Our team is our power source. Everyone in the studio is a recognized highly-skilled expert in their own field and contributes to our common goal – delivering high-quality services that captivate the audience by turning ideas into realities.

And I am very happy I have this opportunity to share more about our activities from the last few months and to talk about digital trends that are shaping 2020 and the upcoming decade.

It has been a year that is going to go down in history with global events that showed us how technology can get us through difficult times and can help us build a resilient society. In the last months, we experienced working and studying from home and that showed us new ways of dealing with information and knowledge.

Let’s look at virtual reality.

Using a native headset and high-detail assets, this technology provides solutions for industrial enterprises, which were affected by the closing of international borders in the sense that their staff could not travel between offices, present new products and provide sufficient information.

Corporate training for new machines and engineer qualifications can be performed in this immersive environment with special tools which trace or navigate every action of the user. Using their hands to interact with the assets gives the users a vivid experience of practice and the tutor can be there with them to guide and explain in detail, even if actually they are miles apart. With such enhanced and accelerated experiential learning, corporate training can easily be completed way under budget and ahead of schedule.

Another example of additional visualisation for better sense stimulation and better engagement is augmented reality.

ImmerseFX and the Association of Student Explorers developed an augmented reality application, which shows human organs, cuts them by axis and reveals a digital microscope sample of the tissue at exact locations. Using a mobile device, the students can place a digital asset of a human organ beside them and physically walk around and explore it. This spatial representation facilitates the learning process and memorization when learning from home and not having access to a digital microscope or laboratory with samples.

Besides the education, medical and industrial sectors, immersive technologies are opening the doors to new markets and monetization opportunities helping to create value across economy and society:

E-commerce is very strongly affected where brands are now creating entire experiences around the product that lead to conversion and purchase through storytelling and interaction.

In the beauty industry instant make-up preview through augmented reality face filters is becoming a user favourite feature.

Art stakeholders and artists are discovering new platforms to showcase their work without constraints like space or risk of damage to artifacts. Cultural heritage is being recorded and shared digitally to online tourists who explore the world from a headset in their home.

Having said all this, it’s not a surprise that according to a report by Technavio published in March 2020 the extended reality market is expected to grow by USD 176.74 billion during 2020-2024.

And this doesn’t mean that machines will replace humans in the future of work. Instead this human-machine symbiotic collaboration will boost our productivity and make it easier for us to fast forward into the digital tomorrow.

We should not only step on the idea of digitalisation thinking about content. We should do our best to imagine a transformed world with new interface tools that better understand humans and provide a hands-free experience in an interconnected environment. Wearable devices are a reality right now and they will just keep going.

In conclusion, I would like to say that we are looking forward to many ambitious projects to create not only products, but also to train more people and share knowledge and expertise.

We are in a position where we can influence the future for ourselves and the generations to come. Hardware devices are becoming smaller, lighter and faster and we are starting to wear gadgets instead of holding them in our hands. This shift is going to create new interfaces, new habits and new lifestyles. Besides, many industries are begging for just a little push to complete their digital transformation. XR is just the tool to do it.

As a serial start-up entrepreneur and futurist with a passion for immersive technologies and innovation, I believe it is very important to speak out for what we stand for and sometimes amazing things can be achieved. I wish this to all the participants in the European Digital Week.

The post The Immersive Start of a New Digital Decade appeared first on DiTech Media.

1. Community – A truly borderless & exclusive fintech community driven by a common purpose – innovate financial services
2. Connect – The online platform to connect finance and business enablers with fintech innovators for global impact
3. Collaborate – The tools and resources to collaborate on fintech ideas and initiatives that will innovate the financial services ecosystem
4. Cultivate – A members-only investment platform to cultivate fintech initiatives into financial services innovation

Angel Lorente is the Founder and Master Connector of today’s fastest growing global fintech network — FinTech Connector. Angel is an alumnus of MIT’s FinTech: Future Commerce and Big Data & Social Analytics where he evolved a vision to connect the fintech world for impact. Angel’s storyline connects every dot from financial services to MIT to the future of financial technology.

FinTech Connector is revolutionizing the way global professional enablers and fintech innovators connect, collaborate on fintech initiatives, and cultivate those initiatives into the next generation of financial services innovation. What they have accomplished since Feb 2018: – 20+ communities in over 15+ countries led by Community Partners with a sphere of influence of over 120K people – Launched their online membership and messaging platform – Over 1,700+ members joined our platform via organic growth and word of mouth – 12,000+ top of the funnel enabler and innovator leads from various meetups and events around the world – Raised $225K from Community Partners, Advisers, and Founders – Recruited 6 advisers with finance, tech, & innovation expertise – Releasing their LaunchPad Collaboration Services and Mobile Engagement App in 2020.

The post FinTech Connector appeared first on DiTech Media.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for startups to attract funding, and the funds that they manage to find in a crisis may not always be beneficial to the company. Join us as we analyze which investor conditions have become tougher in recent months, and why.

A term sheet is a list of conditions, and it is the main tool used in negotiations in the world of venture capital. This article specifies the conditions under which investors are willing to finance a startup. Working at investment and VC firm Digital Horizon, I study three to five term sheets every month, and here’s what I have noticed: since the beginning of the pandemic, many conditions have become much tougher. Entrepreneurs cannot always distinguish and spot non-standard conditions, especially if they are attracting investments for the first time.

Indeed, with the onset of any crisis, investors often become more cautious and try to protect their investments as much as possible in case the startup does not “take off”, as it is only natural for people to be conservative during troubling times. However, most players are well aware that the VC industry is one that bets on growth and is not afraid of taking risks.

