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RACING ON THE MOON

CultureSparq.com | We Build The Culture!

In 2021, we will get to see the first remote-controlled Car-Race on the Moon.

OMG!  I can’t wait to see this.  We will get to see an extremely odd project hold a remote-controlled car race on the lunar surface in October 2021— on the surface of the Moon. What's more, the two race cars will be partially designed by a group of talented students, and a McLaren P1 designer.

Why, to capture the world's imagination and do something different that allows us to be the best.  

We love this and is part of the reason for us sharing this message with you today, because as a leader we want you to reflect on how the creation of your strategy is different enough to make you stand out from the crowd noise in your market.  

At CULTURESPARQ we take this seriously, for example, we begin and end each meeting with the question: Did you come today with an idea or strategy that’s bold and creative enough to make us history? 

• It’s our attitude, mindset and more importantly our culture. 

Let’s take a deeper look at identifying how this Car Racing project on the Moon can help us be better at what we do as Strategist and leaders..

A Little Background

According the article via Design Boom, “it’s a project that sounds too good to be true, but moon mark is proposing to host the first-ever race on the moon’s surface with remote-controlled cars designed by high school students and Motorsport designers.  The will design, build, land and race two autonomous lunar vehicles in 2021.”

Moon Mark stated, the remote-controlled cars will race around a "track" that's yet to be determined, at speeds that are yet to be determined, controlled via a Wi-Fi link back to the lander module that will communicate with race drivers on Earth in “near-real time” - now that’s really cool!

 The first part of the project was initiated earlier in 2020, when moon mark launched the ‘lunar race car design challenge’ to high school students across the world.  And this open call asked students to design a vehicle that can withstand the moon’s harsh climate, which is hot during the day and extremely cold at night.  The racers can weigh no more than 11 pounds (5 kg) and have to be equipped with a WiFi module, a compact battery, an IU solar panel, a UHF radio, and a single board computer. 

CultureSparq is delighted to see the project leaders develop and mobilize a culture of innovators of the future, allowing them to dream big and realize that nothing is impossible. 

This insight reminded us that, creating any type of innovation can be a fascinating process but how do you actually explore untapped ideas as a CEO, a Digital Strategist or Designer? 

We decided to go a little deeper and pull out some strategies and sharing some of our knowledge on how we believe this innovative project has some key areas for creating and disrupting new markets.

The Big Lesson: Your Imagination Can Make Your Strategy Create A Massive Brand Explosion

You ask what does this has to do with CultureSparq?  We have a practice around doing just that. Take myself for example, having backed across 30+ countries, learning and making connections to mobilize a winning culture of talented leaders so we can design and build micro startups at speed — I continue to look for ways to achieve the impossible mission of Strategically reinventing businesses to have massive brand explosion in new markets.  

One of the most exciting things about our Strategy is the Design thinking process is it allows us to inject a creativity by looking for patterns in the way to help companies create new markets and re-create existing ones. 

This is just a glimpse on how we innovate by looking across and beyond everyday boundaries, and so happen to have found six basic approaches in this remote controlled car race on the moon to help you gain a new perspective as well.

1. Form Diverse Teams

2. Have A Relentless Mindset

3. Establish A High Demand For Innovation

4. Create Unpredictable Situations

5. Adopt Innovative Technologies

6. Be Data-Driven

Remember 

All Strategy and Design thinking requires you to look at familiar data to achieve the impossible.

Creating new market space requires different people and mindsets who has a pattern of strategic thinking. Instead of looking within the accepted boundaries that define how we compete, managers can look systematically across and beyond them. By doing so, they can find unoccupied territory even on the Moon that represents a real breakthrough in value.

Let’s connect, please SCHEDULE some time with us so we can take you on this journey. 

We Build The Culture!

How These Tools Can Track Your Strategy

CultureSparq.com | We Build The Culture

The Power of Enterprise Tools

Digital Transformation is the process of transforming your organization to meet customer needs more efficiently through technological innovation and data.  One way to do it, is by powering up your organization with the use of the right leaders who can evaluate and implement the best enterprise tool to manage your work.

In order to deliver business value in the digital age, you will need to require your leaders to broaden not only their skills, capabilities, and understanding, but also their enterprise portfolio management solutions.

Part of their efforts will require them to evaluate and implement an enterprise workflow platform that’s built for scaling your core capabilities practices.

We’ve evaluated and put together a quick recommendation of three Enterprise Management tools that have the capabilities to help your organization get started on your Digital Transformation journey.  With this purpose in mind we took a look at some tools we’ve used that can help your digital strategy get tracked quickly. 

These Enterprise Management tools are focused around helping your organization manage all types of work.  They are designed to cover most digital product initiatives and support most team sizes. The right tool can keep your culture aligned across the organization with the ability to track, measure and show management the impact of their work. 

It’s not only about being on time or on budget, but also about business outcomes so these software tools can get you setup to start doing just that.

