Seven months ago, I was given the opportunity to lead the Corporate Marketing team at Nationwide. Prior to this, I served as CMO of our Property & Casualty business unit and most recently, led of our Financial Services marketing team.

Now that I’m on the “other side of the desk,” there are opportunities to take our major corporate groups (brand identity, creative services, digital marketing, marketing operations and technology) and create a high-performing internal agency. We recognize the importance of being a team that drives operational excellence—a group that creates results through a seamless process with our clients. And while there may not be an instruction manual for how to create a powerhouse internal agency, we have identified three key areas of focus for our team to drive toward our goal.

1. Understand the needs of our client partners. Recognize the needs of our members, policy holders, agents, intermediaries, and sales partners and develop solutions with our clients that are driven by cost, timing, and brand messaging.
2. Exceed customer needs and expectations. Create all communications through the lens of our end consumer, making online and offline needs-based tactics simple and easy to understand.
3. Be engaged and accountable for what we do. Drive engagement for our associates through celebrations of work, team awards, open coaching and feedback, and the ability to accurately track time against projects.

By focusing on these areas, we are driving process improvements through our briefs, account management and clear, consistent communication. We are excited to push ourselves to a place that through continuous improvement processes will make us the agency of choice for our client partners.

Bill Burke is Senior Vice President of Nationwide Corporate Marketing.