According to the founder of Stride.VC venture fund Fred Destin, the fund’s return is generated mainly by investments in outstanding companies, and not due to aggressive term conditions. Therefore, it is important to remember that it is not required to agree to more stringent conditions because some of them may have unfavorable consequences in the long run.

To avoid problems with attracting new rounds in the future, let us look at how the basic conditions of the term sheet change during a crisis and what the consequences might be.

Valuation

This point is the most vulnerable today, since the assessment of a startup is directly related to the state of the industry in which it operates. For example, even very promising travel companies are currently in a bad position: the industry has just stopped, with any return to normality seemingly years away. However, the problem may also concern even prosperous industries, with one example being the British neo-bank Monzo, which has recently attracted investments reflecting a stunning 40% drop in valuation.

The current crisis demonstrates approximately the same tendency as the Global Financial Crisis of 2008-2009, where company valuations fell by 15 to 30%. At the same time, most experts today agree that startups in later stages will again suffer the most this time.

Fig. 2 – Changing the valuation of companies. Source: Pitchbook.

The decline in valuations today is dictated by current market conditions, and as market conditions will likely improve in the future, even if that might be a while yet, valuations won’t be in decline forever. Investors in the next rounds will clearly understand that a downturn occurred because of the COVID crisis, and not because of the problems of a particular company.

That said, some companies will have deeper problems exposed by the crisis, and may not survive as a result, but those that do survive often do so as stronger, better and leaner companies.

Share types

During such times as we are going through now, the main thing for startup founders to do when business is severely affected is to keep the startup afloat for a year or a year and a half. Because of this, we will likely see a lot of renewal rounds and convertible loans that can help bridge the operating gap. As a result, companies will issue greater numbers of  shares in different classes, for example, A + 1, A + 2 and others. Each new share type will be senior than the previous ones, which means that each time later investors will be able to receive better conditions than those who invested earlier, including the founders themselves.

On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with that because issuing senior shares even within the same round is a common practice. On the other hand, it is important not to overdo it with the number of stock classes, since a large number of classes can lead to errors in the future.

Liquidation preferences

This term refers to the return on investment in case the business develops into the worst case scenario. The standard practice is when investors can return 1x, that is, exactly the amount that they have invested. More aggressive conditions such as 2x, 3x, etc. begin to be included in the term sheet more often when the situation with the exits of investors worsens in the market.

More aggressive conditions such as 2x, 3x, etc. begin to be included in the term sheet more often as investors can see potential worsening issues when trying to exit an investment. For example, potential investors may insist on the right of a return two to three times that of their initial investment.

In this case, you need to remember that in the next round, the founders will not be able to offer other future investors worse terms than were offered before. That is, the clause on the return of 2x or 3x on investments will still be transferred from one term sheet to another. As a result, it may turn out that when selling the company, the last investor will get everything, returning investments in a multiple volume, while the founders and investors of earlier stages get nothing.

Fig. 4 – Distribution of Liq Pref when concluding investment deals in Silicon Valley in 2008-2009. Source: Fenwick & West.

Another example is the term called “Participation rights,” which implies that in addition to the return on invested funds, an investor will receive a part of the remaining proceeds in proportion to his or her share when selling the company. Although in recent years the number of investment deals with such a condition has been steadily declining, it’s worth remembering that during the past crisis, this type of condition was very popular.

Fig. 3 – Share of investment transactions with Participation rights (Pitchbook)

This term is especially important for founders. It should be remembered that “large liq pref rights” for early stage investors will automatically be transferred to later investors. As a result, founders risk getting only a small part of the sale of the company or not raising money at all in future rounds.

Anti-dilution

If the company’s valuation decreases in the next round, the anti-dilution provision gives the investor the right to “recalculate” his or her share in the company in the previous round according to the new price. For these cases, the preferred share to common share conversion ratio is usually used.

If everything goes well, then at the moment of liquidity, investors convert their preferred shares to common shares with a factor of 1x. But let’s say that one of the rounds was down round and anti-dilution was applied. In this case, the conversion ratio can be >1x. Consequently, the founders of the company and holders of ordinary shares will be more affected by the dilution of shares.

In the term sheet, you can find different options for anti-dilution. For example, a weighted average (WA) means fixing the average value of the estimate decrease, while full ratchet (FR) means full compensation for the share drop.

With WA, in a down round, the coefficient is calculated using a special formula that takes into account the size of the current and past rounds. In general, this instrument will help investors to adjust their stake in the company which decreased by dilution. The latter FR is a tougher option, because it recalculates the share price without taking into account the volume of the current round. With this approach, the investor’s share will be recalculated at a new price. The data for 2008-2009 shows that the use of the full ratchet option increased during the previous crisis.

If the company’s valuation drops in the next round, and the startup offers its shares at a cheaper price than before, early investors will be at a loss. Let’s say that 1 million round A preferred shares worth $2 each were issued in round A. Then, in round B, the company plans to issue another 1 million, but its Round B preferred shares are already worth $1 each. As a result, the share price of early investors would be halved.

To reduce the losses of investors, the term sheet introduces conditions that provide protection against dilution, known as “anti-dilution”. These conditions affect the proportion in which shares of different classes will be converted in the next rounds.

There are two main approaches to anti-dilution:

1. Full ratchet: old shares are converted in such a proportion that investors stock repriced fully accorging new round price. In our example, stocks will be converted 1:2.

Full ratchet is a rather stringent and severe condition, since in this case the share of startup founders is more diluted. Data for 2008-2009 shows that in the previous crisis, the use of this particular anti-dilution option increased.

Fig. 5 – The use of different types of anti-dilution in investment transactions in Silicon Valley in 2008-2009. Source: Fenwick & West.

