SPEAKER_04: And we have created this case in order for you to realize the

importance of being ready for disruption, utilize the digital capabilities as much
as you can, and understand a little bit of why you have to do this change and which
tools and enablement capabilities you have in order to make it happen. And we've
done it in a story base.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, it's a real story. It's a real case. It's a story of my, our
business in terms, and what we went through during a disruptive event that actually
touched all of our lives. It's a story of real struggle and really having to go
through change when you least expected it, when you were sitting comfortably, and
we literally had to do things differently from one day to the
SPEAKER_04: other. So it's a case in which you have to check these four listings,
the digital innovation and disruption, change management, how to approach things in
a different way, how to focus on the experience, and most importantly, how to
survive in terms of COVID while at the same time thinking downturn for the company.
So we hope that you will enjoy the case and you will have fun with it.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, and it's also doing all of those things while having a working
business, real clients, servicing them and finding the balance and taking your
stuff along the journey as well.
SPEAKER_04: Good. So let's get into it. Have fun.
SPEAKER_03: Hello. Thanks for coming. I'm sorry we had to reschedule so many
times. You know, I've been away to Brazil attending the AID Global Executive MBA
Resitational Week. My flight was originally scheduled for last week, but I did have
a secret influencer, and with this whole COVID situation, I couldn't fly until I
was here. Thank you for showing interest in knowledge channel. Let me tell you a
little bit about the company. Knowledge Lab is a not small company that delivers
face-to-face premium management, leadership, and executive education all throughout
Australia. Over the years, we managed to gather a diverse team of senior
consultants who specialized in creating Spark, creating a significant mindset
shift. The company is in the forefront of leadership and management education, and
we deliver tailored courses to leaders and give you the contributors in areas
ranging from change management to culture change. And we know our customers and the
love experience we provide combined with our unique delivery model. And of course,
it's heavily driven by experimental learning. We have very interactive sessions and
hands-on activities to change mindsets and behaviors. Usually, the sessions running
groups of approximately 18 people all completely against each other. Excuse me, I
have to take this. Hello? Wait, wait, wait, slow down. What are you saying? Maybe
you want me to turn on my TV? Okay, okay, I'll do it right away. Excuse me, that
was one of my colleagues. She's asked me to turn on the news. Do you mind? Okay,
thanks.
SPEAKER_00: With the COVID-19 virus reaching tens of thousands of cases per day
and death toll above 2000 daily, the situation is becoming more and more difficult
throughout the world. The COVID-19 virus, which for months of peer localized, has
for the last week started to spread wildly. We can verify from our correspondence
in diverse European countries that borders are starting to close from foreign
travelers, urging nationals to return as soon as possible. Also, countries are
initiating lockdowns of different severities, forcing people to stay home and
companies to have severe impacts in their production. Our correspondent in
Australia is now indicating that severe border lockdown is expected, along with
partial lockdowns all throughout the country. External and internal move is
expected to be very reduced from now on. You will have to excuse me again, but I
need
SPEAKER_03: to make a note and call. Hey guys, I just heard that Australia is
going to lock down. Yeah, thanks for our looking kind of
SPEAKER_02: dire for the business. We're in touch with clients about their plant-
based fairies workshops, and it looks like we'll have to postpone our call and
cancel them. Others are calling desperately about their workshops, and some of them
are already confirmed and scheduled, and we're going to have to also change them.
Not to say that these were some of our largest clients that we're calling. We did
very well last year, and 2020 was looking very promising. It was going to be a
fully booked
SPEAKER_01: year. Things are actually worse than what the TV news are showing.
Uncertainty is extremely high, there's a lot of panic, especially because of the
low number of infected cases in Australia, compared to the level of the measures
that are being implemented. I'm worried that the trust that our customers have on
us can disappear overnight if we don't take swift actions, as well as if we make
the wrong decision. And who knows how long this confinement is going to last? I
mean, I don't think it's going to be a short one. Guys, we all know that
SPEAKER_06: situation is very uncertain, and we are all very worried, but I think
that we should continue delivering our labs as we always have. We are already
taking all the necessary and recommended precautions since all of this started. We
already increased our health and safety measures on the use of tools, antibacterial
jail and training rooms, larger rooms for the sessions, social distancing, and
proactively engaging staff and clients to understand the best case scenario. I
think the situation is well under control, so let's not jump into anything too
drastic. After all, we've been in touch with clients for weeks, and they want us to
continue as plans.
