Do you have all the elements for a strong company culture?

Company culture can be defined as a set of shared values, goals, attitudes and practices that characterise a company. Company culture impacts all facets of the business, from recruitment to retention to performance. Organisations with strong corporate cultures have been linked to higher retention rates and increased engagement.

Company culture is a naturally occurring phenomenon; your company will develop a culture whether intentional or not. Culture is influenced by a company’s mission statement, core values, beliefs and attitudes, appetite and success of innovation, work environment, employee benefits, charitable and social events and flexibility/business working hours.

Post Covid-19 culture is going to play an extremely important role in retaining and attracting top talent. Has your organisation considered what changes need to be made to create/maintain a strong company culture post covid-19?

Developing your lead generation strategy

Since the onset of COVID-19, businesses have had to find new and clever ways to connect with their customers to generate sales and maintain relationships – this has led to the acceleration of digitisation as more customers shifted to online.

Customers now have the power to dictate when and where companies can interact with them. Organisations that are customer experience-minded and leverage communication technology to engage with today’s customer in the way they prefer – in the right channel, at the right moment, with the right information, will be most successful in converting leads.

Have you analysed the change in your customers’ behaviours to help better manage them and improve your customer experience?

The question on everyone’s mind - how will customers behave post the pandemic?

A pandemic is temporary but it will influence temporary behaviours into fundamental shifts - some things will revert to pre-covid, some things will look very different, and other things will be gone for good. Covid-19 propelled a whole new generation of digital adopters online with about 70% planning to keep using the new channels permanently. It is critical for companies to improve their online offerings to provide a competitive experience for digital adopters. The quality of the customer experience remains an influential buying factor. To improve the customer experience overall, organisations need to understand the changing wants, needs and expectations of their target customer in terms of product/service offerings, the channels they use to interact/engage and when they use these channels.

There is no one size fits all option

The covid-19 pandemic has fuelled the remote working trend that was already underway – it has accelerated the shift toward more flexible and customised models. If companies don’t reinvent their people strategy and how they support their employees, they will lose in the new reality. This week’s focus will be on “Ways of Working and Your People Strategy”.

Business leaders have the opportunity and imperative to redesign the future of work to unleash a new wave of human creativity and productivity. The new design will need to have intent and requires effort, leadership engagement and innovative thinking. This will result in unlocking new talent, creativity, and productivity benefits.

When redesigning your company’s ways of working, it is fundamental that you adopt a broad and holistic approach while considering the value at risk to revenues, efficiencies, customer and employee satisfaction, retention, acquiring new talent, sustainability, and wellness.

Christmas Reflections & Message from Jo

I'm a sucker for Christmas.

Since I've been a little girl, I’ve loved Christmas - so many great childhood memories:

1. Fresh pine branch - cut down by my dad / brother from our front yard

2. Very authentic Christmas decorations that were homemade and brought out year after year including decorated pine cones

3. Stockings filled will lollies and wisdom for the year ahead. My dad gave us a letter every Christmas to tell us why he was proud of us and reminders for the new year. I still have those letters and they have some pearls of wisdom for the new year.

4. Spending time with family and friends and having a laugh, sharing some food and appreciating the simple things

5. Summer break was a time to reset, relax and plan for the year ahead - lessons learnt and how to make the most of the new year

My childhood Christmas was centred around the church. My dad was an Anglican minister. Attending church services, involvement in plays and focus on supporting others who were not as lucky as us during this time. I always enjoyed the midnight service on Christmas Eve and after it we sat and ate some amazing food / gifts that were shared with us. People were very generous and great cooks.

As you get older things change, life goes quickly and before you know it it's another Christmas to celebrate! It's easy to make it too hard, stressful and a challenge but it's always good to remember what matters most - spending time with people you love most and to take a break, to breathe and plan your next year - what can I do better and what will make me happy?

For me Christmas means:

1.              A real Christmas tree - can't beat the smell!

2.              Find a way to send a positive message to the people that I love

3.              Finding time to connect with the people closest to me

4.              To reflect on the year and key changes for the upcoming year

My dad always thought about others, he was known for his caring nature and being there for others. I learnt from my dad about kindness, generosity of spirit, and making the best of every opportunity.

2020 wasn't the year that anyone planned but it was a great year. So many lessons and experiences and a good chance to reassess priorities and what is important and appreciate the simple things we take for granted.

