Operating a business on multiple continents gives one a unique perspective of our global industry. Serving local, multi-national and global clients also helps to hone a unique set of skills and knowledge about the inner workings of human nature. The journey is intricately complicated, and yet completely simple.
There are definitely some unique differences and similarities that occur from one destination to the next, one client to the next and from one service team to the next, and I will delve a little deeper into that.
For all businesses with global aspirations, the differences create challenges and a demand for flexibility and agility within the processes of organizational efficiency. Process defines the quality output, speed to scale or delivery and service optimization. Very often these two bedfellows (flexibility and process) struggle with each other to produce the required customer service result. Service is often the first to be neglected when expansion happens too fast.
In my experience of managing a business that services client needs on a global scale the two disciplines – agile flexibility and optimized process – need to find that magical space where both are concurrently achieved. We certainly believe we have an organization that is constantly achieving well on both scores and improving on each daily.
Project management skills are fairly universal as a discipline and the fundamentals for success don’t really change from one continent to the next. It’s these skills that define a methodology that works and can be culturally adjusted, but at a macro level provides the process efficiency necessary to deliver optimal service.
Design is heavily influenced by client requirements and requires the ability to listen, consult, and diagnose. Also critical are knowledge and skills to problem solve and innovate, and the availability of technology and trend data to create a client-focused value add solution.
Okay, so that addresses complicated process, service and scale structures that are mostly void of human nature. It’s also not a guarantee that this will lead to optimal growth and success. It is a well-known fact that, no matter how functional, people connect with brands on an emotional level.
Achieving a winning result in our game is all about inspiring people to perform and engage at a higher level. An organization’s viewpoint and people philosophy has great influence on how it approaches a solution. What I mean by this is simple. Do you see humanity as something different if you’re black or white, young or old, male or female, gay or straight, Christian or Jew, America or European, Nigerian or Indian, South sider or up-towner? Of course we know there are many things that make us different and every individual on earth has a unique life experience and finger print. Inspiring people and helping create sustainable human energy around a cause that is good locally, across continents and around the world is a challenge that we are being asked regularly to help solve. When we have focused on the differences it’s been very interesting and created a set of positive results that have impressed, but when we focused on the similarities we achieve a quantum shift in results.
There is a revolution happening, just like in the commercial renewable energy sector. The Human Energy sector is now experiencing some profound shifts and it’s exciting. What will the next Glocal look like? Stay tuned and keep winning.
In 1994, David Sand, left the corporate world for an entrepreneurial journey of a lifetime, and Uwin Iwin was formed. The company started out as a specialist provider of travel incentive solutions, and grew by natural progression into the reward and recognition space as well as the incentives space, with a significant amount of convergence between the two. From there the events and conferencing division was formed with a full marketing and communications support function. Headquartered in South Africa, Uwin Iwin International now has offices in India, United Kingdom, Kenya, Nigeria, Mauritius and Ghaha, as well as partnerships with companies in Latin America.