2. Weighted average – a softer option to protect the interests of early investors. For our example, the calculation will look like this:

CP2 = CP1 * (A + B) / (A + C) =

$2 * (1,000,000 + $ 1,000,000 / $ 2) / (1,000,000 + 1,000,000) = 1.5

where CP2 is the conversion price of shares issued on Round A, immediately after Round B;

CP1 is the conversion price of shares issued in round A before round B;

A is the number of ordinary shares of round A;

B is the amount received by the company for shares in round B divided by CP1;

C is the number of new shares issued in Round B.

If with full ratchet early investors would have received 2 preferred shares for 1 ordinary share, then with a weighted average they can exchange 3 ordinary shares for 2 preferred shares. The blurring of the share of the founders in the second case will be lower.

Dividends

Usually this term looks standard: the type of dividend depends on the type of shares. It means holders of preferred shares receive fixed return vs holders of ordinary shares. But here too, some investors can be safe in the event of a negative scenario, if they indicate in the term sheet that preferred dividends should be cumulative.

Fig. 6 – How often cumulative dividends were used when concluding investment transactions in Silicon Valley in 2008-2009. Source: Fenwick & West.

Cumulative dividends are used to reduce investor risks along with liq pref, but their size should be reasonable.

Redemption

Sometimes the investor indicates in the agreement his or her right to demand that the company buys back shares from them after a certain time. However, buybacks can only be applied in limited cases, so they are rare. You might even call this point a non-market practice that is best avoided.

Fig. 7 – Share of investment deals with a buyback condition in Silicon Valley in 2008-2009. Source: Fenwick & West)

Pay to play (obligation to participate in the following rounds)

Usually such a condition or term is proposed by investors of later stages. This way they push early investors to invest further, otherwise they will lose their stake in the company. However, the “Pay to Play” clause is sometimes used by early investors themselves if they want to change the distribution of shares in a company. This approach became popular during the crisis of the early 2000s, when the dot-com bubble burst.

For the founder, this clause does not pose any particular threat, since it applies only to owners of preferred shares.

Warrants

This tool allows investors to reduce their risk if the company does not achieve certain indicators. For example, if the startup does not meet the agreed KPIs, the investor will receive additional shares at a discount. Otherwise, suppose the investor and the founders cannot agree at the moment about the valuation of the company. Then, the investor can agree to the proposed figure, but on the condition that if in the future the key benchmarks of the business that affect the valuation are lower, the investor will receive additional shares (warrants) for free and increase their stake in the company.

Conclusion

The post How the crisis is changing the terms of venture capital deals appeared first on DiTech Media.

This bias is often instilled due to the failures of people who they know, who have tested the channel and have not obtained satisfactory results. Most of them have basic knowledge of the platform and start a smart campaign or campaign to get maximum clicks.

But Google does not offer just that. It is no coincidence that the giant receives over 90% of its revenue thanks to the Ads platform. Google has developed many strategic channels, guidelines and methods for reaching potential customers. In this article, we will show you some of the most important reasons to use the amazing capabilities of Google Ads.

They goes hand in hand with SEO

Google’s organic results often provide 40% or more of a website’s revenue, but it takes time to reach those percentages. SEO optimization is a long-term strategy that is definitely worth investing in.

But on the other hand, while you wait for the result, you can immediately appear in the first paid results on Google. With our partners, we often choose to combine Google ads and SEO together in the long run to reach a higher percentage of searches on different keywords.

More and more advertising space in the Google search engine

Google increased the advertising space to 4 paid results before the organic ones. This means that when users search by keyword they will first see 4 ads before the unpaid organic results. This way, users are more likely to click on the ads and purchase the desired product.

Google ads have great reach

Google covers 90% of the web-surfers worldwide! How is that possible? The Google network is huge and includes, in addition to the search engine and partners, many different sites, applications, Gmail, Google Maps and one of the leading social media – YouTube. And the best part is that you can advertise in each of them and reach your customers.

You only pay when the user clicks on the ad

This is a huge advantage over other advertising methods. You will not pay if your ad has appeared to the user and he has scrolled down. This is the main payment method in the platform and most of the bidding strategies are based on it. Here it is very important to underline that you should not strive to get as many clicks as possible, but sales! To this purpose, conversions are set up, campaigns are optimized, and you should constantly working on achieving more revenue at lower cost.

Specific targeting

Keywords are just one way, but there are specific types of matches to tell Google that you want to appear on “women’s leather shoes” but not on “cheap women’s shoes”. There are many good targeting options that can narrow your ad to your target audience only. You can also target by demographics, device, whether they’ve recently moved, purchase intentions, and a specific day and time when your ads will appear.

An important part of the whole marketing funnel

We don’t just surf Facebook or Google. Every day we check the news on various sites, blogs, watch videos on YouTube and check our emails in Gmail. Each of them is a place where you can advertise through Google Ads. But for example, banner ads and YouTube ads often displayed to people who see the brand for the first time. That’s why it’s important to link Google ads to your overall marketing funnel. Different Google networks can be included at each stage, and the most interesting is the last one we will discuss.

Ads Google Ads Remarketing

What is remarketing? They are often called “chasing ads”. You search on Google for the “Samsung Galaxy S10” and browse the features on several websites. Then you watch a review of a famous influencer on YouTube, read an article with banners on the side reminding you of the the Samsung phone you viewed on one of the sites. After 2 days you have finally decided to take it and search again on Google for the best offer. There you again see the site with banner ads, which has been chasing you for 4 days. Since you already know the website, it is imprinted in your mind and gives a good offer, you decide to place an order.

It is this reminder of the website throughout this journey with specific calls for action towards the funnel stage that is called remarketing. You can use this strategy on YouTube, Google Display Network, in the search engine. We dare say that this is one of the most successful types of campaigns. This is due to the fact that they are “closing the deal” with users who know you.