Take time this Christmas break to;

• Enjoy time with family and friends

• Take a break and reflection time to think on what is important for you for 2021 and how do you achieve that

• Build your goals for 2021

… and remember

Smile and enjoy life – you only get to live once and leave your legacy.

“It isn’t how much time you spend somewhere that makes it memorable: it’s how you spend the time.”

— David Brenner

Jo Hands, Whiteark Co-Founder

A Comprehensive Covid Report

A closer look at how industries have been affected by the pandemic that swept the world.

Source: IbisWorld. Note: This is based on Stage 4 Restrictions.

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Recently, we asked our followers what they wanted. What would be truly helpful to them in these unprecedented times, and the answer? Industry specific breakdowns.

We all know that every sector has been affected in one way or another, there's heaps of generalised statements floating around that provide helpful overviews. But what people were after was a more specific breakdown of exactly what the impact would be to their area of operations and ideas around how they could pivot, adapt and thrive as we move forward into the new world normal.

So, here it is. A comprehensive deep dive into 18 different industries - we hope you enjoy the read.

What's in the report?

Setting the Scene
Impact: How exposed is your industry?
Impact Analysis: Exposure Definitions

Industry Deep Dives
Accommodation & Food Services
Arts & Recreation Services
Education & Training
Manufacturing
Professional, Scientific & Technical Services
Retail Trade
Mining
Construction
Health Care & Social Assistance
Transport Postal & Warehousing
Administrative & Support Services
Public Administration & Safety
Agriculture, Forestry & Fishing
Wholesale Trade
Electricity, Gas, Water & Waste Services
Finance
Information Media & Telecommunications
Rental, Hiring & Real Estate Services
Bonus Article: The Importance Of Innovation

Global Trends to emerge post Covid-19

We take a closer look at the trends affecting countries across the world as we emerge form the changes caused by Covid-19.

1. Connected Work

Connected work scenarios will drive the need for cloud everything. New subscription-based models will see growth in demand for unified communications as a service offerings.

2. ‘Lights-Out’ Operations

Autonomous “lights out” operations will drive demand for remote asset management solutions, and service providers will focus on data management strategies and data-driven business models.

3. Connected Living

An increased adoption of contactless surfaces post-pandemic will drive home automation and security markets.

4. Technology Advancements

Pandemic preparedness will speed up AI deployment and accelerate the pace of AI innovation.

5. Supply Chain Optimisation

Seamless integration of end-to-end digital supply chains will increase traceability, sustainability, and transparency within the supply chain ecosystem.

6. Human Augmentation

The adoption rate of customer behaviour analytics by enterprises will grow by 20% for the period 2019-2025.

7. Smart Cities

Increased spending on technology by smart cities will lead to a surge in the adoption of digital tools like crowd analytics, and increased focus on developing digital platforms and apps for citizens.

8. Digital Health

Digital health driven by telemedicine and robotic care will become the new standard of care delivery. Will require an increase in the number of service and technology providers.

9. Geo-Political

To protect themselves from economic fallout due to COVID, global organisations are coming together to restore geo-political and economic balance.

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Looking to capitalise on these trends and ensure your business is poised for success? Let us help.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations with a focus on people just as much as financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

SOURCE: Frost & Sullivan 9 Critical Trends Reshaping all Industries Post-COVID, 2020

The importance of innovation during a pandemic

According to McKinsey, organisations that have focused on innovation during the recovery of a crisis came back 30% stronger than companies who did not. Concentrating on the long term and planning for growth rather than survival will help gain a competitive advantage during the recovery.

The COVID-19 outbreak has impacted nearly every industry; and as the government begins to ease restrictions, companies are exploring ways to recover their losses. During the onset of COVID-19 organisations innovated rapidly with a short-term focus on continuing operations and employee safety. In the recovery phase, companies will require a considerable amount of strategic innovation (growth and change) rather than reactive innovation, to explore future opportunities centered around core business models.

It is key for organisations to innovate with a purpose to increase their likelihood of success for the long term. Companies should focus on growth and gaining an advantage over their competitors. The below framework will help with explore growth strategies.

Assess changing demands and needs of consumers

The recent pandemic has fundamentally changed the way most businesses operate, particularly because of the rapid adoption of digitisation. Companies need to understand the demands and needs of consumers by analysing the new patterns of spending. Once change has been identified, analyse what it means and its impact on your industry and business.

