At the start of this year, we could never have imagined that Facebook’s CEO and Founder Mark Zuckerberg would declare he expects half of Facebook’s workforce to be remote within the decade. And that an article by McKinsey and Company, would be discussing this hybrid way of working – sometimes in person with colleagues on site, sometimes offsite – as ‘the next normal’.
But what more businesses have realised, during the pandemic, is that this work model can unlock significant value, including access to a broader range of talent, greater flexibility, and improved productivity, say the authors.
The same applies to global teams because the most important factor isn’t location, it is a strong cohesion and trust.
And that’s what we have at Simplus, with our Managed Services team.
No egos, just team-driven results
With staff located everywhere now, dispersed workforces are the norm in many industries. The term on-shore, off-shore is no longer relevant, especially since COVID-19.
Since 2019, our Managed Services team has included people in both our Australian and Philippines offices, working as one, supporting each other. Having a great team is what has helped Simplus achieve incredible results for clients such as the Office for Ageing Well, the City of Melbourne, and the Department of Education.
For us, it had never been about where people work, but how they work.
One of our Simplus values is stewardship, meaning we have a ‘see it, own it, solve it, do it mentality’ – and that runs through our Managed Services team as we look after each other in our journey to success. There are no egos, no hierarchy. We are truly, culturally aligned. And it’s that attitude that produces the great work that is leading to us growing as a business and producing significant results for clients.
Putting values into practice
Research into 410 companies across eight industries by business consulting and training firm LSA Global found highly aligned companies grow revenue 58% faster and are 72% more profitable than their peers. But, most importantly, it also found that they outperform them at satisfying customers by 3.2 to 1.
Our cultural alignment has paved the way for innovating platforms, showing clients what else is possible – not just our support capabilities – and has led to other wonderful implementation opportunities.
With our client the Office for Ageing Well, they had originally come to us because a lack of data integrity in their marketing platform for their Seniors Card business was damaging partner relationships, depleting advertising revenue and deteriorating the customer experience.
Our team implemented a multi-directional integration between Salesforce Sales Cloud and Marketing Cloud, synching data between both platforms. That’s part of how we achieved a 100% drop in customer complaints for the Office for Ageing Well and, more than 12 months on, we are still working with the team.
When COVID-19 required the Office for Ageing Well to implement Salesforce Health Cloud, our Managed Services team was there to step in and stabilise the system as feedback from doctors came in and the requirements for its use changed.
Integral to this success was Tristan Zantua, one of our Managed Services Consultants in the Philippines, and his relationship with other team members as well as his understanding of the client’s business and needs.
“We worked closely with Adrian and all our Australian colleagues to achieve results for the Office for Ageing Well,” says Tristan.
“We always have scheduled, weekly meetings, but we also communicate back and forth with each other whenever we need more information.”
Bob Alicante, our Senior Manager of Managed Services also based in the Philippines, says: “Our recipe for success is not only that we are in constant communication but that we treat each other as family members, not as colleagues, because if you do that, the respect will be there.”
Great culture equals shared purpose
As well-known management consultant and author Peter Drucker famously said “culture eats strategy for breakfast” and our culture does exactly that.
It’s collaborative, inclusive and innovative and, as a review of corporate culture by The Harvard Business Review found, it’s capable of unleashing tremendous amounts of energy towards a shared purpose.
We are a community, coming together to solve challenges. And our collaboration includes our clients.
As Bob says: “We build relationships with our clients not just by doing technical stuff, but by collaborating and helping them as if they are part of our internal team.
“We feel that their success is also our success.”
Wherever we are based, we are talking as one model, one team.
To learn more about working for Simplus and our values, visit our careers page.
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