In Reframing Agency Procurement (Part 1), Ashley Evans shared the sustainable success possible with long-term agency partnerships from the agency perspective. In this Part 2, I'm sharing the reframing potential from the procurement team's perspective.
Many procurement leaders have already moved beyond transactional cost control to advisory, judgment-based roles emphasizing long-term value creation. And AI is accelerating this shift.
As AI absorbs analytical and process-heavy work (spend analysis, market research, contract review), the human role in procurement is being redefined. The greatest value now lies in areas machines can't replicate—stakeholder trust, nuanced category strategy, and negotiations that depend on emotional intelligence and context.
This evolution influences how agencies are selected and measured.
How the Definition of Value Is Changing
Value isn't static. In recent years, many tech organizations prioritized growth and speed to market, supported by readily available capital. Today, AI-driven disruption is forcing those companies to heavily invest in new technologies and innovation resources—all while competing for increasingly cautious investment dollars.
In other industries, consumer packaged goods (CPG) for example, value may be defined differently. Companies in these industries may be looking to hold market share in some mature markets and penetrate new ones. They may see more value in efficiency, supply chain resilience, and brand endurance.
The key is how both circumstances impact agency fit, and how success is measured. In either environment, agencies that want to win—and keep—business have to understand how their clients define value right now, not how they defined it three years ago.
What Strong Agency Partnerships Look Like Today
Agencies that succeed long-term lead with curiosity. They do the homework. They understand a client's market position, pressures, and trajectory—not just where the business is, but where it's headed.
Rather than relying on polished case studies, strong partners ask better questions, listen closely, and adapt their proposals to address the realities their clients face. They demonstrate the ability to support organizations through multiple phases: growth, plateau, and even decline. And they show how ideas and campaigns can withstand uncertainty.
These strategies are what earns attention, and, more importantly, trust.
Playing the Long Game
Procurement, at its best, is already aligned with a more holistic view of value. The challenge, and the opportunity, is staying adaptive as that definition evolves.
Agencies that invest in understanding their clients' shifting priorities, co-define meaningful KPIs, and remain indispensable through both good times and bad will build the strongest partnerships. This is true collaboration, and where long-term value is created.
Smarter Selection: A Joint Framework
So, both agencies and procurement teams share the view that the way organizations select agency partners should be evaluated as much as the partnerships themselves. The trouble is that selection processes are often a one-size-fits all approach involving a spread of elaborate pitches, regardless of the scope of work.
The solution is not to eliminate rigor, but to align it to purpose. Context should drive the process, which requires a framework.
The Run, Optimize, Test, and Learn framework offers a practical lens for rethinking agency selection. The premise is straightforward: the nature of the engagement should determine the nature of the process.
Run: Embedded Strategic Partnership
The run stage requires the deepest engagement. Example scopes include ongoing brand stewardship, integrated campaign management, and long-term creative strategy. These relationships are where institutional knowledge compounds, and where the value case for retention is strongest.
- What the agency needs: Time and access. To deliver at this level, agencies need genuine immersion in a brand's challenges, culture, and direction. A pitch that asks for speculative creative output in two weeks doesn't simulate this, and therefore doesn't predict success in the role.
- What the process should look like: Rigorous but relational, and ideally simulation-based. Consider structured discovery sessions or collaborative briefs rather than speculative presentations. Evaluate strategic thinking over executional polish. Include multiple stakeholders from the business in the assessment. Chemistry and ways of working matter as much as credentials.
- What procurement teams should guard against: Using cost as the primary differentiator at this tier. When agencies are squeezed to win run-level work, the relationship is compromised before it begins.
Optimize: Project-Based with Outside Perspective
The optimize stage includes discrete, high-stakes, bounded work. Examples include a new visual identity, a campaign refresh, or a market entry. The engagement is defined in scope, and the value of outside perspective is central to the brief. Competition of ideas is appropriate here; full relationship-building is not.
- What the agency needs: A genuinely open brief and honest evaluation criteria. Agencies investing in optimize-level pitches should know up front that this is a project engagement, not an audition for a longer relationship. Transparency about scope attracts the right competitors and improves the quality of submissions.
- What the process should look like: A structured but time-limited pitch. Evaluation criteria should be shared in advance. The goal is fresh thinking, so the process should reward creative ambition rather than safe, pre-approved ideas.
- What procurement teams should guard against: Scope creep in both directions, treating a project brief as an opportunity to test for a strategic role the agency was never going to fill, or treating an optimize engagement as a low-investment shortcut when the work warrants deeper partnership.
Test and Learn: Proof of Concept
The test and learn stage include bounded, exploratory engagement, such as a new channel, a new technology, or a new format. The goal is learning, not commitment. Speed and intellectual honesty are the markers of success.
- What the agency needs: A clear hypothesis and the freedom to move fast. Agencies entering a test and learn engagement should know exactly what question is being answered and what success looks like.
- What the process should look like: Lightweight. A capabilities conversation and one or two relevant examples should be sufficient to shortlist. There is no justification for a full pitch process at this stage, as the investment would outweigh the scope. Smaller, more specialized shops may be ideal here, and the process should be open to them.
- What procurement teams should guard against: Applying run-level scrutiny to test and learn engagements. Over-engineering the selection process is itself a form of value destruction; it slows learning, deters the right partners, and signals a risk aversion that undermines the purpose of the exercise.
A successful test and learn stage should have a defined pathway to escalation. Pilots that perform should not die quietly; they should have a clear route to becoming embedded partnerships.
Making the Framework Work in Practice
Three conditions are required for this model to deliver on its promise.
Framework Stage Alignment
Procurement and marketing leaders don't always agree on what type of engagement they're running. A marketing leader may see a creative strategy review as a run-level undertaking; Procurement teams may approach it as optimize-level. Resolving this disagreement before the process begins is itself a governance discipline, and one worth building into the briefing stage.
Transparency With Agencies
The value of this framework is partially contingent on sharing it. When agencies understand which category of engagement they're entering, they can calibrate their investment, involve the right people, and respond in a way that genuinely serves the brief. Clarity about process type should be a standard element of any RFP or outreach.
Discipline About Escalation
These framework stages aren't bound forever. Test and learn engagements that succeed should be able to evolve into run relationships without requiring a rigorous competitive process. Building the pathway, and honoring it, is what turns a framework into a culture.
From Both Sides of the Table
The conclusion is no longer theoretical—it's practical.
Agency procurement shouldn't be measured by how efficiently costs are compressed, but by how intelligently value is cultivated. AI is already accelerating this shift, stripping away process-heavy distractions and forcing clearer conversations about judgment, adaptability, and long-term business health.
Organizations that treat procurement not as a checkpoint, but as a steward of enterprise value will thrive. And the agencies that endure will be those that trade short-term theatrics for long-term resilience.
Agency partnership success is not about the softening of commercial rigor—it's about sharpening it.
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