Consider ways to respond

Now that you understand the change in consumer spending patterns, explore ways in which your organisation is equipped to respond. This requires planning for the future, think about the pain points the changing consumer behaviour reveals and task your innovative experts with creating some new products or services to address these customer pain points.

Change your business model

Organisations need to accept that the way that their business operated prior to COVID-19 is history. It is important to identify ways in which your former business model has been permanently changed and then look at ways you can transform these models into new ones to make way for future growth.

Each industry and each company have their own unique challenges and opportunities to explore, so innovation will look different for everyone. One critical enabler to strategic innovation post COVID-19 is technology. Once you identify opportunities to pivot your business model, consider what technologies can help you get there - e-commerce, artificial intelligence, virtual realities, touchless technologies etc.

When considering your innovation strategy, remember to adapt to changing consumer wants, explore new opportunities, and allocate resources towards innovation.

Need to map your way forward through Covid19 and innovate from the inside out? Let us help.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations. Focused on delivering both commercial and financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and so we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

How to ensure your transformation is successful

Getting your transformation right is more important than ever. We are approaching the pointy end of 2020 and it’s time to think strategically and anticipate, and prepare what your business will look when the new normal emerges.

Your company may need to move in a new direction, accelerate product and service innovations, accelerate digitisation across the organisation, reduce expenses and improve efficiencies, or strengthen your competitive position. No matter what the business driver is, they will require a shift from the current state.

Planning and executing a transformation program to realise critical strategic objectives isn’t easy. It’s hard to believe that more than 70% of transformation programs do not successfully deliver what was required. Often, the plan that has been developed is right, it’s when you get into the execution phase that problems start to arise. People in the organisation then start to become cynical, “the last transformation program didn’t deliver the desired results so why would this one be any different”. Renaming the transformation program or allocating a different group of resources doesn’t usually result in the achievement of your desired outcomes.

We provide practical hands-on tips on how to ensure your transformation program is a success:

Lead from the front

Appoint a leader that is to be accountable for the program.  Be sure your leader is prepared to effectively lead people through change, be visible and drive the importance of this program. 

Be clear on what success is

Define what you are going to do, why you will do it, what the benefits of change are, and what the dangers of not changing are. Ensure you get buy-in from key stakeholders who will support the transformation.

Checklist:

• Has a clear vision of the future been articulated and widely accepted?

• Is the rationale for change sensible, clear and sound?

• Are benefits well defined?

• Does the case for change/opportunity outweigh risk?

• Has a clear roadmap been developed and shared to gain input and support?

• Have stakeholders who are critical to the transformation’s success been identified and their personal value drivers learned?

Is it clear how stakeholders will be proactively involved in making the transformation happen, to build their support and maintain their engagement?

Find your champions

Develop a champion network across the organisation to support and drive the program; ensuring key messages and impacts are well understood and accepted. Use this network to do communications, get feedback and help you create a positive momentum in the organisation / team around this program.

Importance of Change Management

Don’t underestimate change management requirements to successfully embed change in the organisation. Change management is a buzz word but the importance of it is critical to ensure the program is a success.  Work out what the team needs to support the change and provide the guidance required to ensure that the change is implemented.

Measure success

Accurately measure and track success. Ensure you are transparent where things are off track and communicate risks and challenges and appropriate mitigation plans.

This framework will guide you through your transformation, but the real power is in the effectiveness of the execution. And that’s where we come in.

Need to ensure that your own business transformation is successful? Let us help.

Whiteark is not your average consulting firm, we have first-hand experience in delivering transformation programs for private equity and other organisations. Focused on delivering both commercial and financial outcomes. We understand that execution is the hardest part, and we roll our sleeves up and work with you to ensure we can deliver the required outcomes for the business. Our co-founders have a combined experience of over 50 years’ working as Executives in organisations delivering outcomes for shareholders. Reach out for a no obligation conversation on how we can help you. Contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Digital Commerce

According to Gartner, five areas of digital commerce are being transformed due to the effect of Covid-19 on customer behaviours and businesses accelerating their adoption of online and digital alternatives.

1. Contact Purchasing

Contactless purchasing has become a preferred payment. Gartner predicts 80% of ordering and replenishment  will be contactless by 2024.

