In early 2020, a leading provider of hospital and healthcare services with hundreds of facilities across the U.S., recognized the importance of keeping its high-performing in-house agency focused on the right work.
The arrival of Covid-19 made this objective even more of a priority. With a team of 70+ creative and operations professionals completing thousands of tasks per month, and managing complex approval processes involving key stakeholders, leadership determined it was time to make a change in favor advanced automation.
The healthcare organization tapped Zee Jay Digital, a marketing transformation consultancy, as its partner in undertaking this critical strategic initiative.
The provider of healthcare services had three central requirements to meet a market-driven increase in volumes under the constraint of current talent levels:
"Configuring a system that delivers immediate results was just one of our objectives,” said the client’s Senior Director of Creative Services. “We were also looking for a flexible efficient solution to position ourselves for long-term success."
Automation is key for this healthcare organization, which needed its in-house agency to spend less time clicking and more time creating high-quality communications for facility-driven marketing campaigns.
Working closely with Zee Jay’s implementation consultants, the healthcare organization’s marketing and marketing ops leaders determined the three requirements to help them meet near- and long-term goals:
REQUIREMENT 1: Streamline Intake and Approval Process
Before adopting Workfront, the in-house agency’s legacy system captured marketing collateral requests with a two-step process that resulted in a less-than-optimal user experience. The intake and approval process required manually routing approval requests to stakeholders using a spreadsheet.
Marketing team leaders recognized the value of automating intake and approval requests, eliminating the need to comply with unique business rules for each facility, and eliminating the need to select from among thousands of potential approval paths.
Using Workfront Fusion and the business logic provided by the client, dynamic creation of an approval workflow for each new request on demand was deployed, providing both the agency team and the facility marketer with full visibility into all approval stages.
Upon approval, the request is now automatically converted into one or more projects, based on the number of needed assets indicated in the request form, and routed to the appropriate project owner.
REQUIREMENT 2: Simplify and Automate Resource Allocation
Prior to this initiative, resourcing lacked consistency across teams, some of which were not using the organization’s legacy system, leaving project managers with an unrealistic view of capacity.
Using Workfront Fusion and working closely with Zee Jay, the client deployed an automated method for assigning resources. The new process considers hours needed from each job role to complete a project by the due date and assigns the next available user in each job role based on priority and business specialty.
For example, each facility served by the in-house agency has a primary copywriter, but if that lead copywriter isn’t available, the backup resource can take on the work. With Workfront Fusion, this decision point is automated, and all the project manager has to do is review and confirm assignments. This frees up the project managers’ time, takes the guesswork out of resourcing, and enhances Workfront’s OOTB resource tools.
REQUIREMENT 3: Automate Deliverable (Proof Workflow) Reviews
Similar to the request approval process, the in-house agency recognized that its creative deliverable reviews were more manually intensive than desired. When the proofing workflow was managed separately from the project schedule, the burden fell on the project manager to keep timing aligned between tools.
Based on the request and project details captured earlier in the process, the healthcare services provider deployed an automated workflow with Workfront Fusion that applied project tasks representing the various review paths to the project schedule, then created a matching automated ProofHQ workflow assigned to the design file.
Uploading a creative asset to a specific folder within the project triggers the workflow and alerts stakeholders to review a proof. In addition, creative and review tasks automatically close upon upload, and reopen based on proof decisions, allowing teams to spend their time on more strategic efforts.
To ensure everyone stays on task, Zee Jay worked with the client organization to add secondary workflow that creates an issue if a deliverable review exceeds three rounds. The issue is assigned to the reviewer and serves as an alert that the project schedule may change as a result of the delay. This new capability keeps everyone in the loop and enables continuous improvement measures to prevent undue reviews.
The Workfront/Workfront Fusion integration, undertaken in partnership with Zee Jay Digital, resulted in the automated selection and deployment of:
This initiative is now delivering the benefits needed to help the healthcare organization better meet the challenges of managing marketing in the age of Covid-19:
"We appreciate the value brought to the table by Zee Jay on behalf of our marketing operations improvement team, and look forward to continuing to benefit over time."
Helping clients formulate and execute a roadmap for success is just one of the ways Zee Jay Digital adds value to in-house agencies and enterprise marketing organizations. The services provided by Zee Jay are helping this healthcare organization better manage in the new normal, and laying the foundation for the ability to meet the needs of the patients they serve well into the future.