SPEAKER_01: I don't agree with you Ruby. I think we should cancel everything, and
we waited out to minimize our losses. Imagine what would happen if someone in our
workshops is COVID and comes and it spreads.
SPEAKER_06: Come on Anna, I think things are actually relatively good compared to
the rest of the world. We hardly have any cases. I mean, if I recall, we only had
about less than 100 cases yesterday across
SPEAKER_03: the entire country. Guys, it has to be another option. We can't just
put everything on hold indefinitely. I mean, if we could tell with certainty that
it's only a matter of a few weeks, then maybe, but that doesn't look like the case
in this situation. For I know the government could
SPEAKER_02: ban whole face-to-face interactions for months. Dom, what if we find a
way to go digital? It seems like the only option that would give us a certainty
that we can remain in control. It seems to be difficult to implement as this is a
drastic change in we're running against the clock, but we should have started this
years ago. Especially with the size of Australia, this will have saved
SPEAKER_03: us a lot of money and expenses before. I think Peter has a point
regarding our market. To put into perspective, Australia is the same size as
Europe, excluding the European side of Russia. It takes five hour flight to go from
one side to the other. In the process, you will crossover several times. Whilst the
population is relatively small, it's around 25 million, Australia is big. It's
really, really big. And when your delivery by mobile is face-to-face, these bring
so many challenges, such as travelling in the day before and sometimes missing the
connection flight and arriving one day later. It is very common between our
approaches and consultants to go on the road on it. It's on the afternoon and
arriving home on Friday night. I don't know what is going to happen with the
company right now. Our service is 100% dependent on face-to-face mobile, and this
is at the moment the only way we deliver our value.
SPEAKER_02: Peter, you do have a money point. And also, we are not the only ones
being disrupted by this pandemic. Many other companies such as shops, restaurants,
tourism, they all have been impacted, and they have searched for new ways to
deliver their experiences online. Think about e-commerce
SPEAKER_01: through deliveries. Yeah, you're right, Peter. But before anything
else, first we need to figure out what we're going to do. And the question that we
need to answer right now is how are we going to deal with our customers? They
expect us to deliver our service and the next steps that we
SPEAKER_03: want to follow. Dumb, I do think we should do now. I don't know what's
the best way to deal with this situation right now. This disruptive event has got
an asset of our comfort zone, and with this pandemic, our business model providing
value to our customers face-to-face is going to be destroyed. I don't know if we
can survive this disruption if we do not change. Also, I can take its point out of
my head, and I don't really have an answer to why we had an at least implemented a
hybrid method in the past.
SPEAKER_04: So, dumb, why did you not move to digital before? It's a really good
question that I've now asked
SPEAKER_05: myself a thousand times. I think the reality for us is we were growing
every year. In a bad year, we were growing double digits. We were having very
successful feedback customers. We were happy. And as a result, we had no sense of
urgency. Everything was good, everything looked good, growth was there, and we had
no urgency to actually change and go somewhere else, as we had a very successful
model. I think we were already disrupting the way we worked in the formats we had
in a physical face-to-face environment. We just didn't realize that the disruption
was around the corner
SPEAKER_04: in an online digital methodology. Definitely. That reminds me of a
quote from Dan Schulman, the biggest impediment for your future success is your
present success. You think that your customers and your success were not allowing
you to think in the future? I hate to admit it,
SPEAKER_05: but yet, probably your item, that's a good quote. And yeah, it's very
difficult when you're successful to actually have the energy to go, you know what,
it needs still to push and go for something else. And I thought a bit of times
again and again, but there was not enough urgency to
SPEAKER_04: do that. One more question about that. Do you think that your
customers weren't ready for that
SPEAKER_05: change as well? It's a really good question as well. I think the
customer we had at the time, or the customers we still have now, but in that time,
in that specific time, actually, we're not probably not ready for it. I do think
there would have been enough customers out there that we've been ready for it, but
not the one we had.