Customers:

Contactless payments and pickup/delivery

Operations:

Contactless business operations where companies can use robotics, artificial intelligence and computer vision to assist employees across the supply chain

2. Virtual Product Reviews

Currently the adoption of 2D and 3D product previews remains light.

Gartner predicts the uptake  will increase - software vendors offering visual configuration tools have reported a rise in business due to the pandemic.

Virtual Product Reviews may reduce the need for samples and showrooms and enable more customer self-service when buying configurable products.

3. Live Commerce Streaming Services

Live commerce involves video streaming to demonstrate products and interact with shoppers in real time to encourage purchases. Brands that have implemented livestreaming for selling or customer engagement are seeing early signs of success.

4. B2B Buying Experience

Businesses that sell B2B should think about transforming their shopping platform into one that has a more consumer-like feel to gain traction with younger professionals as they will expect a B2C like experience.

5. Enterprise Marketplaces

Enterprise marketplaces are online marketplaces operated by organizations that enable third-party sellers to sell directly to end customers.

Need to make the most of digital commerce trends?

Let us help. To learn more about how to leverage digital trends and pivot your business, contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

People Working from Home

Prior to the outbreak of COVID-19, many corporate employees felt that working from home was a treat, but how are people feeling now that they have no choice but to work from home?

Are you feeling connected enough to your superiors and team members? Are you feeling more or less productive? Are your stress levels heightened as you try to balance your work and home life at the same time, in the same space?

Before COVID-19 was detected in Australia a third of the country’s population was regularly working from home but in May 2020, during the peak of Australia’s first wave of coronavirus, almost half of the population was primarily working from home and this remains in place as everyone who CAN work from home MUST work from home.

Results from a OnePoll survey that queried 1,000 office workers working from home revealed:

80% 

of respondents believe working from home will be more common post the recovery period of COVID-19.

50%

Almost 50% are working more productively during the time they would usually spend commuting to and from work.

32%

are more focused because they are less distracted by colleagues.

70%

believe they have been more productive working from home than they otherwise would have been in an office environment.

36%

feel less stressed.

35%

said they prefer traditional job roles involving working from the office five days per week.

COVID-19 is a catalyst to redesigning the future of work, and create opportunities for organisations and leaders to look at things differently. 

The working from home trend could prove to be much more enduring than the pandemic, permanently changing Australia’s working culture, as working from home is likely to become a core part of the new normal.

There’s no blueprint for what we’re currently enduring and business leaders around the globe are adapting strategies to keep up. In addition to enhancing digital skills and improving infrastructure, it is vital that leaders focus on empathy as transformation and disruptions become the new norm.

Leaders need to proactively equip their teams with not just physical resources, but skills, mindsets, behaviours and values, that are vital in establishing strong and supportive foundations for remote working. Teams need to be more adaptive and stay constantly connected. Control has to some extent given way to trust, and people are learning how to do work disparately and with far less oversight. Be patient, be understanding and offer guidance and support where possible.

Please keep safe and stay connected, it is important to be mindful of everyone’s situation during these times.

Top tips for managers and leaders to successfully lead their team through Covid 19

Covid 19 has changed the way we work and lead teams.

It is really important that managers and leaders can recognise the new challenges facing employees.

The isolation of working from home impacts individuals differently and so leadership styles need to be reflected on and adapted to this new way of working.

Communicate, communicate, communicate

• Communicate clearly, often and simply

• Provide a clear understanding of what is expected from your team,  set clear priorities and expectations of roles 

• Be available via regular catch ups individually and team – phone and zoom/Microsoft teams mix it up as people are getting Zoom /Microsoft teams’ fatigue!  Don’t cancel these unless really need to

• A robust performance appraisal process with measurable KPI’s will help with this. But these may need to be reviewed and adjusted, make sure they are realistic

• Share what you can about how the business going

• People are uber sensitive about their job security, so it is important that they have a sense of being informed and kept up to date

Stay true to your values and culture

• Core values inform and reinforce your company’s culture, strategic direction,  recruitment processes and how you interact with your customers and clients

• Acknowledge that the meaning of values might vary with these challenging times, with most people remote working

• Lead by example

• For employees to adapt they need to feel valued. This will assist in their productivity and ultimate success. 

