Explained
The details below outline how Informa Engage charges internal Informa businesses for provided services & support. Further questions regarding recharges should be directed to Claudio Goldbarg or John Ecke.
- Informa Engage operates on a zero operating profit basis; Informa Engage recognizes no revenues. Informa Engage cost base is recharged out to the various businesses for which it provides support
- All revenues associated with services (campaigns, programs, projects, etc.) delivered by Informa Engage are recognized 100% on the market P&Ls.
- Businesses supported by Informa Engage have recharges included within their annual budget. Budgeted recharges are based on prior year activity and the projected cost basis of Informa Engage’s support by departments. If a business starts receiving services after annual budgets are set, recharges will be included with each quarterly true-up.
- Approximately 85% of Informa Engage cost base is staff, the collective team handling all the various parts of set-up & delivery. The remaining cost base is primarily shared technology and platforms needed to execute on the delivery of products’ programs (e.g., Ceros, Convertr, WordPress, etc.).
- The primary base methodology used to determine quarterly recharges is the time spent by the Informa Engage team on campaigns or programs specific to a given business. Informa Engage teams track their time spent using a project management system called Workfront. For Digital Advertising (ASG), Audience Extension, and Direct Marketing (e.g., email), recharges are based on volume (which is an indicator of time spent) – Advertising Solutions Group (ASG) by number of campaigns in Fattail (the ad inventory booking system).
- The Informa Engage Finance team has translated average standard delivery times to a $100 per hour forecasting rate to help in-market businesses 1) estimate the recharge costs associated with any specific product, project, or program proposed and ultimately sold, delivered by Informa Engage. The recharge sent back to the in-market business via the quarterly recharge, and 2) to set product and client pricing accordingly.
- Recharges are trued-up on a quarterly basis to reflect the actual work provided for each business and the actual expenses incurred by the Informa Engage team. For legacy Penton businesses on Oracle, the true-ups are done automatically via a journal entry for each brand. For legacy Informa or UBM businesses, the true-up entries to each brand are pushed through the Hub intercompany process, for which business manager approval is necessary.
- If a business decides to change (add or withdraw), then a notification in writing is requested. If it is a withdraw, a minimum of 4–6-month notice, depending on support level and area, is required to ramp down and transition, in order to properly address any potential stranded overhead. For adds, it depends on how quickly we can scale-up in areas of support needed.
FAQ'S
If your brand’s P&L leader and finance manager are aware of recharges associated with using Informa Engage and sign-off on proceeding, we can begin to scope the support needed and develop a plan to provide that support.
Product customization (deviating from standard by market or client), strict lead filters, and high lead goals are three key variables that lead to extended execution times, and thus recharge costs. The
other variable worth noting is if Informa Engage needs to hire an outside freelancer for content creation, rather than leveraging your in-market content team.
Program delivery excellence requires unique skills and platforms from various Informa Engage teams working in lockstep with each other. To truly replicate in-market teams, it would require multiple hires with unique skills, platform investments, and management oversight. The cost of doing so would far exceed an Informa Engage recharge. Attempting to replicate Informa Engage’s delivery by layering onto the backs of in-market teams, or via a few generalists, will give false perception of cheaper execution. In reality, it only leads to lesser quality execution, while pulling in-market resources out of their swim lanes, ultimately increasing costs and delivery time. Outsourcing simply shifts the dollars externally versus keeping dollars internally with Informa, leading to a less cost-effective solution for marketing services. Attempting to replicate Engage delivery by layering onto backs of in market teams, or via a few generalists, will give false perception of cheaper execution but in reality only leads to lesser quality execution while pulling in market resources out of their swim lanes ultimately increasing time to deliver, and increased costs. Outsourcing simply shifts the dollars externally vs keeping inside Informa, in addition to being less cost effective for what you receive in return
We can provide an estimated cost per product execution using an estimated cost of $100 per hour rate multiplied by the average hours needed (broken out by Informa Engage department) to execute on that specific product. That said, actual recharges are determined quarterly and represent the collective work performed over a given quarter by Informa Engage teams, so you will not be billed on a per-product basis.
Informa Engage works with some markets in a hybrid model, whereas some functions of delivery are embedded directly within the in-market team. In that case, it will bring recharge cost down due to less hours needed from Informa Engage on overall delivery. However, it often leads to a less
streamlined post-sale workflow, which can result in longer execution times and decreases the cost-effectiveness of Informa Engage. It can also layer in a degree of uncertainty around delivery execution from Informa Engage’s POV.
Informa Engage uses Workfront, a work management software tool, to help keep track of Informa Engage’s team time along with product & delivery details. This is the primary method for Informa Engage teams to track time spent by brand and product.
Informa Engage will provide each group with a Quarterly Service Report (QSR) that is delivered in conjunction with quarterly recharge true-ups. This report will detail the Informa Engage-supported activities, including by not limited to, overall activity volumes, volume by product, hours spent by Informa Engage teams, average yields per product, etc. It’s designed to provide context to your quarterly recharge.
A handful of certain charges are incurred and billed directly to the market P&Ls during the delivery process. These cost areas include contractors/freelancers, lead purchasing, platform costs per usage from ON24, and small Adaptive fee (our outside partner) for an audience extension campaign.
The short answer is 4-6 months, but it really depends on the level of support needed or currently given. If light support is required, then it’s easier to add or reduce support time. Heavier levels of support take longer to put in place, or unwind from, because it requires shifting or scaling Informa Engage resources. By shifting resources, we can guard against stranded costs being burdened by other groups.
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