Optimising Resource Utilisation in Ecommerce Agencies: Strategies for Efficiency and Growth

Operations. It is such a broad term for any company and somewhat of a new weight of importance for e-commerce agencies. A good way to think of operations is that it’s the glue holding everything together, ensuring communication and transparency between departments.

Operations touch many areas of the business, including sales, finance, HR, and recruiting. Often, in small start-ups, you may not have the budget to hire for all these roles independently, so it’s worth investing in someone who can manage all of these areas for you, which are foundational pillars in any organisation.

We were joined by Tiara Tragas, Director of Operations at Coldsmoke, as our special guest at the E-commerce Agency Book Launch event. A delightful opportunity to delve into the concepts of aligning "people, process, and systems" from a utilisation standpoint.

Let’s talk utilisation

Utilisation is the first area an operations person or team should be prioritising in any agency. Utilisation is arguably the most important metric to track, measure, and analyse in parallel with agency profitability. Utilisation tells the story of profitability once analysed. Understanding where your resources’ time is being spent, where it was billable and not billable, tells the story behind the biggest pieces of the P&L: Revenue, Cost of Goods Sold, and Payroll (subcontractors and full-time employees). Without this story, it’s nearly impossible to understand the numbers behind the profit and loss statement, and it's very hard to understand where to improve for next month, quarter, etc.

Resource utilisation is the key to success for an agency to maximise efficiency, improve project delivery, and foster sustainable growth. Oftentimes, agencies struggle to manage this effectively. In this video blog, Tiara breaks down the key areas to manage utilisation, which simply comes down to 3 areas: systems, people, and processes.