion
Hopefully, this blog has given you a little insight into both the internal cultural benefits as well as the external client benefits of cross-functional working and how we harness this at Blue Array. Embedding cross-functional working strengthens the organisation from the inside out. When all teams collaborate closely, ideas move faster, decisions are better informed, and outcomes are more sustainable.
Breaking down those department walls creates a culture of shared accountability, and by valuing diverse expertise, this way of working becomes a strategic advantage which ultimately helps lead to long-term success.
Kirsty Lasparini
Kirsty is our Senior Finance Manager at Blue Array and responsible for all things number related. She brings to the agency experience that has been gained across a number of different industries including FMCG, Financial Services and Education. Outside of work she enjoys spending time with her family, going to the theatre and always making sure that there is another holiday to look forward to.