Intro:
BNR, doing business with……A very new company consisting of about 100 freelancers, living in 21 cities, 9 different countries and all specialized in marketing, web design or the communications arena. Here at the table we have Marjolein van Nieuwkasteele, market researcher and partner at UP THERE, EVERYWHERE. Marjolein van Nieuwkasteele, welcome! Thank you.
Int:
You are forming one company worldwide with 100+ freelancers. I understand many of them you have never physically met.
UP*:
That is correct.
Int:
How can you then be an effective company?
UP*:
We use modern technologies like Skype and the cloud and thus can work very efficiently. We have a great backbone and many IT tools to define our processes and communicate well.
Int:
How does that work? You are working at UP* as an account manager and a client is knocking on the door. Do you already have large customers?
UP*:
We already have some very large customers.
Int:
Can you mention a few names?
UP*:
In Norway we worked for the Nobel Peace Prize. And recently we worked for a Dutch international engineering and consulting firm.
Int:
Assume for the Nobel Peace Prize you are the account manager. What did the client ask you to do?
UP*:
They asked UP* to work on a new logo and identity.
Int:
OK, you have now said yes to the job. How do you proceed? You have these 100+ freelancers that can be engaged. Explain me how.
UP*:
We form an account team. This has been selected based on competency – region is less important because of the technology we use. We work according to the principles of the BASE-UP model. The model works from briefing to concept to final execution and follow-UP. We do all this for the Nobel Peace Prize in house under the name UP THERE, EVERYWHERE and use the necessary competencies.
Int:
Of the 100+ freelancers, one knows how to illustrate / design, another one knows how to translate a brand visually. (Hans van der Linden (another guest) knows all about this, I assume.) And all UP* members involved are going to Skype and chat and mail. How does that work?
UP*:
Yes, this is how we literally work!
Int:
Okay, that is interesting. I always think that a creative process needs to take place around a table, like in this room, where people see each other and have great sandwiches, fresh juice and good coffee, and then something develops. How does that work virtually?
UP*:
Every participant and partner is having its own professional network in which a lot happens. We also have the account team and when needed we physically fly people in. This is the way we worked for the Nobel Peace Prize. We fly people in when we feel that this is necessary.
Int:
Doesn’t that make you very expensive? Since you have people all over the world you can be cheaper, unless you have to fly them in.
UP*:
Of course it will cost something. We do not claim to be a cheap service provider. We do provide a good quality / price ratio because we have the expertise and use it as efficiently as possible.
Int:
Do you really need 9 countries / nationalities and 100+ people worldwide to guarantee quality? Can you not find that in the Netherlands?
UP*:
Partially yes. We aim for international clients.
Int:
If you have international clients you need international people.
UP*:
The UP* member spread ensures that they are familiar with local cultures.
Int:
Are these 100+ members all complementary to each other? That is impossible.
UP*:
Sure, but region is also important. So 100+ seems like a lot, but it is not. We also focus on Asia and Africa, and the US is very large, so 100 is not really too much.
Int:
What can regular companies learn from you? You are working with professionals in a very flexible way. You have been working for years with Philips. This is a very different company. How should a large company apply the UP* way of flexibility? What makes it different to work in such a flexible way?
UP*:
We can be very fast. We can operate very quickly and can select people in a very fast way. We also are very transparent, which is quite rare in the advertising industry. We recently heard about another agency where 7 people worked on a project to alter the date in an existing communications piece. 7 people were needed to work according to the old fashioned methods of the agency world. We are much faster. We are more transparent in costs and the way in which we work. This is why you should work with UP*!
Int:
What do you have to stop doing as a traditional company to be able to do this as well?
Hans van der Linden:
One often notices that it is very safe to do the work in the traditional way. You also see that in the events world. It is easier to buy an ad the same way that it has always been done. What you need is guts. In other words, do not choose the traditional safe way. Give these kind of initiatives a fair chance to get to a result in a very different way.
UP*:
Indeed. We are sometimes invited to work for the top management, while there are fixed appointments with an ad agency. Top management wants to do something completely different and in a different way. We recently did some work for Ericsson where they wanted to create an international forum very quickly. UP THERE, EVERYWHERE was invited, outside the regular paths. Within a few weeks we developed NEST (The Networked Society Forum). Have a look yourself. http://www.ericsson.com/nestforum/
With the regular ways of working you would not have been able to do that as quickly.
Int:
So much faster. Marjolein van Nieuwkasteele, thank you. Market researcher and partner at UP THERE, EVERYWHERE.