But let’s give a few examples with our partners to see how Google advertising affects online stores:

Dafi-fashion is an online store for lingerie. Initially, we worked with them on Facebook ads, as they had prejudices about Google Ads – high selling price. After a while, they trusted us to test the platform for their business. The result has been that in recent times we have a higher Conversion Rate in Google Ads than in Facebook. See for yourself:

Find out more about the results in our Case Study: Facebook and Google ads for an online lingerie store.

Fragrances.bg is an online store for branded perfumes. We manage the overall performance of the online store, including Google ads. In the beginning, the search engine did not give such a good result, but after a good optimization you can see that the conversion rate is almost the same as Facebook Ads. The result is a 14-fold return on advertising investment:

You can read more about the presentation of the online store from our CASE STUDY: Complete Digital Service for Brand Perfumery Online Store fragrances.bg

Google Ads is also a very good channel for selling mattresses online. With our client in this area, we achieved a doubling of the Conversion Rate of the channel by optimizing the distribution of ads. The return on investment from advertising in Google Ads is on average 10 times. See here:

Do not give up the first month if you do not achieve satisfactory results. The key is in the proper planning, analysis and optimization of campaigns. If you need help Tendrik Digital Agency is here!

By Hristiyana Petkova

Lecturer in the Google Ads and Online Marketing
and SEO courses at IMG IT Academy.
Marketing manager at SEOMAX Digital Agency.

The post Why Google Ads is a must-have channel for any online business? appeared first on DiTech Media.

Cost-cutting and increasing employee loyalty

Any company has to spend money to organise comfortable office life. The entry level expenses include utility costs (every day), cleaning (three times a week), garbage removal (all year round), and you would need to pay the rent.

Employees, working remotely, save money too: they don’t buy lunches and don’t pay for public transport or petrol. For any resident of a big city, this is a quality-of-life improvement: employees have at least two hours of life daily that they can spend with their families. Unattainable luxury in office life – 30-60 extra minutes of sleep. Under the circumstances, when businesses do not have the opportunity to increase or even pay salaries, this is quite a win-win situation.

The crisis continues to develop, people live in tension and fear of tomorrow. People got used to spend one-third of a day at work and whether they go to work or stay at home this anxiety doesn’t leave them. What risks does this entail for business and how to deal with them?

Old strategies

A crisis is a stress situation in which people act using old strategies. Reactions to events are simplified, instincts of self-preservation get awakened. Three reaction patterns are triggered: “freeze”, run away and hit.

Most people choose to freeze – they just wait for difficult times to pass. These people seem to ignore problems and do not fundamentally change their living habits and workstyle. When taking difficult decisions, they rely on experience and, overall, follow the path of least resistance.

Another part of people prefers to act, they choose to hit or to run away. Those who run away complain about life, panic and begin to look for simpler and faster ways to earn money. Those who choose to hit usually try to solve their problems, make difficult decisions, eliminate difficulties, try to live and work adapting to the crisis, but there are few of them.

Tension might result in the expectation of negative scenarios at work: people are afraid of corporate downsizing, cuts in salaries, layoffs, even if there are no prerequisites for this. And then some just hope for the best and pretend that everything is fine, others – they spread panic in a team and look for ways to play safe, and there are those who try to save or even get bonuses from the current situation.

Action!

How do crisis and stress affect employee performance? There are several negative scenarios:

• The employees’ performance is reducing. The desire to develop creative, innovative solutions disappears and the desire to be safe, to avoid problems and risks dominates. Familiar behavior strategies are triggered. Some employees can get so “frozen” that even standard work will be performed at minimum speed. The wait-and-see strategy is not in the organisation’s favor, because at that time competitors can use the crisis to breakthrough.
• Working at home can be perceived by some staffers as a mini vacation. Not all employees understand that working from home and working in the office require the same approach. And the previous productivity may come to naught: the employee will be more often distracted, do personal things, and family may decide that remote work is something like a free schedule. Of course, this behavior is not common to everyone. However, unexpected freedom and relaxation can negatively affect an organisation’s plans.
• Secondary things become even less significant. And if, for example, an employee used to be careless about information security rules, then in a crisis situation this attitude will only intensify. The logic is simple, this does not apply to my job responsibilities, which means that these are other people’s problems. This is not an intentional sabotage, but certainly is an additional risk for a company. Indeed, during the crisis, the number of cyber threats is growing, especially with the use of social engineering: fraudsters spread malicious links through fake newsletters, use false addresses of official organisations, and draw out personal and payment data.
• Panic is growing and spreading fast. Most often, several people in any team are very sensitive to negative information and give in easily to anxious mood and pass it on to others. It is difficult to say in advance, in which department an employee can bring panic to the table. But if, for example, it’s a sales department, then in a difficult financial situation it can even knock the company down, scaring managers with bad forecast, “No one will buy anything else … They will soon begin to cut everything … Customers will go to competitors, because it’s cheaper, etc.”
• Employees are looking for a plan B even if it is harmful for an organisation. When a person is threatened to become unemployed due to a crisis, even if there are no real reasons, an employee can build a safety net. In addition, some employees can use criminal methods: sell a customer base to competitors, leak trade secrets leakage or sell personal data on the dark web. If employees used to do something like that, then in a crisis they might become even more zealous.

How to reduce risks?