SPEAKER_03: Yes, I completely understand. Yep. We are going to do everything in
our power to the lever or the workshop. We will let you know if there are any
additional changes. Yeah. As you can see, we've been reaching out to all our
customers, and they're very skeptical about whether we can deliver or resume our
place to face sessions in time soon, because of the new restrictions and
limitations we can get to most of them due to the border restrictions. We have
thought about implementing social distancing, limiting the number of participants,
even having everyone wear a face mask during workshops. However, as you may know,
these limitations and restrictions are changing in the other.
SPEAKER_02: Hi, Dom. Yeah, here things are still complicated.
SPEAKER_06: Hi, guys. Okay. So hi, Dom, guys. I was just talking to a client that
group one of our workshops a few weeks ago, and they're feeling quite nervous and
uncertain about what's to come. I think we should maintain the scheduled services
that we have confirmed, but I am starting to think that the best way to stay in
business right now is to reduce our delivery to the bare minimum. It's true that
this virus situation has gotten worse, and we still need to fly people to
locations, but I also overheard, I'm not sure if this is confirmed, but I also
overheard that some states started talking about closing the borders completely, so
we won't be able to fly any.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yes. I've also spoken to many customers, and they're asking us
to cancel our postpone due to their uncertainty in their own businesses. I hear you
on that. I don't know if you feel
SPEAKER_02: the same, but for me, it's quite frustrating that after so many years
managing the expected issues, we're just not prepared to face such an unexpected
event, such as what's going on. Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_01: All of our hard work has been fully disrupted. Yeah, that's right. I
think that if we want to
SPEAKER_02: save any revenue that we were expecting for 2020, the only way is to
go online as soon as possible. We're going out of the way around and hope that one
day our business will go back to the normal. It's just not going to happen. I think
we just need to stop finding excuses and move on through digital models as quickly
as possible in order to keep our jobs and keep the business going.
SPEAKER_03: Hey, I'm really with Peter. We need to move quickly and find a way in
which the neighborhood will of course is in an online manner. We can't waste any
more time. To be honest, I didn't implement an online model before, because I know
for certain that our customers' perception about our sessions being as we don't
like it's close to zero. But now we don't see any other way. This might just be the
right time to thrive. This pandemic might give us enough Levi to implement it. We
need a model that helps us keep our world's financial value and new ways to the
user interactive, this interactive activities that engage the participants in the
same way as they did face-to-face. This is going to be an extremely experimental
model. Guys, I think Peter is right. We have to move towards digital in order to
survive and potentially even thrive. We have already seen many industries go online
and probably we never thought they could settle online. But lockdown has forced
them to do so and it's forcing us to... The traditional boundaries have rolled in
just a few weeks
SPEAKER_02: just based on pure necessity. Yeah, that's right. Yes, and many are
also using this thing called IoT, I think, Internet of Things. Maybe we can use
that together some data from the customers. Can we think about that? Can I say
something? Yes, please.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a bit worried about where this is going because I understand that
our goal is to find the best way to survive the situation. But our biggest assets
are our senior consultants in our face-to-face sessions. And how are we going to
ask Nicholas, who's 45 years old or Mary, who's 49, but who's like 0% tech savvy to
get out of their comfort zones to teach online? They coached this way for years and
we're not even sure that they're going to be able to deliver the same high quality
in online versions. Especially as we know that most of our coaches are just not
that digitally savvy.
SPEAKER_06: Yes, exactly. That's a very good point. We all know that a lot of our
workforce are senior coaches and it will present the resistance to change. This is
something that we need to do.
SPEAKER_03: We don't have any other options. Both and our Ruby have a point. Okay,
I think I need to talk to the whole team and find a way to make it work. Please,
let's try to stick to what we coach every day. Let's get everyone together, present
the challenge, hear everyone's voice whether they are supportive, hesitant, or even
if they have strong resistance. Let's be transparent with everyone. It's time to
face the brutal reality or existing business model no longer exists. That is all
for now. Let's get everyone together and continue our conversation. Thank you.
Thanks. Thanks.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, okay. Bye. See you later.