• You want your culture to be one that is supportive, empathetic, inclusive, collaborative, proactive and encourages initiative

• Recognize and reward employees who embrace and live the values, call this out int team forums

Genuinely care about your teams’ well-being

• Check in regularly and ask how your team really are, truly listen

• Be flexible to their person circumstances

• Show that you are human too, be authentic, talk about your fears, answer questions and reassure them about work and personal issues

• Have fun – in these challenging times find ways to connect and have fun…ask the team what works for them

• Promote your company Employee Assistance Program - make sure employees know where to find information, guidance and support for mental health

• Find out from your team what in terms of wellbeing initiatives, some suggestions are 10,000 /day step challenge, 1 hour/ day to do someone that makes you feel good, exercise/cooking relaxing this helps connectedness with employees and increases morale

• Promote the wellbeing initiatives that already exist

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Need a hand building your organisations capabilities to lead through Covid-19?

Let us help. To learn more about building and executing an inclusive strategy for your employees, contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Article by Phoebe Reid

Key things to consider when resetting your strategy post COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented disruptions for a range of industries and business that will influence the ways in which companies operate in the future. 

As businesses shift from response to recovery phase, they need to build resilience, and we believe the key things to consider when resetting your strategy are:

• Be nimble – foster an agile approach to strategy setting

• Digital transformation

• Data and Analytics – enabling smarter, data-driven decisions

• Rebalancing of activities

BE NIMBLE

Agile decision making and strategy setting during a highly disruptive environment will result in greater performance and create a lead over the competition. Companies should consider making a deliberate effort to look beyond the immediate challenges and issues that have arisen as a result of the pandemic and not only plan for the recovery period but also to renew their long-term plan for the “new normal”. There are three key phases to resetting your strategy during a disruptive environment.

Respond. During the initial phase of disruption focus immediate actions on keeping essential business functions operating.

Recover. Move focus to stabilising operations in a more organised and coordinated effort by creating a plan to restore to a scalable state and identifying capabilities that are required to strengthen, refactor, reopen, rehire, rebudget and resupply.

Renew. Shift focus to longer term strategy and durable execution by learning to conduct operations processes and workflows in new, repeatable, scalable ways and then take the learnings and patterns from prior phases to establish the new strategic plan.

Businesses should (if they haven’t already) create a minimum viable strategy and use adaptive tools and techniques to iterate as the new normal emerges. Leaders need to act now because the acceleration of trends are already underway, and businesses need to be faster, bolder, and more agile than ever before to succeed. Strategic planning should become a continual activity so businesses can respond quickly to unavoidable changes.

DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION

Prior to COVID-19 digitisation was an area of interest for a lot of companies, but the impact of the pandemic has forced companies to adopt sooner - accelerating digitisation. All industries are impacted by the evolution of technology in some way and to avoid being left behind, companies must consider digital transformation when resetting their strategic plan. Consumers and customers have begun to alter their buying patterns and shift to digital channels, products, and services. In this context, businesses need to rethink their business model and how digitisation can enhance their customer experiences, value propositions, go-to-market strategies, and operations.

The benefits of digital transformation include:  

• Simplification of business processes

• Reduce operating costs

• Business growth

• Enhance digital innovations

• Accelerate speed to market

• Enhance productivity

DATA AND ANALYTICS

The use of data and analytics should be considered when resetting your strategy, as it will become an essential navigation tool, enabling smarter, data-driven decisions in a timely manner. Those who embed artificial intelligence and analytics across the company will be in a superior position to divulge the value waiting to be unlocked. The use of data and analytics will need to be recalibrated to reflect the post-COVID-19 reality, this will involve validating models, creating new data sets, and enhancing modelling techniques.

REBALANCING OF ACTIVITIES

As part of resetting your strategy, you should also consider the rebalancing of activities between those that are performed in-house and those that are outsourced, with a focus on capitalising productivity and preventing any potential disruptions to supply chain.

Looking to build your own post-Covid strategy?

Let us help. To learn more about how to build your recovery strategy in this new landscape, contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Resetting your Go-To-Market Strategy during this Pandemic

There isn’t a business in the world, big or small that hasn’t been impacted by the COVID pandemic.

For some the impacts will have been catastrophic, for others they actually have been positive, but for all of us there has been a change and there will continue to be changes both good and bad that we must confront.

The reality is that regardless of where your business finds itself right at this moment, good or bad, you can’t just sit idle, you need to respond to the voice of your customers and to the messages the market is sending you.