As in the case of the pandemic, it is unlikely to be completely secure, but it is quite possible to reduce risks. Here are some suggestions:

• Become a source of information. In order not to provoke rumors and reduce the influence of negative colleagues, speak with your employees in a simple manner and more often – through newsletters, via Skype, at offline meetings. Tell your team in plain language what exactly the management is going to do, how it will affect the staff and what they should definitely not be afraid of. This will not only reduce panic and remove frightening suspense, but also increase employee loyalty.
• Use special mailbox for questions. It is not always possible to predict what is bothering people at a particular moment. Therefore, having one email address for collecting questions and suggestions is a good way to receive a feedback. To sort incoming emails, you can assign a temporary executor. This employee will select a relevant request, delete the duplicate and transfer the information further for processing. Based on employee requests, you can create a newsletter with answers and an up-to-date agenda for meetings. It will also help reduce stress among employees and take control of the situation.
• Prepare checklists and instructions. For example, if you think that employees will forget about information security rules during a crisis, then do not wait until one of them opens a phishing email. Prepare a checklist in which you recall all the basic information security rules. Show how non-compliance can end up, a couple of real-life examples that describe the consequences will help staff regain awareness. Instructions for employees who are switching to remote work will also help them adapt faster in new conditions.
• Implement basic tools for data protection and employee monitoring, especially if you transfer staff to remote work. This will solve several problems at once: it will ensure staff discipline and productivity, reduce the risk of information leaks and fraud attempts, and increase protection against accidental data leaks and external attacks.
  Among the basic actions when switching to remote work: setting up a corporate VPN, configure VPN clients on employees’ devices, ensure critical devices protection, or use cloud PBX, etc. A system administrator can solve such problems in a short period of time. However, this employee will not understand the issues of information security and employee monitoring.
  Moreover, if nobody used to be responsible for information security and risk mitigation tasks in your organisation before the crisis, then it’s high time your team started to. Although this will require investment of time, effort and money, the damage caused by sensitive data leaks or theft is still higher. 9 out of 10 companies faced similar incidents last year. In the crisis, these unpleasant numbers will only grow.

People by nature are always trying to make life easier, if there is no control an employee will surf on the Internet instead of work or perform tasks slowly, because there are no colleagues and no bosses. In case you are worried about employee discipline, there is a piece of practical advice you might want to follow when letting your team work from home:

• Configure a connection with internal services via a VPN channel protected by two-factor authentication.
• Check the availability of services, the bandwidth of the Internet channels and backup communication channels.
• Install a service health monitoring system. The program is needed to promptly alert the specialists responsible for risk management to service disruptions.
• If your employees go home with a corporate PC, ban them from accessing a corporate laptop’s BIOS to prevent loading of the operating system from a USB flash drive; enable disk encryption; ensure they have all the data transferred via the Internet using port forwarding on a proxy server
• If employees work on a personal PC, connect to a terminal server or VDI with the installed software which transfers data to the server of the solution you chose to protect your system; make sure they have their software and OS updated.

It is not the first crisis in our history. And although each of them has its own obstacles, something remains unchanged – human stereotypes and reaction patterns. A head of a company can foresee these reactions and prepare for the panic storm.

The post Staying Positive When Panic is About to Affect Your Team appeared first on DiTech Media.

An HR brand is part of the corporate brand with a specific focus on the current, future and ex-employees. I usually include in the target group also all service providers that are part of project teams, like freelancers in marketing for example. 

The HR brand co-exists together with the investors’ and financial community’s brand, SCM’s brand (considering both suppliers and distributors) and in close interfere with the customers’ brand. When using one and the same brand and logo the tricky responsibility of the brand-in-charge-person is to set the associations’ sets for the specific target audiences in their right balance. One and the same brand should be identical, consistent but also specific and targeted at the same time. 

Real owners of the HR brand are the employees. Having a consistent, understandable, adorable HR brand in their minds is a result of but also an approach to “translate” and spread the corporate brand awareness among all internal (now and in the future) publics of the organisation. 

The elements here are both physical (name, logo, colours, CI/CD guidelines, tone of voice, URL…) and psychological (such as corporate culture, leadership styles, means of communication and cooperation etc.).

What influences the HR brand? Which actions of the company? When did he suffer and fall apart and when did he strengthen and start working for the company?

The HR brand lives in the minds of the employees and candidates – their attitude towards what the organisations does or does not create the accepted brand image. Meaning that most of the HR brand value is related to the expectations of the employees and candidates. This is why the management of the expectations – like in all other types of brands – should reflect the real soul of the brand, neither more nor less. 

As a brand, you have to be attractive to attract. But you also have to keep your promises to retain. HR brand should deliver what is promised, and this cannot be other than meaningful employee experience. 

In the challenging times of COVID-19, the greatest concern of the leaders are their employees. (see more in the recent study of Mercer). I do not expect it to be very different in the future. So providing purpose will lead the organisations and care for sustainable development. 

For an HR brand to fall apart there are two most probable scenario – the HR brand to be set contradictive to or out of the corporate brand scope (this creates big gaps in the key values and brand mantra and leads to cognitive dissonance) or to fail in delivering the brand promise. Of course, a combination of both is also possible, even though not for a long time 🙂 

How to build an HR brand and how to manage it? In general.

Every organisation creates an HR brand, no matter if conscious and strategically focused or without any structured management. Because the brands exist in the mind of the target groups, they are not owned by the companies. And all actions, or the absence of adequate ones, is perceived by the employees thus creating a certain image. 

The brand management aims to steer the brand perception in the most favourable for the organisation way – corresponding the Points-of-parity and Points-of-Difference strategic positioning and the brand promise. The main goal of the management is to create powerful, unique and positive brand associations. In order to achieve this goal, specific internal structure and processes should be established. The usual assignment of the direct HR brand responsibility is either with the HR department, or with Communications (PR, Corporate communications or otherwise named) and there are good reasons for it: the first puts the focus on the target group, the second – on the overall organisations’ perception and consistency. As more successful approach I recommend the formal responsibility for all brands and branding strategies to stay in Comms because this is where the whole information and strategic direction of the organisation are coordinated. But it can only work well when both divisions’ leaders are involved and dedicated.