SPEAKER_04: So, Dom, that brings us to another very interesting question. It is
you certainly faced resistance from your team members. What did you do there?
SPEAKER_05: Yeah, we certainly faced a lot of resistance as well. Well, the
resistance is not a bad thing, especially initially. It means that people are
speaking up. It's people are actually comfortable to share their opinions and have
psychological safety is there. But I don't know that when we needed to move past
that. And when we faced that, we had to really practice what we preached. What we
did and what we teach our organizations to do. So, it was about taking all the
feedback on board, listening to every single one of them and the voices and also
understanding why before that way. But then also talking as a group and trying to
see if we can move forward. Not everyone has the same speed and the same journey.
Some people take longer, some people take shorter. And as a result, some of them
have the harder ways. And I couldn't have imagined that. I couldn't have thought
that some colleagues that I've worked with for years, that are doing change for
living actually couldn't do that. But everyone has different priorities. And as a
result, we had to take the number as well.
SPEAKER_04: And that brings us to another thinking that I have. In the meantime,
when I talk about change management and resistance, I like to think on steep jobs,
for example, that he mentioned. Let's start thinking about tomorrow's, the
yesterday's program, let's think about tomorrow's.
SPEAKER_05: I love that quote. And this is literally where we have to get into it.
It's very easy to get into mindset of, we cannot do this. This can be done. But we
need it to do past that and look, okay, what could we do? What could we do? Or,
okay, this cannot be done. But if it was to be done, how would we start doing it?
And move beyond that and move in a different mindset.
SPEAKER_03: As a company, we have a firm resolution. And even if it has been
opposed to us like this, in reality, we're going to innovate in the right
direction. I think it's very clear now that for not its love, the only way forward
is not only going digital, but mastering it. But taking advantage of all the
digital solutions out there that we'll make, we're training as interactive and
experiential online as they were face to face. We have brainstormed different ways
on how to change our products to a digital model. And especially how to engage with
our customers digitally without losing the wanting to of our face to face
differential value.
SPEAKER_01: But where do we begin? Is it looking at the competition? How does a
company change their product to a digital model? Do we try an emergency model just
to get some revenues or does it have to be perfect? And let's not forget, after we
change our product, we still need to engage
SPEAKER_06: the customer on a digital channel. Hold on, hold on. I don't
understand, are we digital already? Other content and flow work is already up in
the cloud. I mean, we had to expand our cloud package this month again. How are we
taking our current model and moving to a digital one? We're already delivering all
of our sessions through video calls. Isn't that digital?
SPEAKER_02: Oh, sorry about that. I was saying, I don't think that's enough for
me. Sure, we're using our computers more and we can work from home and even
collaborate with others. But it's not just about moving to digital. Our mindsets
have to change too. We have to break out of our comfort zone and think that you're
the first. Only then can we change and actually have a great experience
SPEAKER_06: to our customers. Yeah, sure, we can think digital. But isn't online
education just second tier education? It's less interactive and at a strongest our
face-to-face model. And trust me, we will never get our clients to pay what they
used to in this new format.
SPEAKER_03: Well, I think we have an advantage here. As you know, I'm currently
studying my MBA at IE, a recent blended format that is partially online, partially
face-to-face. IE reacts it swiftly and moved all their courses online. I've been
following several professors taking notes on things we can implement ourselves. In
fact, one of the reasons I went through this learning process was to find ways to
implement in our own model. I know we can do something similar to this dynamic
model that helps us deliver high premium programs by playing practices and focusing
on our customers' needs. Hey, I agree with you, Peter. We cannot allow the success
of the positive detail of our future business. Thinking digital is the key to real
transformation. But more importantly, we must think on our client base and engage
with them. Only then we can break the cognitive biases that we have. Let me think.
Okay, here's the plan. First of all, we have to move quickly as we want to have the
first move advantage towards our competition. Meaning, as fast execution based on
the fat base validation and ensuring we don't make decisions based on bases.
Second, we must get experimental. All of us. So keep an open mind and learn by
doing. It is the only way to embrace change and tackle this uncertain situation.
Third, we need to work as a team to complement each other's strengths. All hands on
deck and focus on our most popular courses. First, in our digital transformation.
