Accelerating enterprise digital transformation

How has the pandemic influenced the way your firm is delivering your transformation services?

Of course, the notable change is people working in a remote environment, and I think it’s been a real eye opener. We’ve always had the ability to work from home, but it wasn’t massively taken up. What the pandemic gave us was a massive proof of concept that actually we can be productive in a remote environment and things won’t grind to a halt.

Delivering change in that new way of working meant we had to recalibrate the operating model a little bit, but I think it made people more communicative and more focused in their communication. I think it’s taken us into a new way of working, and we’re all still recalibrating to make it more effective and productive.

Grassroots innovation is also a huge part of the landscape today. Innovation is becoming a constant, and something that is everyone’s responsibility, rather than it being tied to one job or team. For example, we’re seeing some great innovation through automation, such as using images to create processes rather than coding.

Delivering change in that new way of working meant we had to recalibrate the operating model a little bit, but I think it made people more communicative and more focused in their communication.

Do you think that virtual meetings work for managing services, like workshops for clients?

There are benefits and drawbacks. Yes, it takes away the need to be overly prepared from a logistical and physical perspective and gives us an easier path into conducting virtual meetings and workshops. But sometimes it’s hard when you need to make an impact or exert some gravitas. It takes away from being in the room.

The benefits for me are things like whiteboarding, the ability to record meetings, and play it back later. That puts everyone on an equal footing, and technology is evolving now to let us be more collaborative. Some of that is maturing in really exciting ways and I think it’s going to become more powerful.

How is your firm enhancing its own customer engagement approach and evolving its marketing strategy as a result of the move to virtual meetings?

We definitely are moving to a more online, virtual presence, in our sector. We work with lots of clients across multiple sites and we’re now interacting regularly on Teams and Zoom, and the various other media platforms. In turn that affects how we reach out to new clients. It used to be about being physically present at a meeting or you’d bump into clients when you were on-site. Now you need to actively seek out virtual alternatives to that sort of thing. For example, we’ve been having virtual round tables, virtual debate panels, and meetings. Our marketing strategy has become more weighted towards social media and electronic marketing, getting our presence out there on LinkedIn and publishing more white papers and thought leadership.

Our marketing strategy has become more weighted towards social media and electronic marketing, getting our presence out there on LinkedIn and publishing more white papers and thought leadership.

What role do you see content playing, or is content playing, in your organisation’s marketing activities? What stories in your opinion are the most interesting for your customers?

We are management consultants and content is king. It’s everything. A lot of our content is definitely user case study based, but there’s more than that.

Our clients often have complex and interconnected problems and what they value is us bringing them fresh perspectives, context about what’s going on in the market and coming up with a range of different solutions that could help them. Clients working in large, multinational corporations can find it very difficult to lift their heads up and see what is going on with peers and other organisations. If we bring that in a condensed narrative, and a thematic way, that is very helpful because they learn from it, and gain the ability to benchmark themselves.