The operative steering of the HR brand in best case scenario is deployed with project management approaches – not necessarily complicated and professional if the scale is small, but with the agile mind-set when it comes for planning, conducting and resources allocation. The teams should be mixed – employees from both HR and Comms, external team members, internal project-based part-time advisors etc.

Are there any things that help build your HR brand? Suppose the individual characteristics of the company, the technological image, the expert image, the personal brand of the manager or top executives?

The perception is a mix, melted accepted interpretation of all available presence pieces of evidence and the HR brand does not make an exception. All brand touchpoints and the whole candidate journey and employee experience affect the HR brand, where leadership, corporate culture and means of communication and cooperation interpreted in the public image of the brand/organisation fame have the biggest impact. 

But here we should keep in mind one more aspect, namely if the messages are clear and consistent across the whole brand presence – and here not only the HR brand, but the corporate brand, customer’s brand, financial community’s brand – the brand perception will be also clear and powerful. So definitely there has to be a dedicated process owner to assure all resources (human and financial) are effectively distributed and well-orchestrated to achieve this strategic goal.

How important in our country is the company’s HR brand-objectively? And how relevant is the recruitment of specialists through social networks?

The importance of the HR brand is the same everywhere, the perception of the added-value differs from company to company. I believe in our country the significance of HR branding is well acknowledged by the companies in the most competitive sectors such as IT, for example. But there are still many other industries – or more precisely, there are still many companies, where the development of the branding has not reached these levels yet. 

By this, I do not mean the money spent on programs to assure the type of fruits for the employees corresponds to their expectations. Because even though the benefits are extremely important for the perception of the employer, the HR brand is far more than just this. I mean the branding as a managerial focus area, affected by and affecting the business guiding principles and processes as well. Development, heading into the purpose-led organisation, for which the brand represents the central point of meaning. 

As for the role of social media for recruitment, we can differentiate between two areas. The first is the direct openings posts and clustered search of candidates. This I see as the more technical aspect, but the social media have their strengths in reaching specific audiences, even though more in mid- and senior levels. The second aspect the social media plays a role in recruitment is the HR-brand presence, often incorporated in the corporate brand’s one. This is both connected to the value-of-the-brand perception (attractiveness) and the ability to reach bigger candidates base if the social media profiles are well-developed. And there is, of course, the other side of the story, where the company can research the candidates easier thanks to the social media presence (keep in mind though that being aware of this, the presence can be easily shaped in a favourable for the candidate form.

How does a strong HR brand work for the company?

Every manager is aware of the increased productivity due to the higher grades of employee satisfaction. This explains in pure economic figures the need to research your employees’ expectations and the proper design of the measures to meet them. Many studies during the years have stressed the multiplication of the added-value when moving up the scale of the employees†dedication. 

Another aspect of the strong HR brand is the availability of more high-quality candidates to choose from and the lower rates to bring them on board.

But treating your employees well is now also affecting the customers†decisions. The brand is the same, no matter we split it to HR brand, customer brand etc. This is our artificial way to deal with the extremely high degree of complexity when speaking of the branding. 

Recent studies show that due to the Corona-Pandemic the importance of the HR brand has gained additional importance not only towards the employees of the organisations but also towards their customers (see for example Kelton COVID-19â€s report: Consumer Pulse #3: https://www.keltonglobal.com/perspectives/report-keltons-covid-19-consumer-pulse-3/?hsLang=en)

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By simplifying database maintenance, reporting and analytics, technology has improved accuracy, efficiency of HRs and boosted their strategic capabilities. As technology continues to evolve HR’s role as a strategic partner of the business will continue to grow.

Over the years, the HR department has evolved tremendously, from only personnel management and administrative tasks, to business partnering, managing employee engagement and strengthening culture.

Obviously, technology will have a huge impact on all business processes including HR. Let’s not forget, for example, that recruitment is one of the most important HR processes and we already have artificial intelligence, robots, ATS used in recruitment. I think technology, social media, globalization, best practices are helpful as long as we do not lose the human approach and the human interaction, as according to lots of surveys done at international level lost of people complain about the lack of interaction and fair treatment during the recruitment process and they consider robots are “cool”, but not capable of evaluating correctly the “soft skills” of human beings.

As Human Resources people we need to become more proactive, creative, innovative, flexible, open-minded and instead of complaining we need to get out there, using all channels and tools possible to understand the business and to come up with effective solutions. As this coronavirus crisis has revealed, HR people need to be mobile, to understand the current trends and expectations from the business environment, to personalize their approach according to current needs. You simply cannot do this if you are stuck in the old school methods, you are not used to Technology, you do not understand people and their motivations, you do not speak a foreign language (ideally English), you do not believe in continuous learning.

According to the World Economic Forum “more than 65% of our children prepare for jobs that will no longer exist in 10 years from now”. Therefore the HR people need to prepare for the generations to come and continue learning, sharing, experimenting, improving their competencies and skills in order to find the right strategies and contribute to business development and growth. Some of the most important competencies and skills would be adaptability, flexibility, an open mind, foreign languages, business acumen, agility, continuous learning, social media, networking, communication, empathy, patience.

HR cannot just focus on day-to-day activities anymore and we cannot wait for things to happen. We are required to offer our inputs on high level business guidance and leadership on defining the very future of work, that is why anticipation is a must . What does it mean to support HR in the current global environment? It means helping organizations make a move from traditional, rigid systems to new agile organizational structures.