Making sure to test everything amongst ourselves so that we are convinced with our
new service before shooting up. And finally, we need to understand how technology
can help us. We need to know which tool helps us with each capability. No, it
becomes technology experts. But how to use them to our advantage. If we think about
it, we have always worked in different cities. And until now, we've never had
distance to collaborate remotely before the long term, because we were to busy
going to our clients. Now that our work is stopped and we have no revenue, let's
use this as an opportunity to find a solution. This is the push we needed to change
the sense of urgency we were
SPEAKER_06: missing before. What do you think? All right. Yeah, I agree. Let's do
it. See you. Bye.
SPEAKER_03: This is exactly what we needed urgency to drive change. By being
forced into like digital, we have an opportunity to collaborate to use new digital
solutions and meet more regularly to experiment in the variations of our web. All
we need is to change our mindset. Let everyone board. Keep an open mind and engage
and include our customers in the process.
SPEAKER_04: So, now we are in the point in which the company starts to face the
change, but sometimes the customer has to assume it should be for not ready. What
do you do when the customers are not ready?
SPEAKER_05: There was a very pivotal moment for us, actually. So we've always been
very customer-centric. We've always co-created with customers. So you can imagine
how excited I was calling some of our customers. I know that six weeks face-to-face
program we can now deliver it online. And they were like, online? Are you sure? I
don't think this can work. So yeah, we face resistance equally from the clients as
well as from the customer side. And I would say that internal and external are both
customers. So very similar to what we did internally, we needed to do exactly the
same that we did externally with customers. We needed to listen to them. We needed
to get them in process involved, get them involved. And here, their thoughts and
their fears as well in terms of what they thought they couldn't work online, they
didn't work well in face-to-face. And from there, really involve them along the
process, show them the differences, involve them, get feedback,
SPEAKER_04: integrate feedback, and take them along the journey. What do you think
about the importance of experience
SPEAKER_05: for them to really see and feel? Because of the way we worked in a
very interactive manner in the face-to-face environment, online probably for them
was even more remote than it would have been for a traditional face-to-face
environment. So the experience was everything. And the experience we delivered in a
face-to-face environment was what distinguished us from the rest. As a result, it
became even more important in online. So it was really important for them that they
actually had to see it and had to experience similar programs in online setting for
them to be able to really connect it to the face-to-face experience. Really
interesting. Because I think that
SPEAKER_04: change happens when you have the right technology, the acceptance from
society, and then the customer's readiness. And I'm really talking about all those
three these quality types. Yes, and COVID in a way
SPEAKER_05: made it more acceptable to try those things out. I have to say in
Australia, because we didn't have many cases, in New Zealand even more, that there
was not the same drive to go online as you might have seen in other countries. So
people were like, we only have a few cases here, this would be over in a few
months, which it wasn't. But because of that, the COVID definitely gave us some
slack
SPEAKER_03: in terms of trying it out some stitch. Now this is where things get
interesting. The team is already already aligned with the change, and the right
mindset has taken over. I have heard many times that to drive change, you need a
gear-wide. And I think the team now has that wide for this change. It's to deliver
the best quality of our particular education and online model. Finding this is
easier now because of our new digital mindset. This mindset we live and bring
really digital in our delivery of products and in our company culture. This new
world thing pushes us to change how we work and how we look at the work, looking
for new opportunities in digital technology as ways to deliver our value. Hi Dom.