The measures businesses on both sides of the impact equation have taken to protect staff, ensuring they are safely working from home, standing up processes that allow this to happen whilst continuing to serve customers, and most importantly ensuring that their mental wellbeing is front of mind has been critical in giving businesses the chance to reset.

Unfortunately, this reset in its own right won’t be enough to ensure that businesses survive or continue to thrive beyond this pandemic.  In order to achieve this your businesses will need to redefine it’s go-to-market strategy to (a) match the market conditions and opportunities right now and (b) to predict what market conditions might look like on the other side.

Here are some thoughts on where you might start and some of the activities that might help you pivot accordingly:

Stay close to your customers

In times of crisis we naturally retreat and seek to protect our own, our staff, our revenues which is natural. Our customers are being impacted as much as we ae and we must continue to engage them to understand what their situation is, not with a view to selling them but with a view to being genuinely customer centric and showing that value is real. Having this frame of reference will help you to continue to engage with your customers through this pandemic with the trust you’ve built over time, empathy and most importantly on their terms. Engaging customers now will only enhance your customer experience, focus on this as a personal activity, not  as a commercial one.

Be clear on the value you deliver to your customers

Now is not the time to sell aggressively, it’s the right time however to reaffirm the reason and purpose for why your company/product exists. Have your sales and marketing team remind you of this narrative, why your company and/or product exists? Remember you exist because there is a problem or a pain point that you are serving in the market that your customers can’t do without. In this current environment your goal is to be so closely connected to your customers that you understand their pain as it stands in this pandemic and more importantly how you and your team can help them solve them. Now more than ever, your customers are looking to be more than just buyers, they want to partner with people who are partners. There is no better time than now to re-assess your sales and GTM process and establish new targets and goals that are helping address the gaps to your customers problems.

Engage your local community

This pandemic has made life hard for every community, they are all suffering from the lack of connection with family, friends and the even the businesses they love. This is the time to support those businesses who are supporting their communities to get through this, do this because you care about these communities not because you are seeking better sales results or higher profits. This is an opportunity for us to be leaders in our actions, to show goodwill, compassion, lend support to our customers without expecting anything in return. Yours customers will become even greater beacons for your brand and or your product and they will become the community champions for you.

It’s clear that there is no definitive timeframe for how long this pandemic will go on, however it is imperative that you can’t just sit in hope.

Adapting your go-to-market strategy to the reality of this pandemic situation is an action that with deliver returns both now and also for the other side.

We are living with the reality in Australia that each state is responding to this pandemic slightly differently and as a consequence we need to ensure that our response is reflective of these variables and the fact that our customers realities and emotions will all be different.

There’s no better time than right now for your business to check in on your go-to-market approach, reaffirm or perhaps even reshape it so as to help you maintain the advantage you have or reignite the values as to why you exist.

Here’s to a post pandemic reality for your business that shines brighter than the reality of yesterday and today.

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Looking to build your own Go To Market strategy?

Let us help. To learn more about how to build a go-to-market strategy for your customers, contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

This pandemic has changed the way we serve our customers for ever; or has it?

Is that the sound of the end of the night out at the movies? Will any of us ever dare dream of heading to the gym again? Listening to the doom and gloom in this unprecedented time would have us believe that we are witnessing the end of any type of physical engagement with products or services?

The question is that whilst at this moment, customer experience might be suspended do you care enough to start transforming your customers now so that you don’t disconnect in this period of hiatus?

Sometime in recent years it became the height of modernity to have strangers sleep in your bed when you weren’t there or to sit next to you as you drove from one city to another. It felt futuristic to mention that the gym you went to was because you had a membership that allowed you to go anywhere, anytime. It was cool to catch a movie with your partner, order the meal online and be wined and dined in-front of the big screen. This movement was called the sharing economy and it relied upon certain widely held assumptions, such as that it is fine to be near other people and that it is alright to touch what they have touched what they touched, it was also enabled by clever technology and customer experience strategies.

In this age of pandemic anxiety, these assumptions have all but evaporated. The sharing, or peer-to-peer, economy was meant to represent the commerce of the future, the perfect fusion of technology and reality. That destiny now looks shaky at best. What will happen to Fitness First, to the Gold class movie experience, dating apps? What will become of the start-ups enabling us to monetise our health, our travel, our spare time? And, beyond the brands themselves, what will happen to the people who were making some or all of their income from these platforms?

