Breakfast Bites - Craig Menzies, Senior Analyst, Forrester Research

Web design, Client / Agency Relationship Meltdown and the Big Bad Recession.

Finding an agency from the client perspective is really difficult - harder than ever. But making a long term productive working relationship is even harder.
The aim in web design to get a straight line from start to finish. Clients try to find the right agency to work with.
Research from Jan 08, Asking about web design budgets. 29 clients with euros 465m in budgets. Of which 13 had projects >1m euros. None reported declining or flat growth and 21/27 had >20% growth. More than half bid on less than half of the RFPs they receive.

From the client’s point of view, it costs more, agencies are more selective and it’s more difficult to find the right one. When choosing a web design partner clients need to know how to ‘narrow the field’.
Ask about:
- Agency size, capacity and growth. (a growing agency is not necessarily going to be able to support you if growing at 40%pa).
- Capability and primary services offered. (trend is towards full service but everyone has strengths. Face these and publicise this).
- Industry expertise
- Region, language and cultural understanding. (global brands are concerned about global strategies on a web platform e.g. will a CMS with one structure work in Israel?)
Make your project look good in the brief! Spend the time to understand what is innovative, creative and exciting about your project.

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