So I think we're making
SPEAKER_06: progress towards the transformation. Anna, Peter and I, we have been
redesigning all of our portfolio with a digital customer in mind. We have been
trying new dynamics, we have been experimenting with different techniques and
technologies, and I have to admit that our clients have been very patient and they
have been good to us. So we have gotten very positive feedback from them. We have
been improving a lot. I mean, it's been a non-stop effort, but we're getting it
done really
SPEAKER_02: fast. Yeah, sure, we are on a rush. But let's not forget that speed is
not our main objective. Our goal is not just to think digital as a channel for a
method, but redesign our delivery for our customer experience standpoint. The only
way to get this done is to change our approach
SPEAKER_03: and we think. I agree with Peter. When the clients to change starting
from scratch and building something new is of the essence. Think of the success of
many pioneers that succeeded through innovation from the first principles such as
the success of external Mars or how electric vehicles broke the status quo of
fossil fuel. I think we must go back and start from the
SPEAKER_06: most basic point of our offering. So Dominique, I have a question you
just said. What would be
SPEAKER_03: your most basic point? Well, it's our learning objectives and outcomes
of each session. We just our core value. We have to dig deep and think hard on what
we want to achieve from each session in a peer manner. From there, we can build up
to the best of line exercises to reach the goal, always with a great customer
experience. The last step is to find the right tool to implement each activity,
which is why we are investing in LMS platforms for self-placed learning and
learning about tools like MEMT, Prepsy, etc. I know it's a lot, but we have plenty
of experience in customer's electricity to make it happen. Are we ready to
continue? Let's go back to work. We worked a lot to make this happen. Once the team
understood the ins and outs of change well, because our mindset has shifted,
everything else was coming quite naturally. Some of our exercises started including
exercises with various touch points with the audience. We understood the need to
engage them, interact continuously with polls, chat functions, and other digital
opportunities, along with our study line based on the material. We integrated all
with customer experience in mind. Each of those interactions would generate key
data for us to measure the value. No open travel, so we redesigned our workshops to
spread over multiple days. This meant more sessions. A lot of new old assumptions
and limitations were no longer valid. For example, one of the reasons we even do
training in consecutive days was that it was more affordable for the client. Travel
and accommodation costs which are magically reduced, compared to three one-day
sessions in three consecutive weeks. Now, that was no longer needing. Hence, the
three-day workshop became a six-week program with three hour sessions every week.
SPEAKER_01: Hey Peter, have you looked at the learning outcomes we designed for
the new model? There's so much more complete than the ones we had before the
change.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's incredible. The new environment and tools we implemented
on the courses have
SPEAKER_06: also made the learning objectives grow. And I'm really glad that our
work searching for the right partners and being selected on our tools is showing
results by enhancing our learning experience. And done, really, since you contacted
the Sanco-style Institute at the beginning of the pandemic, it has really helped to
step it up a notch and bring more learnings into our region.
SPEAKER_03: It's not stopped here. There is so much more we can do with technology
to enable more models. Plow that lets us work from home and store information
wherever we want. We have never been in some mobile before. How else can technology
help us?
SPEAKER_01: Well, for me, our new collaboration tools are the main reason I'm
doing things differently. I do everything on my now. There's nothing that I use to
do physically, that I have not somehow moved the needs of it away.
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, technology is making me think differently, especially when I
know everything that the technology can enable. But for me, honestly, the game-
changing factor is still that we are applying it correctly, and we are focusing on
the participants as their experiences, the most important thing.
SPEAKER_06: Well, we cannot take all the credit for new found success. Now that
we're working alongside with new customers and our all customers as well, it is key
to building our offering. We have to give them some credit, too. Every new value
offering we propose now is validated by our customers. We are experimenting with
them, inviting them to try our experience online, instead of just selling them,
what we think is right. And what do you know? They love the new online workshops.
It has been like seeing an agile working in real time, really.
SPEAKER_03: I'd like to hear that our customer center approach is your impossible
results. Let us make sure that we keep collecting the feedback, increasing our data
collection based on their likes, almost use features, and use that data to update
our delivery. Great job, too. To address the perception of our customers is
changing drastically as they can see the value, and our focus on what matter to
them. The initial skepticism is gone and trusted especially when looking around and
realizing we were doing way more than our competitors, all because we had the right
focus and mindset.
SPEAKER_04: So, now you're in the midst of the change, and you have to make
decisions. And decisions such as where to invest in the right technology, invest in
the right business model, in the digital format, how you approach that kind of
decisions, what to prioritize over the other.
SPEAKER_05: It's a very tricky moment because you can get booked down into the
technological part of it. And at the end of it, you can create a monster, which is
something which is very beautiful, in technology from a technological perspective
works fine, but no one needs it. So, you need to find the balance between the
business model and the business outcomes. And in that manner, you need to really go
and find the balance into what the customer needs. So, the focus from us was always
around the customer needs, and building backwards from that. So, when we looked at
technology, we looked at, okay, what is the technology that serves the purpose of
the customer? So, not only looking at technology in their own setting, but finding
the balance between what they need from a technological perspective, and what they
need from a business of the customer.