Is life as we know it, over?

Given we have moved beyond bunkering in to wondering what we should do to safeguard tomorrow?

The immediate future for most businesses will surely involve some kind of grey area between house arrest and a version of pre-pandemic freedom. Lockdowns and physical distancing will be escalated and de-escalated by the government like the gears in a car.

Some businesses might suffer greatly in full lockdown but then thrive when movement is even slightly freer if they chose to face into their reality now and see this as an opportunity to improve or transform to tomorrow. I believe that when we open up, demand will be robust because people will be overjoyed to be liberated and if they can afford it, will indulge.

Most expect there to be a post-pandemic behavioural shift. We can expect for example that there will be a new normal around physical distancing. Employees I’m certain will be eager to return to work, but there will need to be a rethink of the workplace and of engagement to incorporate working from home and working from the office.

We will most certainly go back to the gym, maybe even venture out to dinner or to the movies but that too will be different, it will be defined by a new normal one that business must create and start engaging their customers on today. It will be defined by those who have a clear strategy for speaking to their customers now, sharing with them their thoughts and listening to the hopes and dreams of those they serve.

In order to assess the future of your business, it’s worth reflecting on the customers you serve and what might change for them?

The truth is that the future is likely to change in terms of the way we engage, our customers priorities might shift or their needs may be slightly different?

Make no mistake, the value shift towards an even more customer centric and   social consciousness will only continue – and part of that is a big vote for the value your organisation places on the customer versus your own needs. The idea that this is the way we’ve done and it’s the way we’ll always do it was radically shifted forever when we pivoted to the sharing economy. Who would have ever dreamed that I could book my car as I was having my coffee and not worry about trying to hail a cab? By providing customers with communications and strategies on how your organisation intends to serve their needs post this pandemic is something you should be working on now.

It’s always been about the customer right, that’s what we all tell ourselves and now that in some industries we are in a position that we can’t serve them we’ve stopped leveraging the time we have to continue talking to them, or have we?

Whatever happens with this pandemic, however long it takes to get to a better place, the sheer force of the technologies that are available to everyone will ensure that those who have a clear line of sight of their customers will most definitely be ready to go again.

It’s conceivable that the new world order may be different, however be clear that most of the underlying principles around customer experience will remain the same.

If nothing else, make this the moment that belongs to someone else, the customers you serve?

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Looking to build your own Go To Market strategy?

Let us help. To learn more about how to build a go-to-market strategy for your customers, contact us on whiteark@whiteark.com.au

Staying on Track & Leading Through Covid-19

On the surface working from home sounds pretty good. Not so much when it’s all day, every day.

Leading your team through COVID is a real challenge and requires the leader to demonstrate genuine compassion and ability to communicate.

Here are some simple tips from the Whiteark team that might help…..

How to turn Ground Hog Day into a normal(ish) day

On the surface working from home sounds pretty good. Not so much when it’s all day, every day. There’s no water cooler relief, no Friday lunches, no direct contact. This can take its toll. Fortunately, there are plenty of ways alleviate WFH fatigue. Here are my top picks. Not surprisingly – they’re all centred on communication.

Keep your team on track

Set priorities and expectations of roles and keep your team accountable. A robust performance appraisal process with measurable KPI’s will help – bear in mind these may need to be adjusted. Accountability keeps the momentum going and ensures your team feels purpose and doesn’t drift off into a WFH abyss.

Make yourself available

Frequent one-on-ones are extremely important. This helps your team feel valued and ensures they know that you know how hard they are working. It gives them a chance to gain your confidence and have a meaningful conversation that can’t be achieved via Slack, email or in a group meeting. Connections like this are so important when we’re operating in a vacuum.

Think carefully about team catch-ups

It’s a fine line balancing the need for open communication vs too much of it. What used to be an informal convo within your team’s pod, is now usually a formalised online catch up. This can cause meeting fatigue and get in the way of productivity. Try to think strategically about meetings. Could one meeting be a 15 minute extension of another? Could your weekly 1.5 hour WIP change to fortnightly with 15 minute morning stand-ups as a substitute?

What does your team need to know?

Right now, people are super sensitive about their job security, so it is important to create a sense of inclusiveness and transparency. As a business owner or executive manager you’re privy to regular business updates. It’s important any nonsensitive business movement is also shared with your teams. Whether they agree with the updates or not, it makes them feel connected to the business.