BENEFITS

As a CEO you will have a window into the guts of your company with Top-to-bottom transparency.  Whether you decided to consolidate your entire value stream by linking strategy to execution across teams, you will get that rolled up visibility of multiple programs.  This allows your leaders to drive business outcomes with collaborative and digitized processes.

These 3 Tools include but not limited to: 

1. ATLASSIAN/JIRA

2. VersionONE

3. Rally

These tools can help you reap the benefits of your digital transformation by bringing predictability into focus, removing silos and making your business rich in data currency so you can make it easier to spot and resolve problems at speed: 

Let’s take a closer look at some key areas you will need to know before moving on.  Here are some areas they can help you manage your work projects across your portfolios.

Connect work to meaningful outcomes

In order to make faster and smarter decisions, your development work needs to align to your company's most important business objectives. These tools can help you align daily work to strategy and leverage data to steer your business towards an outcomes-driven culture.

Align teams and empower them to innovate

These tool can serve as a central hub for teams to collaboratively plan, prioritize and track work on a synchronized cadence. Teams can visualize their work in the form of lists, boards or timeline views, and more importantly—they can understand how their day-to-day work aligns to the greater goals of the business.

Plan the right work, measure the right results

Stop struggling to manage dependencies and risks across multiple teams or delivery groups. These tools provide a comprehensive rolling-up of the progress, dependencies, alignment and plan health—so teams and groups can make intentional decisions and stay relentlessly focused on value.

REMEMBER

Using tools across your organization involves tracking the effectiveness of your strategy and then iterating where needed. These tools are all about tracking, analytics and iteration!  CultureSparq is serious about creating an amazing tool adoption for all teams.

Want to know more? SCHEDULE some time with us to learn how we will evaluate and implement the right enterprise tools in your business to keep your strategy aligned and visible.

We Build The Culture 

Do You Have Social Currency?

CultureSparq.com | We Build The Culture

Let’s level set. What is Social Currency?

Social currency is the ability of brands to fit into how consumers manage their social lives in today's digital and mobile age. Social currency (or social capital) applies to the relationship between your business and consumers.

Brands get built through experiences, through people accepting them and making them part of the fabric of their lives. This process of building strong brands is very personal and also very social. Today, one of the most important strengths of a brand is its social currency, the extent to which people share the brand or information about the brand with others as part of their everyday social lives.

Social currency strategies are arguably the most critical point of leverage for a marketer and is giving their brands a boost in revenues. From health care to fashion, growing number of companies have come to embrace the concept of “social currency,” allowing consumers to pay via tweet and other social media posts.

Companies that are cultivating an exceptional portfolio of brands like @Inditex and @LVMH will need to have a social currency strategy so they can discover new high-paying customers that feel connected to their company values and mission.

To achieve and maintain a leadership position, partnering with CultureSparq is beneficial because we help companies nurture and preserve their brand’s distinctive identity and purpose. At the same time, we leverage our global experiences, creative resources and operational expertise that is tailored to fit a brand uniqueness. 

If you haven’t dominated your digital presence already - your brand need to build and nurture social currency.

Here’s 3 quick areas to get you started with your Social Currency strategy.

1. SHARE

   Establish a way to which people share the brand as part of their everyday social lives. For example:  Create your brands' own channel and upload videos relevant to your business.  Utilize influencers to open your content to a much broader (but well-targeted) audience. Or create videos to showcase your business behind the scenes or in-the-moment content - for example: marketing can show how your items are made from concept-to-cash in a interactive way by going live on IG or where your customers are.

2. UNBOXING

   Creating the Perfect Unboxing Experience. Use branded boxes that are uniquely designed and manufactured. Plus, to create a successful unboxing experience, the box can't simply be an ordinary box. Use unique packing material. Think about product presentation. Consider giving a free sample or reward for being a loyal customer. Add a touch of personalization. Include important inserts that give insights and opportunities for the customer to consider right away .

3. CREATE CHANNELS WITH COMMUNITIES

   Test new marketing channels by creating community-building opportunities so your brand becomes an integral part of your customer daily lives by enabling them to connect, interact, and benefit from your brand at all points of the customer journey.  You can achieve this by creating pop-up Digital Stores or Boutiques within those channels and personalized them based on that community profile and mission.  You can even make communities a popular destination because people can experience a personalized and cool interaction with your products because it meets their community charter from being able to make fun videos with products giveaways to help them achieve a social impact.

REMEMBER

Social currency is your influence on social networks, online and offline communities, and the degree by which your business is shared by others.  It’s not just about conversation, buzz, or community. It is all this and much more. 

Are you doing anything that stands out from the competition? Do people look to you for a specific product or service? If so, you have social currency. 

If not, SCHEDULE some time with us to learn how we can help create and execute your e-commerce strategies.

WE BUILD THE CULTURE

The Future of E-Commerce

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3 eCommerce Trends  To Consider in 2021

What will your eCommerce look like in 2021?

With retail closures at an all time high—consumers are forced to do their shopping online. This has created a massive consumer migration of newcomers seeking a world-class and personalized customer experience.

As we head into the new year, a variety of trends are gaining momentum that will shape retail and eCommerce forever.