SPEAKER_04: That fits very well into, for example, clear-to-emchristianism, the
sort of innovation theory, which basically talks about, it's not the technique that
technology that we make in different, we'll be the enabler that will help you to
build what matters to the customer, which is the value in the business model.
SPEAKER_05: Yes, yeah. So, in that way, the technology is really like a vehicle,
right? But what we'll drive value to the customer is the business outcome of a
search. So, if you can fix the problem, the challenge that they have, that is what
they're looking for. In a way, when people come to us to help them go through
change, we're not looking for, you know, the Zoom or the video conference or the
training opportunity. The training opportunity is just a way to solve their
challenges, which is going to change, for example. This is the business model.
SPEAKER_00: Today marks the first anniversary of the start of lockdowns in Europe,
due to the COVID-19 pandemic. A lot has changed in a year, with a death toll of
almost 3 million, and many more so infected and hospital struggling. The economic
impact has been drastic in many countries, with thousands of companies forced to
close or disappear driving millions to unemployment. Fellow schemes helped to
minimize the consequences and vaccinations show a path of hope. But what was the
impact? Up next, understanding the economic impact of COVID-19.
SPEAKER_03: I look back to this year and to what has happened to the world,
knowledge lab compared to what other dumb companies had go through. It was a great
year for us. We managed to switch to digital and we now we deliver everything we
used to for this channel. Not only did we manage to move our products to go
digital, we also changed our business model. Hi everyone, thanks for joining me on
this catch up meeting. I know there are no no big issues to address, but I thought
we could catch up and see how this is going for everyone. First, I wanted to talk
about all the new people we are working with. Peter, how are they going with the
new staff and partners?
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Vomitiko. I'm really glad you called this meeting. I've
been looking forward to catching up with you. In regards to the new incorporation,
I'm really excited to be working with the new staff. Now that we can hire in any
location, we have a level of diversity that we could not reach before going
digital. Just take a look at our new coaching team and you'll see how much reach we
have. We have locally run operations across the globe. We're also collaborating
with other companies to strive for innovation. Take for example the new partnership
with Senko Style. Now we have a partner that's embracing digital in the same way
that we are, and it's equally eager to reach a new ecosystem. This really shows
that we can build new experiences with these companies.
SPEAKER_03: We're here, our new staff and partners are helping us move forward.
We'll be our team with new clients.
SPEAKER_06: These are looking great. Ever since we got our new customers in
Nigeria at the beginning of the transformation, you know what we called our big aha
moment, it's amazing how we can deliver remotely to anyone in the world. I really
love not having to go to the airport, suffer through jet lag, be delayed, and miss
time that I can now actually use to be more productive. Now I can stay at home, use
our cloud collaboration tools and real-time data enablement with our whole team. I
mean I was never disproductive and engaged before the change.
SPEAKER_03: I'm glad you were doing all right Ruby. The results with clients
having proof since we moved from going from doing everything I have to more
automated processes. How about you Anna? I know you have also some more activity
with clients recently. How do you manage?
SPEAKER_01: Well Domenico started when we had a second aha moment that since we
were first in an international new market, we can now deliver beyond our own
boundaries further than before. Not only because of geographical opportunities, but
also because thanks to data and automation, we can reduce time for the non-value
added work and we can dedicate it to actual delivery. I didn't realize how much
time I spent, not just on traveling, but on activities like invoices and
bookkeeping and all that extra time has gone to focusing on the customers.
SPEAKER_03: Okay thank you for sharing Anna. It is amazing that we can deliver our
own quality with a lower cost. I am so thankful that all these extra time reflects
for a person alive. I am spending so much over time with my family now. Now that
we're all mostly remote, how are you getting used to the new tools?
SPEAKER_02: Well it's exciting. It's a bit overwhelming too. We're changing our
ways of working and delivering our value from the traditional asynchronous way to
real-time collaboration where many to many can talk. We're using visual boards,
we're automating our communications, we're including nudging to increase our
learning. Who knows what else is out there to learn?
