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At the end of 2020 before Christmas, we had the opportunity to talk to Radek Maršík, Managing Partner of FleishmanHillard Czech Republic, and Veronika Hlobilová, financial manager of the agency. It was very nice to hear that someone had experienced a successful year, which, according to the awards and new clients, FleishmanHillard can certainly say. You can read in the following interview about what was behind the agency’s success, what interesting projects were implemented in the last period, and what role the Teamogy system played in this. Libor Černý, Executive Director of AD-IN-ONE Europe and Teamogy, spoke with the agency’s representatives.

Libor: We meet at the end of the year, which was not easy for many of us. How is your agency doing?

Radek Maršík: It has been incredible what we have achieved past year.  However, it had two completely different phases. At first, we thought it would be a very bad year, but by the second half, we knew that it would actually be a very good year.  Now that it is over, we can see that it has been one of our best years.

Naďa: And can we say that in some way we can blame COVID for that?

Radek Maršík: I wouldn’t blame COVID. Rather, we helped ourselves. Our success is the result of the work over the last two or three years after we moved our services into the 21st century.  Clients noticed the improvements and began to become more interested in our services.

Of course, the COVID crisis has affected us somewhat – some clients have reduced budgets and a few have left us. However, we were extremely successful in securing new orders. We started working for well-known brands such as IKEA, Henkel and Fortuna. We have managed to add eight or nine such important brands to our client portfolio, which now includes more than 30 clients and 50 concurrent projects.

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At the same time, I want to say that if we didn’t have a system like Teamogy, we would probably all go crazy.

The FleishmanHillard team in the Czech Republic

Libor: We are pleased with such a glowing reference. We will definitely mention it. Can you further explain what actually led you as an agency to search for the Teamogy system?

Radek Maršík: The initial reason for looking for a new system solution was the growth of the company. In the past few years, the company has grown not only in financial profit but also in terms of the number of new customers and orders.

Libor: What did you want from the new solution; what solution was replaced by Teamogy?

Veronika Hlobilová: From the new solution, we mainly wanted to simplify and automate business processes, more efficiently manage client contacts and internal and client documents, simplify financial management of orders, and provide online availability of all data in real-time. We previously used applications that were not integrated with each other – time reporting applications, budget calculators in the form of Excel, and much more.

Naďa: If we can go back to your agency services, in what way have they improved or changed?

Radek Maršík: In the past, PR agencies primarily provided standard media relations services – we wrote press releases, articles, arranged interviews, and provided publicity in the media. Today, I would say that we are far more strategic consultants. Our campaigns have a strong creative edge, and in addition to traditional media, we work with social networks, video content, influencers, and other paid channels.

A recent beautifully-integrated campaign we participated in was for the “Safe Restaurant,” which we made for the Czech Association of Breweries and Malthouses and the Association of Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises and Self-Employed Persons. From the beginning, we have been involved in creating an overall communication and public affairs strategy for defending the interests of gastronomy, preparing arguments and communication materials, shooting videos as well as preparing campaigns in the media, on social networks, and on other channels. In similar projects, we are transitioning from communication consultants to the role of marketing and business consultants. That’s probably the biggest change we had.

Naďa: You are implementing really interesting, and certainly large-scale, projects. How specifically does Teamogy help you and your team at work?

Radek Maršík: Personally, I see the greatest benefit in the fact that we managed to consolidate the internal processes related to the financial management of Jobs. We couldn’t imagine not being able to use our nice Excel budgets, but now we use templates in Teamogy without any problems. It is all even more under control now that budgets are created accurately. There is no longer room for, in this case, unwanted human error. We have well-recorded budgets, sales, purchase orders, and contracts. We’ve also been able to teach the people on the team to manage orders more effectively and show them what to look out for. The change is significant.

Another advantage is the availability of all our key documents in one central location, allowing them to be easily and quickly located electronically.

Veronika Hlobilová: I would also like to mention that we started to use the Treasures section a lot, I mean GEMs. We use it as a database for our commonly used business forms and documents – bids, for example. It makes it very easy for me and the people on the team to get work done.

Source: Teamogy system – GEMs 

Libor: Does Teamogy have any “fans” in the agency? In what positions do they work?

Radek Maršík: Teamogy has fans mainly among the company’s management staff, but all the people on the team are everyday users.

Veronika Hlobilová: I think there will be more fans :). I took over the ongoing training of users in the agency to make sure they know everything they need and to know about the useful updates in new versions of the system. I think that once a company has 15 or more employees, it should have an “internal system administrator” who will completely develop the use of the system and take care of the implementation throughout the company. This will help most users really like the system and will show them how it allows them to best serve themselves and the company.

Radek Maršík: To sum it up: As a company, we are growing – the number of employees is increasing and clients and orders are increasing. With all of this going on, I really can’t imagine that we would be able to manage this growth without Teamogy. It would not be possible. We need to focus on the work we do for clients; we need to have finances and Job administration in order. We do have that, thanks to Teamogy.

Naďa and Libor: Thank you for an inspiring, interesting, and definitely encouraging interview regarding Teamogy.

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