Nathalie Morris is managing director of 15-year-old Auckland-based firm Ubiquity, which specialises in helping businesses use technology as part of their marketing mix. The firm's software, called Engage, helps companies manage data-driven marketing for a range of channels like email and mobile, with the company also providing related services in areas such as strategy and campaign execution.
It's a no-brainer that harnessing the power of technology is central at the firm, given it works in the space. But Morris says it's also been a critical issue in managing growth at the company, where headcount has doubled in the past couple of years to 45.
"When you're small it's easy for everyone to talk to each other and for things to flow organically, but, as the business grows you need to have more processes in place," Morris says. "We're a great believer in technology being able to help support those processes and create greater efficiencies. They may sound like boring things but they're absolutely critical to growth."
For example, the company has instituted a customised end-to-end project management solution internally, which helps schedule staff resources, tracks time spent on projects, links to billing processes and provides management reporting.
The software has created efficiencies on a number of levels, Morris says, by reducing the overhead of managing work flowing through the company, giving the team a greater understanding of what kinds of projects are most profitable and freeing up managers' time to analyse reports rather than create them.
Keeping on top of developments in new technology is still a challenge, even when you're working in the sector. Morris says reading up on what's happening here and overseas is key, as is networking with other business owners to learn about solutions to relieve various pain points in their operations.
Gaining staff buy-in is also crucial to successfully finding and implementing new technology solutions in the business, she says.
"One of our core values is innovation but we extend that beyond innovation in terms of the products and services we offer in the market to innovation in terms of the way we're doing things internally. It's about creating an environment where staff can make suggestions and can see their suggestions being implemented."
Good staff in the software space are highly sought after and finding and retaining employees is another issue Morris cites as vital for the company's success.
"That's been one of the main factors with the potential to limit growth, so we've had to put a lot of energy into looking at how we go about recruitment."
In recent years managers in the business had found an increasing amount of time was being swallowed by hiring, so the company has now taken on a part-time employee dedicated to HR to reduce that load.
Constantly innovating products and services, having an ongoing product development roadmap, informed by overseas and local trends as well as intelligence gleaned from client relationships, is all part of staying the course.
"As you can imagine, over the past 15 years the environment has changed hugely and constantly and as a business we've had to learn to adapt and change what we're doing as well to meet the needs of the market."
"We try and get really close to clients to look at what might be next for our software offering, bringing both staff and clients really closely into that process makes sure we're delivering new things."
ASB Ambition
Part eight of a Business Ambition series in partnership with ASB, based on a survey conducted over six weeks and giving insights into the ambitions, concerns, wants and needs of NZ businesses.
