Best Practices in Outsourcing the Advertising Best
Outsourcing is the most prevalent strategy companies are using today to control costs, increase their time-to-market, and gain access to expertise they may not be able to afford on their own. Outsourcing advertising and other areas of marketing reduced one large banks' budget by 40%, with smaller banks gaining a 30% cost improvement using outsourcing over hiring and retaining their own in-house staffs (Russell, 1997). Outsourcing advertising and creative production projects to India has increasingly become commonplace, with both Lifebuoy and Fair & Lovely brands outsourcing pan-Asian production and European production to Indian advertising firms (Businessline, 2005). IT outsourcing, the largest proportion fo total outsourcing completed globally has steadily increased from 19% of total IT budgets (AMR Research, 2003) to a projected level of at leas 30% by 2015 (Goodman, Ramer, 2007). Outsourcing will continue to flourish across all industries, as IT continues to lead its growth, advertising, marketing, public relations, lead generation and marketing program management will follow. The key factor for this transition is the fact that as company databases, systems, and IT architectures continually evolve to be more customer-centric, the continual outsourcing of every facet of marketing, including advertising will continue.
For the firm considering creating their own advertising department versus outsourcing this function, there are several factors to keep in mind. It is the intent of this analysis to evaluate these factors, keeping them in the broader context of how the global economics of marketing are shifting more towards speed of response, accurate and clarity of marketing strategy execution (McGovern, Quelch, 2005).
Securities and Exchange Commission overview
The mandate of the Securities Exchange Commission (SEC) is, according to the SEC's website, "to protect investors, maintain fair, orderly and efficient markets and facilitate capital formation" (SEC.gov, 2009).