We live and work in a highly competitive world. The only way we can stay competitive in HR and in business is by ensuring that the right people are hired, motivated, engaged and retained. Understanding what employees want and what drives them should become our business priority in order to survive in the unpredictable times coming up.

And last, but not least, we need to be more aware that everything is about people and getting results through people. It is not only about numbers and results, even if all the businesses in the world are meant for profit. At the end of the day if you invest in your people, they will bring results, as happy, motivated and engaged employees deliver and overachieve and they stay beside you during the most difficult times.

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In today’s digital world, it is necessary to stimulate innovation, but also to allow companies to maintain their competitive advantages because technology is changing the way organizations operate on an individual, a team and organisational level, and not all companies are able to take advantage of this change. Organizations face radical transformations in the business world and these changes can lead to stressful situations for their internal processes.
Today, sales managers must be successful in balancing the digital revolution with common business skills, have the ability to lead diverse teams and be effective in an inspiring collaboration that leads to real business results.

The days have passed when the digital transformation concerned the simple digitization of paper. The digital today deals with our personal and professional life, which drives countless business transactions conducted through digital practice. This includes both online ordering of goods and services through a smart mobile device to communicate with a colleague in an in-house IM and a large part of this digitalisation is already taken for granted.

Yet the constantly evolving iterations of emerging new technologies and the systems that are now available is just the beginning of the transformation process. A matter of choice, acquaintance and introduction of new technologies, along with alignment with manpower, the change of company culture and the deployment of training and development programs, will be needed to conquer this new digital business paradigm.
These are key elements of the successful digital transformation of any business, whether the transformation is widespread or limited to only one area or function of the company.

Here comes the role of outsourcing with a major role in this transformation as a complementary and conducive service for every business. But for the proper and successful implementation of an external service, analysis and understanding of the environment is necessary. While external companies can give a meaningful insight into successful digital transformation without neglecting the transposition of other internal processes of companies as their own plan.

The processes and solutions of each project are unique to the individual organizations and their business needs. That is why we must carefully analyse and clarify the internal processes of change management, identifying opportunities for learning and development and putting a strong emphasis on digital security. Finally, arming the organization with employees who have the skills needed to succeed in the digital economy, including flexible and critical thinking, and last but not least-excellent communication skills.

By definition “Outsourcing” is the provision for execution of third parties of activities, or outsourcing of contracts. In the case of pre-sales and sales activities, outsourcing may include the outsourcing of services covering the entire business management process or only a separate, ancillary pre-sales service.
The practice suggests that outsourcing of activities related to these processes can have a significant positive effect, but only with good organisation and coordination and precisely defined parameters and criteria for the execution of the process.

Outsourcing of pre-sales activities can be an opportunity for successful activity.

The merchants are searchers and explorers. In an effort to be competitive at any moment and to overtake their rivals in the business, knowingly, purposefully, systematically and actively to seek and to apply the novelties in terms of product, technology, organization and methods of supply. The study, evaluates and analyse the resources available, applying a holistic approach in this process.
Traders inherently step up the resources needed to carry out the activity by creating an organization for their optimum and highly effective realization.

Challenges in the outsourcing of services

Strategic benefits

• Faster corporate growth
• Access to qualified personnel
• Higher efficiency and better service
• Modernising the business process
• Accelerated Market Entry
• Technological flexibility and optimization

Challenges

• Costs for selection, verification and control of partners
• Harder management of a network of partners and contractors
• Complexity of supply chain management
• Potential vulnerability to providers ‘ unscrupulous actions
• Limited ability to protect intellectual assets

It is very important to establish specific objectives for bilateral efficiency in the teams with incentives to achieve and exceed these objectives. The exchange of information and interaction between the contracting authority’s internal team and the external team is the other workable model that will improve the technological processes and increase competitiveness. Such cooperation leads to broadening the core competencies of the own business and reinforcing its strengths.
After all, pre skills largely solve the battle in advance and can significantly shorten the negotiating stage in a single transaction, regardless of what nature.
Almost all decisions require time-they need so much attention that usually time is insufficient. However, the proposal must be prepared and submitted to the client on time. The successful handling of this challenge is one of the most important skills in the Pre-Sale process. The offer to the client must also comply with pre-contractual clauses, disclaimers, confidentiality, and must be very much in detail in order to avoid in advance the risks and ethical complications of closing a transaction.

Snejana Kalcheva has graduated in Industrial design at the Technical University, but has developed professionally in the field of marketing, advertising and sales. Since 2012, she has developed her own Business Day – as the main services are related to the outsourcing of pre-sales marketing activities for Bulgarian customers from the IT sector – software developers and others.

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1. What is digital transformation and what does it really mean for you and your organisation?

Digital transformation for me is a continuous process rather than a one-time exercise In short, it means constantly evaluating you digital platform and making sure your technology is fit for purpose. I often state that the innovations of today are the commodities of tomorrow, and if you hold on too long, they will soon become the obsolescence of the day after tomorrow.

2. Why is digital transformation so important for businesses?

Technology is one of the key drivers in creating and maintaining a scalable operation as well as meeting customer expectations. The right use of technology can contribute to significant cost reductions, as well as delivering tailored customer experiences.

3. Is digital transformation equally important for all types of businesses and industries?

I would say, absolutely. As the world moves increasingly faster, every business needs to keep up. However, just as being left behind comes at a high price, it is equally risky to be too far ahead. Timing is everything, and the most successful companies are those who manage to get the timing right. Remember that what was considered one of the greatest failures of the dotcom era was home delivery of groceries. These days, it is hard to imagine going through the current lockdown without the option of having groceries or other merchandise delivered at home.

