How Razorfish unlocked productivity and improved collaboration with Freehand

As a global leader in marketing transformation, the team at Razorfish is laser-focused on helping brands and businesses grow by creating unforgettable experiences that connect and enrich people’s lives. 

Challenge

The team at Razorfish is no stranger to high-visibility projects with tight deadlines. Working with some of the world’s leading brands, they are responsible for many of the marketing campaigns that have become synonymous with products and services that you use in your day-to-day life. 

Several of the brands that they work with are high-profile pharmaceutical companies, which means that there are hundreds of considerations for every campaign, so it is critical that the team has access to all of the relevant information that they need before they begin. 

“Before we begin working on a campaign, there are many variables that need to be accounted for. Briefing documents, onboarding documents, legal documents and much more. For any initiative, we’re managing a number of different resources before we even start. What that has done in the past has made for a really choppy workflow. Some people know where the documents are, others do not. Our work needs to be as buttoned up as possible and in order to do that it takes time, it takes attention to detail. But when you’re spending time hunting down documents, you end up sacrificing the creativity and flow of a successful working session,” says Matthew Peabody, Creative Director, Razorfish. 

When time is of the essence, teams need a workflow that makes work easier, more seamless. They need a place where they can come together to ideate and iterate, all while having access to all of the pertinent information required. Bringing together all of the critical aspects of work — all in one place. 

Solution

With the help of Freehand, the team at Razorfish has been able to streamline their workflows to become more efficient and productive — ultimately leading them to build more successful campaigns for their clients.

Freehand has changed the way that we work. If you’re looking for something that is going to optimize your workflow and as a result create the best possible outcome that you could imagine — Freehand is it.”

When the team at Razorfish began using Freehand, their goal was to create a space where they could collaborate on presentations and to be able to share that work directly with clients. But once they began using it, they realized that it enabled them to do much more. It unlocked a new way of working that saved them valuable time.

The team at Razorfish now use Freehand not only as a place to collaborate, but also as the single source of truth for their campaigns. It is where the team can go from information gathering, to brainstorming, to execution — in one place. Freehand has become a natural part of the day-to-day work of the team. 

“Freehand has become our single source of truth to manage all of the assets and resources that we need to work on our client projects. That alone is so crucial because in our business, time is of the essence. It has improved our productivity because we are able to repurpose the time, energy and focus that we would have to give looking for all of the relevant information, and give the work our full attention. This results in happy clients and happy clients result in a happy workforce.” 

Freehand has changed the way that Razorfish works together. In addition to optimizing their workflow, they have also been able to create a more interactive and inclusive working environment for their team. 

One main factor in that is the intuitive nature of Freehand. “Freehand is incredibly intuitive. Our team has been able to quickly jump in and learn how to use the tool. Within a day, they were able to pick right up and understand all of the context of what we’re doing. ” 

Freehand has enabled the team to move faster by removing some of the common barriers to collaboration. By giving the team a single source of truth, the team has been able to zone in on creative work without the mental load of information gathering. In addition, it has also mitigated risk for the team by ensuring that they have all of the documentation that they need to be able to successfully create campaigns and feel confident that they have everything that they need to do so. 

Matthew also notes that Freehand has really opened up collaboration for those that may not normally feel comfortable sharing in other settings.

“Take a brainstorm for instance. We have one rule for our brainstorms — no idea is a bad idea. Everybody gets a voice. With Freehand, we have been able to establish a very welcoming environment where folks go in to work, collaborate, or bounce ideas around with each other.” 

Results 

Increased productivity

Getting into a creative mindset is critical for the team at Razorfish. When the team has to worry about information gathering, it diverts their focus and takes them out of their headspace. With Freehand, they’re able to access all of the information that they need in one place, leaving them with time to focus on impactful, collaborative work. 

“Our work streams have become much more fluid, we’ve been able to save so much time. We’ve been able to repurpose that time to create very impactful work, rather than work that feels rushed or like it’s a work in progress.” 

Single source of truth

Freehand has been helpful in clear, transparent, and actionable communication. With information flowing into their team from many different places, it’s critical that they have a consistent single source of truth. Freehand has ensured that everyone on the team knows where all of the critical information is, has access to it, and can work quickly and efficiently. 

We’ve been able to save so much time just by having everything compiled in one place. Knowing that if we needed to reference a certain document, we know that it’s all in one place in Freehand. It’s become part of our daily routine.” 

Cross-functional collaboration 

Freehand has unlocked collaboration within the team at Razorfish. “It allows us to speak with one another as a team – comment on each other’s work, reference particular documents, institute polls, and put a thumbs up or thumbs down on particular work that we’re liking.” 

“It’s provoked the introverts to participate and feel comfortable doing so. It provides a very safe, very intuitive, very easy to understand environment for those to be themselves, which you can’t really say about a lot of platforms. Freehand has allowed people’s personalities to shine within it. The fact that it has the functionality to provide these variables for one’s personality to shine is what makes it that much more special.” 

My team has never worked better and more fluidly together, and has never, as a result, created better work than we have by using Freehand.” 

By leveraging Freehand, the Razorfish team has been able to harness the power of their creative process by saving meaningful time that has allowed them to create impactful work that their clients love.