Storm to Transform – a CEO tells his transformation story

In a previous article, which you can read here, I told some of our own transformation story here at Ensono. Today, I am happy to release a video which captures our transformation journey and brings out the essence of who Ensono is today! This journey doesn’t end, but we are proud of what we have achieved – for our clients and for our associates!

In this second article on transformation, I want to dig a little deeper into a couple of the themes that I believe were key to our own transformation.

Creating excitement

A complacent organization is likely to stagnate, or worse, move backwards. So it is important to create and maintain a level of excitement within the company that brings with it a buzz that really drives positive transformation.

One definition of ‘excitement’ is ‘a feeling of great enthusiasm and eagerness’, and who wouldn’t want that in their business?  It’s my belief that companies whose employees are excited about what they do and that allow that excitement to reach every part of the business are the companies most likely to succeed.

When we transitioned from Acxiom in 2016 to become Ensono today, we made the decision to effectively become a new company, with a fresh identity and a clear set of shared values and purpose. We didn’t just put these on a PowerPoint slide never to be seen again; we made sure that we started living these values from day one. We also clearly defined our purpose, ‘…be a relentless ally, disrupting the status quo and unleashing our clients to do great things’.

Once we truly started to help clients do great things, we made sure that we spread the good news to every corner of the business. It’s easy for people to get caught up in the detail of their day to day role without seeing the bigger picture. We wanted every Ensono person to see the value of what they do as part of that big picture and share in the excitement of truly making great things happen. Everyone in the team, regardless of their role, has the right to reflect on and take some pride in these achievements where we, along with our clients, have been part of a team that made it happen.

Who wouldn’t get excited about some of the great things our clients do with our help?  We have been extremely fortunate in the number of ways and opportunities in which we have been able to help our clients be “do great things”.   If you have time, take a look at some of the case studies here. We really do make a positive impact on helping our client be successful and we are extremely proud of that.

But the excitement doesn’t stop there. Our vision and values also permeate the way we conduct our own business. Earlier this month for example, we completed a project to replace an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) system in one of our data centers.  It is a very complex project, but one that our team executed flawlessly and it had the added benefit of being a solution that is much more efficient, reflecting our on-going commitment to improving our impact on the environment. That’s exciting news too.

By communicating these things regularly to the whole team, and celebrating them together in out of work activities, we maintain a high level of positive excitement that has played such an important part in our transformation, and which continues to do so today. This new video does a great job of articulating this, so is well worth a look.

Understanding our industry

To be able to help any client with their transformation journey, having expertise in our own services and offer is a given. But the IT market is fast moving and constantly changing. For many of us, that’s what makes it fun. But as a company, it’s really important to give people the time and resources to stay at the top of their game and to enjoy the confidence that comes with that.

For Ensono, that means every facet of IT, from Mainframe to Cloud. In fact, one of the biggest challenges in our industry is nurturing new talent for legacy systems. We have applied the same learning ethos to that as we do for any bleeding edge technology, as outlined in this article. This goes beyond our Learning Management System (Ensono University) to a culture of informal learning and mentoring.  It is why we have invested in our Public Cloud Academy and our Mainframe Academy where we develop new talent for the two fastest growth areas for our business.

We also need to understand our client’s businesses and their specific industry challenges and opportunities. When we work with healthcare organizations, media companies, public services, financial institutions and so on, we need to understand their priorities and how we can help them achieve their objectives. That requires questioning and listening skills and a drive to seek out relevant industry knowledge. We have nurtured a culture that supports and enables this, providing access to relevant industry reports and data for example, or subscribing to the right industry publications. In short, we now see our client’s business as our business and how we are working together to help them achieve great things.

Every organization’s transformation journey is different but whatever the path, I believe that creating excitement instead of complacency is key. Our journey will continue as we learn, transform and innovate to help our clients tackle the increasing opportunities and challenges presented by technology in the years ahead!