SPEAKER_03: Well I think there is too much more out there that we haven't explored
but thanks to our new digital strategy for starting. We will continue exploring new
ways of making our workshops greater and better than they are today. We will
continue to take a digital first approach in everything we do. Trying to look at
everything we do or use to do, exploring tools out there and trying to capitalize
on the innovative tools like the money plug and
SPEAKER_06: play with the new such tools out there. So though many guys are
wondering, since things are going so great now, does this mean that we are done
with a digital transformation and now we can finally be at
SPEAKER_03: well Ruby. This reminds me of something I've heard recently in many
sessions of my courses. It is another transformation but a transformational
journey. We're still finding out how much more we can do. We must always be proud
of what we have achieved but never satisfied with those things missing. I honestly
think we have an even scratch of surface of what is possible. Thank you for your
work over the past year and for helping knowledge lab change for that. I could not
have done this with the listing.
SPEAKER_06: We appreciate that. Well thank you though. Thank you very much.
SPEAKER_04: So now we get to a very important part which is we've seen the change
forced by the circumstances, we've seen the evolution of the company but now we get
to a point in which now we could get like in a comfort zone of we've changed that's
okay but the world is in constant change now. So how do you prepare your company so
that whatever comes now is future-free?
SPEAKER_05: Yeah this is a sleepless night question right because I feel like you
will never be completely future ready and I think it's a good thing as long as you
keep asking yourself that question we are way there in terms of a good study base.
A lot of this into with mindset and creating that mindset within the company with
everyone and the environment where you keep pushing yourselves and really not
stopping challenging yourself. So really creating a culture that is really strong
on challenging sort of score not only when things happen but every day and going
back to the learning outcomes going back to the business needs and keep challenging
them so that we know we are up to date and every now and then again we will be a
curveball hopefully not as big as COVID coming your way and that's the mindset
needs to be there that could be an opportunity about the better and that's for me
the essence of it. You will never know if you're future-proof but you can start
preparing for it by following what's out there by pushing yourself and challenging
yourself as well internally and making sure that the culture is strong enough
SPEAKER_04: that we can have that every day. Very interesting because it's a lot
about how you set your infrastructure your organization but most importantly the
mindset that there's a phrase I use a lot which is transformation is not a
destination it's a journey which means that you have to continually be in
SPEAKER_05: that journey is that great. Absolutely yeah I think that technology is
a great enabler and the digital innovation part of it is huge it really enabled us
to be the company we are today but that will change in a heartbeat. I remember when
everyone was buying TomTom's and the Manflator Google Maps just made everything
obsolete and in order to acknowledge what you're using today it might be obsolete
next week but the mindset and that we have needs to be the differentiator. Thank
you very much. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04: We really hope that you enjoyed the case at least as much as we did
when creating it and that you learn about the key topics about this disruptive
innovation and the things that matter when your company is at the verge of a real
disruption caused by external events in this case.
SPEAKER_05: Yeah it's been a pleasure of sharing our story our struggles our
successes in some areas as well it's a real story and it's obviously my perception
and our perception how it happened. Now it was a very emotional time as you know so
I can guarantee that everything was exactly 100% as you read it but it at least is
our perception. Now what inspired me as well is seeing all those success stories
from other industries reading about them and the industry that got massively
disrupted and seeing okay if they can change what can I learn from that. So
hopefully you'll be able to learn something from our company and from our industry
and take it back to your industry and see maybe how you can adapt or take over one
of the two things that you can implement in your
SPEAKER_04: industry. And very important things that we're covered here as you
need to take with you is about this digital disruption innovation it's about the
opportunity to change it's about how to realize that the execution of your strategy
even though it might be very short term now do a strategy with a long-term ambition
it's very important for you to realize. So all those things along with their
sensational changes aligned with that this long-term perspective are very important
aspects. So as you can imagine digital disruption does not come alone it's just
technology it's all the other things that we have been talking about in this case
and that's part of the success
SPEAKER_05: of this transformation as well. Yeah well Seth Cassie thank you and it
was a pleasure working with you on this case thank you and yeah hope you all
enjoyed hope you enjoyed