Stay true to your values and culture

Core values inform and reinforce your company’s culture, strategic direction, recruitment processes and how you interact with your customers and clients. In times of uncertainty it’s very important to identify and reinforce these values to your staff. This provides an anchor to work from and demonstrates the business is on track, strong and stable.

Culture club

For employees to successfully adapt to this new style of working, they need to feel valued within their role. This equals more than a regular check in. It’s also about the broader team culture. You want this to be supportive, empathetic, inclusive, collaborative, proactive and encouraging initiative. Use team forums to highlight employees who have done a great job. Try to give everyone an opportunity to shine. Spread the praise. Don’t forget about the wall flowers.

Be authentic, not perfect

While you’re expected to play a strong leadership role, you also need to empathise with your teams’ challenges. This means you might need to relax a little and expose some of your own vulnerabilities. When running your one-on-ones think about what it means to really listen and care. Answer questions and provide reassurance on work and/or personal issues.

Get your team smiling

This is so important. There are plenty of ways to crack a grin – team quizzes, virtual drinks, step challenges, exercise time-outs, cooking challenges – ask the team what works for them. Try different formats or a mix. Just make sure you have regular time booked each week, where the conversation has nothing to do with work. It’s about relaxing and connecting as a team.

The buck stops with you

As you can see there are many small ways you can make a big difference to your team’s experience while working from home. Not only do these practices help them perform as happy, high functioning, individuals, it will also create a strong, united group – and that’s exactly what you need to do your job.

Digital Transformation. Are you ready?

You can’t afford to wait for this pandemic to be over, so what are you doing to future proof now.

People have an amazing capacity to forget. To revert to their old behaviours. And that might have been the case if COVID had come and gone quickly. But it’s not going anywhere, and we all know by now - this time it’s going to be different.

The question on everyone’s minds is not ‘when will this be over?’, it’s ‘what will the new normal look like?’

As business leaders, however, we don’t have the luxury of being able to sit on the sidelines and watch. We need to anticipate the market. Analyse data and look into the future. Of course nobody knows for sure what the ‘new normal’ will look like, but it doesn’t mean we can’t prepare nonetheless.

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”

— Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

What’s apparent all around us, however, is that the already-fast digital transformation of organisations, has accelerated to a furious pace.

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B2B

In the B2B space adoption of zoom, teams, slack, trello, webex and other digital tools has gone through the roof. And in the background of all that, there are projects frantically going on to protect the security of a dispersed workforce, and to move instantly redundant legacy systems to the cloud.

B2C

In the B2C space the changes are even more obvious, and they happened immediately. If you didn’t have an effective online presence before, you’ve either been playing catch-up, or you’re already out of business. What people have been buying has changed too.

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McKinsey surveyed consumer sentiment and behaviour across 45 countries, and on 8th July published their results*. One of the consistent themes, worldwide, was a shift to more mindful shopping. In the US, for example, 31% of people surveyed are changing to less expensive products to save money, and 21% are researching the brand, and product before making a purchase.

And they’re not researching those brands standing in aisle 7 with a mask on. They’re at home, searching online and then getting their groceries delivered to the door.

And that kind of capability doesn’t just happen overnight. So the businesses that were prepared, and ready for the world to go digital have not only survived, they’ve thrived.

To gain a little insight into Australian organisations’ digital preparedness for COVID, we spoke to Rube Sayed, General Manager of a Sydney-based Managed IT Services company, Datcom Cloud.

“For some of our clients it was a seamless transition. They were already 100% in the cloud. Phone, apps, security all in place – and they just got on with it. For many, however, they had to rush through projects that would normally take a year or so, into months. We’ve had to expand our workforce by about 20% to deal with it all.”

— Jo Hands, Director Whiteark

So while you might need a crystal ball to know what’s going to happen in the future (in 2020 – who can tell) you certainly don’t need one to be prepared.

If there’s a digital transformation project you still haven’t gotten around to yet.

Don’t wait. Give me call, or reach out on LinkedIn. And I can help.

As the saying goes, you don’t just stumble across luck, it’s what happens when preparation meets opportunity.

So ask yourself, are you just ready? Or are you COVID-Ready…..

* McKinsey Ref: https://www.mckinsey.com/business-functions/marketing-and-sales/our-insights/a-global-view-of-how-consumer-behavior-is-changing-amid-covid-19#