Procurement challenges were high on the agenda at our recent nineteen Agency Leaders meeting, which saw heads of agencies discuss current trends, market conditions, future pipeline and more.

Several agency heads noted a surprising new trend with clients not actually setting or sharing a budget prior to proposal, making it incredibly challenging to pitch.

“I’ve noticed a couple of times where they have refused to set a budget and we refused to pitch. In one instance, the client gave us a budget three days before pitch. But that’s quite a new thing,” said one agency head, adding “the curious thing is that this is not a new client. It’s a client we have worked with for over 10 years, so it’s a new behaviour.”

Another agency director said that they had four clients giving zero budget details prior to pitch.

The group also discussed procurement department’s having unrealistic expectations when it comes to rates and unreasonable payment terms, a topic which has come up in multiple nineteen meetings previously. “Everyone wants to keep as much cash as they can for as long as they possibly can,” said one leader.

Another suggested more education of procurement is needed in the events sector, with many procurement heads at major brands having no idea how much resource costs. “We were told by procurement at one client that we needed to lower our rates by a certain percentage, but if we did that it wouldn’t have even covered the cost of a freelancer. We said we couldn’t meet the rates they were asking as it wasn’t commercially viable,” she said.

One agency said that they recently had procurement attend on-site at a large event, which ended up being a great learning opportunity for them.

In terms of market outlook, several agencies said they had seen an uplift in RFPs and new business opportunities, but all agreed that lead times remain incredibly short with some large events for 300+ delegates and roadshows having lead times of just three to four weeks.

Although one agency head was feeling optimistic for the outlook for 2025: “we are seeing a lot more forward planning for the first half of next year, with some big projects planned nice and early and locked in.”