We Are Amnet is Rocking the Production Waves with Smartshoring®

Off-shoring, near-shoring, no-shoring - We Are Amnet, a global creative production agency - can do better than all those. Enter: Smartshoring®. This is the proposition that We Are Amnet launched with in 2017 when it recognised a market need for more flexible, not to mention affordable, creative production options. The company was founded by the Enerji Group, based in Chennai, India, where infrastructure and staff costs are lower in comparison to Europe.

What is Smartshoring®, you might ask? “It’s a way to bring onshore and offshore teams closer together while providing in-country client service and sales support,” says Stef Sokolowski, We Are Amnet’s global managing director. The reason that it works is due to the “certainty” We Are Amnet provides to its clients, according to Stef. “Any business is all about people, and having partners you can trust is paramount for effective relationships and producing exceptional quality work to tight deadlines.” Today the company has expanded past its original location to include production locations in Central America and other parts of India, alongside many regional client services hubs.

A few key market challenges are currently shaping brand and in-house agencies’ needs. Stef sees these as, “The need to create content at scale, being under pressure to produce at a lower cost, and retaining key creative talent.” Far from conjecture, Stef’s knowledge is taken directly from the 2023 Benchmark Report for Offshore Creative Production where access to lower cost resources, scalability, and 24/7 resources were the top three reasons for brands and agencies to use offshoring. 

Covid, unsurprisingly, had a hand in this too. “Since covid the market has seen a dramatic shift in terms of technology and flexibility in working locations. This in turn has created a mind shift around offshoring. Previously many brands and in-house agencies were nervous about communicating effectively with an offshore team. Now many of our clients themselves work remotely with their teams, so there has certainly been a realisation that location doesn’t need to be a barrier to success,” analyses Stef. 

With this shift in attitude, We Are Amnet is alleviating any remaining hesitation about its Smartshoring® model with a “right person, right seat” principle. It’s a simple way to say that every task needs to be performed by someone best suited to it which We Are Amnet is confident it can guarantee. On the client side Stef has seen how, for example, “asking creatives to produce hundreds of versions of the finished campaign creative isn’t making the best use of their talent and could lead to them leaving the business in favour of somewhere they can spend more time creating original content.” Taking such a tailored approach ensures satisfaction for all parties involved, with clients getting the highest calibre of work and staff enjoying job satisfaction since their skills are directed only towards the work they’re experts in. 

This model has been tried and tested over the years with multiple clients though the work We Are Amnet is doing with Rebel Fish, Norwegian Cruise Lines’ in-house agency, is particularly notable. Rebel Fish works on a “follow the sun” model with teams based in North America, South America, Australia and the UK. “We Are Amnet acts as an extension of these teams to develop content at scale for their global markets. Our dedicated and scalable teams are trained in all brand, ship and regional guidelines and execute against pre-set SLAs,” Stef explains. The benefits to Rebel Fish are twofold - We Are Amnet’s support allows seamless planning for its marketing managers, and it frees up the creative teams to work on the big ideas. 

Underpinning the scalable and flexible Smartshoring® model is a sophisticated tech suite. After all, “technology is key to delivering assets at scale and facilitating effective communication,” Stef states. Joule, the company’s industry leading martech solution for creative production, is the proverbial jewel in We Are Amnet’s tech crown. “Joule ensures teams are always connected, providing transparency throughout the campaign lifecycle with the ability to automate production tasks, repurpose content, and provide regional consistency.” 

AI is likely to form a part of the company’s suite of solutions for clients though its capabilities and applications are in the discovery stage right now. “As AI continues to evolve and become smarter everyday, we have barely scratched the surface of its full potential. Currently, we’re seeing smart automation that creates regional or versioned content on the fly, rather than relying on pre-set templates,” says Stef, hinting at what’s to come. 

Stef notes that We Are Amnet’s past, present and future successes wouldn’t be possible without its people. The company is guided by 12 key principles including ‘customer obsession’, ‘build on failures’, ‘be a bar raiser’ and ‘earn trust’. These shape the company’s culture and mission; in turn, this nurtures long-term relationships, and creates certainty for clients. Together with the guiding principles, gratitude is central to We Are Amnet’s culture, Stef shares. “One of the ways this works in practical terms is at the end of meetings we have an optional ‘gratitude giving’. You can choose anyone in the company or outside of it who you feel deserves some praise; if they are not in the meeting you email them after to let them know. This helps everyone to remember all the great people they work with, the work they are producing, and for individuals to feel positive about themselves and realise how much that is appreciated.”

Growth and innovation are ongoing for the company. Next is a move to increase the team with more talent in Asia and the Americas to support a growing roster of clients. “We are actively developing bespoke creative production solutions for new clients and working to bridge the gap between regions for our global clients,” says Stef. “Our investment in workflow and automation is ongoing and we are excited to launch Joule later this month. The platform will provide key dashboards for our clients to have full transparency into costs, asset reusability and areas of efficiency.”

Founded on a brand promise of “making our customer’s lives easier”, and together with its admirable guiding principles, We Are Amnet is forging ahead in an unsteady marketplace that relies, more than ever, on dependable and scalable partners. With technology and the right people embedded in every step of the operation, Stef highlights that the company doesn't forget to have a good time too. “We like to have fun while making our customer’s lives easier! We believe that chemistry and culture are as important as the right skills and quality.