The growth of an agency often comes with numerous organizational and financial challenges. David Ait-Ali, co-founder of the advertising and communication agency Rébellion, shares with us the issues encountered behind the scenes and why choosing a business solution like Furious was a crucial step in their development.
Who are you?
David Aït-Ali, I am the co-founder and co-director of the agency Rébellion.
Rébellion is an advertising and communication agency, rather a creative agency. Part of our activity is advertising: creating content, producing it, and thinking about all the systems around brands. We not only think about strategy but also provide consulting.
We support our clients from A to Z as soon as they have communication or advertising needs.
What are the challenges in the sector?
The major challenges are profitability because, with the geopolitical and economic context, we have clients with increasingly reduced budgets, so we need to be more and more clever to achieve profitability, and Furious greatly helps us in this regard.
What issues did you face?
The main issues we encountered before using Furious were mostly related to project management and, of course, tracking our general financial indicators. When we chose to use Furious, it was precisely because, after conducting extensive benchmarking, we had encountered many software tools. With Furious, we found a solution that allows us to monitor projects from A to Z, as well as the major indicators we need to manage the agency daily.
Which KPIs do you monitor to manage the agency?
The KPI I monitor the most is obviously the gross margin and my revenue. We use it weekly during our Monday morning commercial meeting to start the week, where we summarize what happened the previous week: signatures, new projects arriving, etc. I track these KPIs almost daily on Furious. Additionally, there are several indicators that we monitor monthly with our client directors: profitability, margins. Similarly, we do a monthly cutoff using all the indicators that Furious can provide.
How do you handle invoicing and finances?
Regarding invoicing and cash flow, Furious allows us to have strong tracking. Whether it’s outgoing or incoming invoices, we operate with a purchase order system that works well with Furious. We have purchases directly linked to projects, and for incoming invoicing, this works very well.
For outgoing invoicing, it’s a fairly seamless system. Once a project is in, invoices are automated. One great thing about Furious is its ability to evolve, with features like electronic signatures for clients, who can sign quotes directly in Furious. This functionality didn’t exist when we integrated Furious—evolutions happen continuously.
For cash flow, we are connected to our bank with Furious, allowing us to track cash flow accurately. We have two structures, both on Furious, enabling us to monitor our network and see our breaking point: in how many months or years. This is very useful for detailed tracking.
How much time do you save with Furious?
I think the time saved with Furious is about 10% of the agency’s overall time. It may not seem like much, but as the agency grows, 10% becomes significant. It’s a real plus—many things are automated thanks to Furious, and it provides us with regular, useful indicators.
The most challenging part of finding a tool like this is getting a completely all-in-one solution designed from start to finish. We had a hard time finding such a solution. We saw many competitors, but none addressed the problem comprehensively.
