Creating Business Policy An Organization Can Grow With

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If I asked you, right now, to explain your organization’s cancellation or make-good policy – could you do it? Do you know who owns it, who is responsible for regular validation and who has the authority to change this policy?

If you answered “no” to any of these questions, then I have some news for you. This responsibility should probably fall to you or your Ad Ops team. This is because your team is probably already involved in the processing of these rules, helping to clean up when the rules are broken or even enforcing some part of these rules. Even if the rules are not written down, someone in your organization knows better and is following some sort of best practices.

How do you get the rest of the company to also follow best practices – how do you roll out a new, improved or modified business policy? Where should you begin?

Whether rolling out a simple cancellation policy or a more complex make-good policy – there are 4 critical steps to follow:

#1: Determine the policy in one simple sentence or paragraph.

This description needs to have two parts; a) a short explanation of the risk to the business the policy is meant to prevent and b) the general rule for mitigating or preventing said risk. If the policy is not communicated or understood – users will ignore it.

 

Cancellation Policy Example: When a client cancels an IO, our Sales team must lower their forecast, Finance must adjust invoices and Ad Ops must stop delivery per the contracted terms. It is therefore imperative that upon receipt of a client cancellation that Sales Management, Finance, and Ad Ops are notified immediately.

 

 

#2: Define the process including every step which is required and the responsible parties.

It is recommended to use a visual workflow diagram so that someone unfamiliar with the process (such as a new employee) can easily see and understand the order of the steps and hand-off points within the process. If the process steps are not clear – users will skip them.

 

Cancellation Process Example: Client notifies sales person of canceled order. Sales person requests this notification in writing and within 24 hours (regardless of receiving the confirmation), notifies Sales Management, Finance, and Ad Ops via email. Finance makes a note of this, Ad Ops stops the campaign per the out clause and Sales Management reports this in weekly call. When the written cancellation notice is received, sales person forwards this confirmation to all parties. Finance officially records this cancellation in system of record.

 

 

#3: Identify the enforcement points, repercussions for inaction and approval authorities.

This is where you’ll need to get other teams involved. Find out how the policy and process impact each group and have them enforce certain data points or due dates. Make sure management supports any repercussions and is willing to enforce them. Finally, make sure the people who are selected as approvers know their responsibilities and are able to perform their tasks in a timely manner. Tip: make sure to get management buy in even if management will not be directly involved – you want the people who will hear complaints to be supportive of every element of the policy. If the rules are not defined and enforced – users will abuse them.

 

Cancellation Enforcement & Approvals Example:

  • Every cancellation submitted is reviewed by Ad Ops and Finance within same business day and must be stopped according to the signed IO. If a campaign is not stopped in a timely manner, any delivery which cannot be billed to the client must be reported in writing to the department heads of Ad Ops and Finance.

     

  • If an IO has a non-cancelable clause, sales person must work with client to agree to payment per the clause. Any exception to such clauses must be authorized by CFO.
  • At the end of every week, Finance produces a report showing revenue pipeline including all canceled orders. Sales Management reviews in weekly team meetings. Any sales person who reports a cancellation more than 24 hours late (as determined by client’s cancellation date or email date stamp) is “fined” 2% of their commission for every day the cancellation is submitted past the 24 hour window.

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    #4: Accept that change and improvement is necessary.

    Now that you’ve clearly defined the policy, the steps required and the expectations and repercussions, you need to pay close attention to how people adopt and use – or abuse – the new policy. Don’t assume that you’ve gotten it exactly right the first time. Instead, consider your first roll out a working beta and ask users for feedback. Be sure to help users understand why certain steps or approvals are necessary using real examples of potential risk.

    Refine, revise and roll out a new version until you are confident that you’ve created a policy which fits the business. As your business changes, apply the steps above to your existing policies in an iterative process until the change settles down and the policies fit the new business. If you follow these steps to create, refine and eventually to re-write your business policies, you can be confident that they will fit your business today, will have high adoption and acceptance going forward and can be easily modified to fit your business as it changes and grows.

     

     

    Wendy Mazzoni is Vice President of Operations at Glam Media where she is responsible for worldwide ad operations, publisher support and systems development. Formerly vice president of advertising operations for Fox Interactive Media, she led the operations, advertising infrastructure and creative services teams supporting the sites of MySpace, IGN, AskMen, American Idol, RottenTomatoes, Fox.com and GameSpy. Wendy has over 10 years experience in online operations and production and has managed 6 system launches from content to purchasing to order management.