by Steve McGowan

As part of my remit at VYRE I often meet managers and directors of in-house creative service teams, and it's interesting to compare the challenges they face with those of external organisations i.e. advertising and design agencies.

This is easy for us to do given VYRE's close partnerships in this sector with agencies such as Lowe and Grey Advertising.

In looking a bit further into in-house design challenges I came across an interesting checklist of tactical suggestions for in-house design teams by Peter Philips, design consultant and author of Creating the Perfect Design Brief: How to Manage Design for Strategic Advantage

I've included the list here for those of you who have missed it as I personally think there is some good stuff included however what really interested me was in reflecting on how many of these challenges we have assisted the likes of Diageo and Shell with by employing a web based Creative Workflow and DAM solution.  

The main thrust of the list is based on the premise that in-house design depts. should

a) Become more visible to other depts.

b) Communicate their services more readily across internal customers

c) Demonstrate their advantages over outsourcing of design, such as superior corporate understanding more vigorously.

d) Essentially become a partner with the marketing dept. rather than simply a production service.

So in thinking about how a solution like VYRE Unify can help here, I'm not going to go into detail but if a browser based DAM and Creative Workflow tool, once in place cannot be configured to achieve all of the following then it's not the system it could be:

• Greatly improve the communication of design work and services around the business by exposing it on regularly used business applications.
• Provide audited project tracking that can be linked to budgets and therefore act as demonstrable cost comparator with outsourced options.Enable feedback to be given from across the business on design work and services, thereby creating a day to day relationship between design and the business
• Offer the chance for aligning the design depts. work visibly with the companies objectives, culture and brand, thereby demonstrating a major advantage over out-sourced companies

Here are the headlines from Peter Phillips list but you can read the full contents at http://www.creativepro.com/article/tips-house-design-teams

• Create Relationships
• Become a Strategic Partner
• Communicate and Investigate
• Show How You Can Compete
• Demonstrate Corporate Understanding
• Blow Your Horn
• Accept All Work and Be a Resource
• Be Innovative
• Become a Consultant