4. What do you think are the top problems when it comes to digital transformation? What is standing in their way?

In many cases, IT and technology is considered a cost center rather than a business enabler. Since the majority of incumbent IT-budgets are preoccupied with keeping the lights on in existing solutions, it is often difficult to find the resources to undergo the necessary modernizations. In addition, culture plays a big part in whether one succeed or fail when it comes to digital transformation. AN organization and its processes are by nature resistant to change, and digital initiatives may end up replicated outdated processes and practices rather than reinventing the organization for a digital age.

5. What do you believe are the most important elements when it comes to digital transformation?

People and talent. You can’t do epic stuff with basic people, and transforming an organization require that you have the best people on all levels of the organization.

6. Digital transformation is complex. In your opinion what do you think is the best way for businesses to start to think through digital transformation in a structured way?

The answer lies in the question, by taking a structured approach to the issue at hand. Set clear goals and expectations, base your decisions on facts and insight rather than gut-feel and assumptions, and make sure you provide sufficient feedback along the way to make sure you are on the right track. Do not be afraid to kill your darlings and/or admit that some of your initial ideas were wrong as you learn along the way.

7. Why is the role of Chief Digital Officer becoming more relevant? What are the necessary competences and powers that one should possess?

The Chief Digital Officer role has various interpretations in different organizations. If one are to succeed with appointing a CDO, this role should have a clear mandate with quantifiable KPIs. IN my opinion the strength of a CDO is to have someone who acts as a bridge between business and technology, but this requires that person to have the necessary competence and experience from both sides.

8. What are some examples of successful digital transformation in the world?

Born-digital companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google has shown an impressive ability to evolve alongside both new technology as well as changing customer behavior. Each emerging from vastly different starting points, they have all successfully transitioned towards a platform based business model that consist of various components that all tie together.

9. If there were some key pieces of advice you would give to a client before they embark on a major digital transformation project, what would it be?

It has been a while since I was in consulting, but I would highly recommend to spend enough time to defining the problem you set out to solve, and resist the temptation to jump to quickly to a solution.

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Many mistakenly narrow the selection field, looking only outside the company. Inside the company, can be found enough candidates to fill the vacant spaces. We know that internal selection is a powerful instrument for managing the corporate culture, the people flue, and personal loyalty, but at the moment it is not widely used amongst HR specialists.

The digital instruments which are helping the HR manager to be in sync with the life of the organization are also extremely necessary for hiring employees. More and more often we observe the companies who are forgetting their own applications who measure the organizational climate and help the work with personnel.

The question remains: What kind of digital instruments can’t the HR manager work without?

There are many digital tools that help to eliminate manual labor, systematize data and leave more time for the HR manager to develop more employee value, benefits and services. 

First of all, it is necessary to mention the Chat bot, which helps a lot in the recruitment process. It places the advertisement in social media and conducts all necessary e-mail communication with candidates in accordance with the criteria specified in the algorithm. As a result, it provides an HR manager with candidates preselected according to the preferred criteria. In addition, it can automatically conduct a variety of analytics, which really helps to identify the best way to promote a vacancy and analyze the experience needed. Chat bot also analyzes candidates’ reactions to the position and helps an HR manager understand whether to reconfigure the selection criteria.

Internal candidates can also be part of this recruitment process as this digital tool could take data from the Company systems and determine if the internal candidate has the necessary experience and meets the criteria.

Chat bot helps to create a positive Company image by conducting relevant communication with plethora of potential candidates. Potentially it can write 1000 messages per hour and could analyze around 50 000 resumes per month. Of course this technology is used mainly for mass recruitment. But it can be also helpful for a pre–selection process for various middle level positions.  Specially since a recruiter can always conduct a sense check and validate the Bot’s results. The validity of the bot’s dropouts can be checked by any criteria. It is especially important to make a random check of the dropout resumes based on candidate experience. This criteria is sensitive and sometimes it is not possible to mention all the possible options in the technical requirements. Life is more complex than an algorithm. Improper selections can be easily solved with the help of regular Recruiter sense check  to make sure Bot did not eliminate talented people.  A recruiter could always add to the algorithm new experience options if there are any new ideas.  

Chat Bot can be also used for internal communication, integration of newcomers in the organization, sending out notifications and reminders of any nature, including employee engagement surveys and exit questionnaires for exiting employees in order to analyze the reasons for their resignation. 

Digital technologies help you quickly process internal surveys – thermometers of employee engagement and health of the organization. Analysis of surveys and reasons for resignation helps the organization become better as an employer. Digital tools form regular Analytics-dashboards about engagement indicators, for instance: quality of training, staff satisfaction, knowledge of strategic goals, and turnover indicators. Timely information helps to form preventive analytics about turnover and engagement indicators and can predict indicators for the future which can be used to identify potential problems. If this forecast shows negative trends, the organization can quickly start taking action and improve results.

The help of digital technologies in processing employee competencies assessment results is very valuable. Based on the responses to business cases, points are assigned. For a digital algorithm, it is important to carefully consider the answers and assign each digit. In this way, digital algorithms help shape the talent pool of the organization. Of course, this does not cancel the exclude the need for communication of employees with HR and their immediate supervisor, but makes it possible to focus on high-quality communication and employee development planning based on systematic analysis of competencies. 

Digital technology helps in another important aspect of management – monitoring key performance indicators of the organization. This regular collection of data is important for organizational performance measurement and employee rewards.

Thus, throughout the entire employee journey, using the right technical instruments, one can systematically measure employee experience. This helps to make management decisions on time and develop the corporate processes of the organization. In this day and age, An HR manager cannot be successful and work without digital tools.

Oxana Nabok

Managing Partner of Train your brain agency

http://nabok.trainyourbrain.eu.com

http://trainyourbrain.eu.com

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