To become a major competitor, your eCommerce platform must be developed quicker than Amazon can deliver, and this mean you will have to invest smart and go big at being all in. The shift has been made and consumers are now seeking virtually store fronts to be able to order from their computer at home, mobile phones or anywhere without stepping a foot inside a store.

At CultureSparq, we know cool way your brand can stand out in a crowded eCommerce space is through automated shipping and fulfillment. Orders must have fast, free, and sustainable shipping. This includes branding the packaging to give a personalized experience when customer are unboxing it.  This type of fulfillment can make an additional remarkable experience when combined.  

To help you better compete with marketplaces and retail giants, we recommend brands invest in richer, more personalized experiences. To drive that deeper connection.  Humanizing your brand aids in customer retention, now a top priority as acquisition costs rise, along with uncertainty in digital advertising.

To help you prepare your business for the next step in the eCommerce journey, here are 3 trends to consider in 2021:

1. Create Deeper Connections: Solidify your customer loyalty by knowing how to connect with them.  Try creating Memories of having more convenience and affordable cost options as the top reason for increasing your brand trust. But don’t miss the fact that consumers also want to connect with brands on a deeper level like how the product or company is linked to a social impact/cause.

2. Make Your Fulfillment Competitive:  Fulfillment will be your key differentiator especially now that consumers gravitate to brands offering fast, free, and sustainable shipping. Try to establish a fulfillment competitive advantage by placing inventory closer to customers, automating returns, and offering flexible options like curbside pickup.

3. Make Subscription The New Normal:  One-time buyers and single-time orders can be huge obstacles to scaling your business rapidly.  Try to capture a lion’s share of the market by adapting a subscription model that will benefit both your customers and business. Something easy as Monthly payment options for larger purchases will help customers and entice them to subscribe to you.

Remember

Online shopping is the reality and retail is becoming increasingly digital and internet-driven. Store fronts like bricks and mortar have adopted elements of the online experience to encourage us all to visit them by playing to the strengths that in-person experiences can offer, such as more personal levels of service.

The Consumers have made it clear about what they want from the shopping experience – are you listening?

If you need help strategizing and delivering your 2021 roadmap, please SCHEDULE some time with us and we will do an eCommerce deep dive with your team towards an unified connected commerce experience.

We Build The Culture

Workflow Automation

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What is Workflow Automation?

Workflow Automation refers to the design, execution, and automation of processes based on workflow rules where human tasks, data or files are routed between people or systems based on pre-defined business rules. By leveraging self-operating processes that run manual tasks, workflow automation can help your business save time and money, diminish errors, and boost productivity.

Why Why Workflow Automation

At CultureSparq, we believe in automating workflows, especially those processes that are primarily handled manually by employees — significant improvements can be made in efficiency, productivity and even accountability.

The Benefits

Workflow automation provides several benefits over manual processes from Policy compliance adherence, Improved visibility, Improved employee satisfaction, Continual process improvement, Better workload management to Reduced errors.  These are just a few areas digital leaders will have to think about automating as part of their digital transformation strategy.

Almost every department in your business can benefit from workflow automation. Whether it’s marketing, human resources, or finance — automating your workflows will help you work smarter, not harder.

Here are FIVE examples to help you on your transformation journey towards automating a specific workflow or function:

MARKETING

Reach customers no matter where they are in their journey.  By automating some of your Marketing’s most repetitive tasks, such as sending emails, creating campaigns and posting to social media you can reach customers faster and convert customers into lifelong brand advocates.

Human Resources 

From performance reviews to employee onboarding, off-boarding and request for time off.  Decrease the time of having to manually enter all your new hires’ personal information, like addresses, social security numbers, and other employee information into payroll, expense, and insurance systems, by automation your HR systems.

FINANCE

You can streamline your CapEx Approval Process and improve Compliance by allowing users to easily define, build, and publish customized capital expenditure request processes. Automation your finance processes so you can streamline all your travel requests, reimbursements, and budget approvals to quickly learn how to maximize revenues.

IT 

You can replace repeatable processes and reduce manual intervention by automation your IT systems and software. Areas like Cloud automation and DevOps Automation can increase IT productivity and efficiency – and reduce human errors. Recently the focus on IT automation has shifted to enhanced business productivity, greater innovation and faster speed to market.

REPORTING & DATA ANALYTICS

Today’s digital marketing landscape often involves dealing with many different data sources on a daily basis. When it comes to measuring success, it’s important to have an accurate estimation by Tracking, Documenting and Measuring the key outcomes of your deliverables.  Automating your reporting process will help you gain faster operational insights and business insights that give you the necessary talking points needed to bridge the gap from the operational level to the business level so you can keep the company informed at speed.

Remember

With any technology-enabled initiative, you must have a strong change management strategy in place so that the workers impacted as a result of automation will adjust to the new workflow rather than rejecting the changes.

If you need some help with your Automation strategy and execution, SCHEDULE some time with us so we can streamline your workflow, so you can focus on delivering ore value and increase your income velocity. 

We Build The Culture!