scale

Challenge

Scaling Operations

In the fast-paced world of creative operations, eCommerce businesses must have sufficient production capacity to deliver product content on time, on brief, and on budget. However, it takes time to scale staffing and processes to meet changes in demand.

Common Obstacles

What's the problem (and our solution)?

It’s time-consuming to onboard new team members.
Getting new employees up to speed on a studio's unique workflows is challenging. New freelancers and hires require significant time to understand the intricate details and nuances fully.
Our Solution: The Creative Force Academy

Our robust learning platform, the Creative Force Academy, teaches new users everything they need to get to work immediately. The best part? They don't need to learn the entire platform; they only need to know how to use the section of the platform relevant to their role.

We have specialized learning tracks for art directors, photographers, retouchers, and more that only take a few hours to complete.

Working with multiple partners can pose a logistical challenge.
Managing relationships with external vendors and clients poses a communication and collaboration challenge. Tracking project details across multiple channels — email, text, messenger, Excel, Google Docs, and printed forms — can be overwhelming.
Our Solution: Collaboration tools for working with clients and vendors.

Creative Force makes communicating and coordinating with external vendors and clients simple. Setting up new post-production vendors in Creative Force with our direct integrations with leading providers or via FTP is simple. Creative Force automatically hands off files to the vendor and routes the finished work for quality control checks.

Brands and clients with unique workflows can be segmented into distinct "clients" in Creative Force. This grants client-specific users access only to style guides, workflows, and files that pertain to that brand. Adding new clients is easy and requires no support from Creative Force.

Due to limited space, studios are unable to fulfill requests.
Studios must clearly understand their capacity to ensure they have enough time, space, and staff to complete projects. Without this understanding, they won't be able to use their resources effectively or scale up their processes in the future.
Our Solution: Live View of Work Breakdown

Creative Force brings all production tasks into one platform. It allows teams to manage multiple studios and locations and provides valuable data to help them plan and scale output.

With this data, teams can better understand their studio's capabilities, plan shoots, determine their timing and quality, and use this information to optimize production planning.

New software has a steep learning curve.
When studios use multiple, loosely connected systems and generic software like Excel, Google Docs, and more, it's difficult for new users to know and remember the exact steps to find what they need when needed.
Our Solution: User-centered design and intuitive UI

With Creative Force, team members can focus on their tasks. Instead of learning a new process or remembering what happens next, users follow the on-screen workflow provided by Creative Force to accomplish their tasks.

The system will automatically inform the person responsible for the next step in the workflow once the previous step is complete.

Misplaced files, unclear art direction, missing production steps.
Staff can inadvertently lose files, reference outdated style guides, and miss essential steps when performing their work without a well-documented workflow.
Our Solution: Automation, Style Guides, and Workflows

Whether the user is a seasoned professional or just getting their feet wet, Creative Force makes their job easier. With automation, each asset automatically moves forward in the production workflow once the previous step is complete, so there is no guessing where to send the file next or the status of a deliverable. Files are automatically named, saved, and routed in the cloud.

Creative direction is served up directly on the platform through style guides. Assets only move to the next production step after the previous process is complete, making it difficult to miss any required steps, shots, or files. There are even automatic alerts if something doesn't look correct. 

A closer look

Our Approach to Onboarding

If you're managing a high-volume eCommerce content studio using outdated tools like spreadsheets and PDFs, Creative Force can help. For studio managers who want transparency, creatives searching for clarity, or anyone who has experienced the inefficiency of waiting for batch processing, Creative Force is your solution.

Creative Force was born from the constant struggle of content studios losing time and money due to daily workflow inefficiencies. We discovered that even successful studios were struggling with outdated methodologies, causing numerous issues like:

  • Creatives utilizing outdated style guides
  • Lost samples or missing samples on set
  • Inefficient communication regarding art direction
  • Work duplication due to lack of visibility
  • Piecemeal digital solutions that failed to meet needs
  • Inadequate data and insights for studio operations
  • High error rates due to manual processes such as file naming

It was apparent that content studios needed a paradigm shift in their operations. That's where Creative Force came in.

 

The Creative Force Academy

New customers will receive personalized onboarding and access to self-directed learning through Creative Force Academy. The Academy courses will introduce you to Creative Force's groundbreaking approach and the unique concept of "flow production." This approach ensures that assets continuously move through the creative production process, eliminating bottlenecks and streamlining operations. This helps keep all teams engaged and productive.

Users will also explore the three core applications that underpin Creative Force:

  • Gamma is our web application and central hub for content studios, allowing users to manage style guides, workflows, data, analytics, photo review, and internal QC.
  • Kelvin is our on-set capture app that integrates with any capture software, including Capture One. It provides photographers with all the crucial information they need for a shoot.
  • Hue is our retouching app that integrates with Photoshop to provide post-production requirements and an auto-QC feature to prevent errors.
Our courses offer a complete overview of the Creative Force ecosystem and how it transforms high-volume eCommerce digital asset production. Using Creative Force, brands and retailers can streamline their operations, gain new efficiencies, and have greater transparency.

Feature Focus

Introduction to Creative Force and Flow Production

Thomas Kragelund, CEO of Creative Force, introduces the concept of "flow production" and how it transforms creative production.

Learn more

Frequently Asked Questions

What is Creative Force, and how does it work?

Creative Force is a software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform that helps brands and retailers accelerate their eCommerce creative content production. It simplifies the process of planning and producing eCommerce content, improves cross-team collaboration, and ensures more transparency across every stage of production. With Creative Force, companies always deliver the highest-quality content on time and on budget.

Built on “flow production” principles, our platform utilizes intelligent automation to streamline workflows, resulting in consistent and repeatable processes. Creative Force also integrates seamlessly with existing systems, like Capture One and Adobe Creative Cloud, and features an intuitive interface.

How does flow production work?

In traditional batch production, all assets go through a single production stage before moving to the next step. This approach can lead to bottlenecks and delays. 

Creative Force simplifies content production through a continuous process called "flow production." This process involves moving individual assets through various production stages as soon as they are ready, resulting in an efficient and scalable content production workflow.

Who can use Creative Force?

Creative Force is for brands, retailers, and commercial studios with in-house or external teams that produce and manage eCommerce content, such as photography, video, and copywriting.

Creative Force provides intelligent workflow automation, enhanced production visibility, and a range of collaboration tools that benefit all teams, including studio intake, styling, capture, post-production, marketing, and more. By choosing Creative Force, you can scale your content production, gain better operational visibility, and speed up time-to-market.

Does Creative Force integrate with my existing systems?

Yes, Creative Force is designed to seamlessly integrate with your existing tech stack. We have industry-leading integrations with Capture One, Adobe Creative Cloud, and more.

The platform’s API-first architecture enables our customers to seamlessly connect with Digital Asset Management (DAM) systems, Product Information Management (PIM) systems, cloud storage platforms, and any other required destinations. 

Creative Force also makes it simple to work with external post-production vendors via FTP or API integrations.

Finally, our VPI Management extension makes it simple to work with product vendors to request, receive, and manage vendor-provided images (VPI).

What kind of support can I expect?

We understand that implementing a new system can be challenging, but our team is here to make the process as seamless and stress-free as possible. Our onboarding team will work closely with your team to set up Creative Force and empower your future success.

After onboarding, your Customer Success Manager will check in regularly. Our customer support team is also available 24/7 to help you with any product questions or concerns. In addition, we offer self-paced learning resources such as academy courses, support center documentation, and other materials to help you along your Creative Force journey.

On top of best-in-class customer support, we continuously update our platform with new features and improvements. Our biweekly releases can be easily installed without interrupting your work.