By Fred Schuster, Global CEO, InnerGroup

Running an in-house agency (IHA) right now means balancing speed, capacity, and cost without compromising your team. And it’s getting more complex.

The growing squeeze on internal teams

IHAs and marketing teams are often the first to feel pressure in economic downturns. So, in our recent poll, we asked marketing leaders: Which operational pressure is most likely to impact you in the next three months?

Here’s what you told us:

• 50% are concerned about headcount reduction
• 29% flagged variable partner costs
• 14% are under pressure to prove efficacy
• 7% are seeing tech investments postponed

When cuts threaten capability

The signal is clear: internal teams are again being asked to do more with less. And for the 50% bracing for headcount reductions, the question is: how do you protect brand excellence without sacrificing capability?

Marketing is viewed as a discretionary expense, making it a first target for cost-cutting. There’s a short-term mindset at play. Organizations prioritize immediate savings over long-term brand-building. This is despite clear evidence that maintaining marketing investment during downturns helps capture market share.

Too often, we see a knee-jerk reaction: cutting roles, leaning into lower-cost offshore, or over-relying on AI to fill gaps. But that thinking is short-term. There’s a better way to scale.

There’s a better way…

The smarter approach isn’t replacement—it’s reinforcement. Models like InnerStudio are designed to build around internal teams, not substitute them.

AI isn’t there to reduce headcount—it removes inefficiencies.
Offshore support shouldn’t mean losing control—it should increase your team’s capacity.
The goal isn’t to shrink your team—it’s to keep it focused on the creative work.

Optimize don’t undermine

At InnerGroup, offshore content production and AI take the pressure off IHAs and marketing departments. InnerStudio is a fully embedded, AI-powered offshore content model that keeps your core team focused on what matters: strategy, creativity, and brand building. Everything else, like versioning, resizes, localization, and repeatable production tasks, gets handled by an offshore studio, running on Mediaferry AI, our proprietary workflow tech. Mediaferry AI eliminates workflow inefficiencies, automating repetitive tasks while keeping creative control in the hands of in-house teams.

Build capacity, not compromise

Unlike traditional outsourcing, InnerStudio enhances internal capabilities rather than replacing them. As we always say, technology is a tool, but it cannot replace experience.

Optimize without undermining

Faster turnaround. Lower cost. Greater output. And most importantly, no talent is sacrificed to get there. Because the long-term advantage comes not from minimizing but from optimizing. For the 50% concerned about headcount cuts, this isn’t just a solution. There’s a way to keep your team intact while increasing their impact.

If you’re navigating any of these operational pressures, InnerGroup is here to help.