How did you first hear about our service?
It was through a conversation that we had with Katie effectively where she’s worked with you previously, so she knew your strengths and your capability and Katie had an idea of what we were trying to do at that point.
So, I think it was basically a recommendation,
What challenges/problems necessitated a change?
I think the biggest one for us was structure and processes, and I think that is what you really helped us with.
When I started in the role of business planning we were a very reactive team.
Our team mission wasn’t particularly clear, and I didn’t really understand what value we were bringing to the business or how. That is what I think you and the Pearl team helped us with initially and the biggest impact was that it enabled us to move forward to actually defining that plan and answering questions such as, who are we as a team, what are we here to do and how are we going to execute against that plan? The second important step was to structure the team around that plan.
I think us taking a step back and looking at the bigger picture was really important and we wouldn’t have been able to do that without your team’s guidance.
We didn’t have the time, the energy, or the mental capacity to be able to think. But you were able to give us a structure which was the biggest challenge we faced that you helped us address.
What trends in your business drove the need to use our service?
We didn’t really know how to help the team understand what was happening in the market as we’d never done a market opportunity assessment before. We had all this data which anyone could analyze, so it was very unstructured. Learning from your experience and seeing it presented back to us was what we needed to effectively learn how to do this ourselves.
There was also the aspect of coaching and educating individual team members. With two members recently joining the team from our Graduate program who were still in very early stages of their careers, as well as myself coming from a completely different part of the business, it was challenging. Having the 1:1 coaching from you and the team was absolutely instrumental in helping us move forward in the right way with the right structure and focus. Through your coaching and expertise, we were able to ask critical questions to business stakeholders and be naturally curious. It was outside our comfort zone and even though we knew we had to learn, we didn’t know the best way. Having your team guide us was incredibly helpful.
What were you looking for from the Pearl Analytics service?
We didn’t necessarily know what it looked like. We might have understood what the business needed but delivering that and how it looked was the challenge.
You provided us with templates and a way of working as well as tools and best practices, not to mention the 1:1 coaching. Through this process we also learned how to manage expectations and how to break down the work and prioritize what was most important.
There were many views and ideas about what Business Planning & Insights should look like. The priorities were a pivotal moment in our journey with you when we defined who we are and what we stand for, our mission and vision. It enabled us to communicate clearly about how we were going to support the business. It also gave us a clear understanding of where we needed to upskill and what jobs we were no long going to do.
What feature of the Pearl Analytics service was most appealing?
The expertise in your team. The fact that you were able to demonstrate what you’ve done previously, share a Market Opportunity Assessment template so we could see what the tangible outcome would look like, definitely helped our thinking.
How did you find the collaboration?
It was very efficient and you, Tanya and Guido were powerhouses of information. You were also able to explain very technical information into something that we could understand and move forward.
The first time I looked through that Market Opportunity Assessment template, I thought how do I take all of this data and create that?
Breaking it down into steps like demostrated and coaching us through the process and engaging with the right stakeholders helped make it digestable and manageable.
Breaking down something so overwhelming and developing it into something achievable motivated us through the process. I felt a big shift in my mentality and approach and inspired by what data can do to help make more effective decisions. When we were discussing story telling during the second half of our engagement and you explained the value of telling the story behind the data, it was a tremendous eye opener. This really drove home the benefit to our stakeholders of what we were doing. We would not have realised the power of this without your team.
It isn’t just about data and analysis, it’s telling the story way that’s meaningful to your audience.
How did you implement/introduce our solution?
We started with creating the vision, showing the tangible outcomes, setting the expectations and defining a plan to then execute.
What was the initial reaction internally to the outcomes of our service ?
Presenting back to our stakeholders was very positive. We felt a sense of relief that they had asked for this content before, and it hadn’t been available to them, but now we could.
Having the content formatted and structured made it understandable for stakeholders that they could take away and instantly use. Since then, I’ve seen people take that content and put it into their own PowerPoints and story points in order to address another audience.
The result exceeded my expectations and internal
stakeholders began including me in conversations with external partners which showed how valuable your coaching and input was for us both internally and externally.
You helped us position ourselves as a team and made us realise that it’s OK to not have all the answers as long as you know the right questions to ask, be curious, and dig beneath the surface of what people are asking for to build knowledge.
Often in large organisations people feel like they need to know everything but in reality, you are one of the critical pins that makes others more knowledgeable.
How has our service helped since implementation?
We still need to implement more changes internally, but this project has brought structure and focus to our planning activities, and enhanced our decision-making capabilities. The project has been very impactful to other parts of the business as well, which is great to see.
There is more work to do as some teams are still in the ‘Inform’ stage but it is interesting to see how it is helping their thinking. Once they realise the value, they’ll come back for more.
Has this service increased productivity?
It is a little early to answer right at the moment, but the fact that you can see that there’s better structure to the decision-making processes and there are facts to back it up, has built confidence in the organisation.
What have you been most impressed with?
From your side, the ability to help us ground ourselves, build structure, face challeges with confidence and have a plan that we trust and execute with tangible outcomes.
If we had asked what a business planning and Insights team do to colleagues a year ago, I don’t think they would have known. So for them to come back and be mostly consistent in their views is very positive.
What plans do you have to use our service in the future?
There will be natural improvements this year because the corporate team are bringing some new elements into the Market Opportunity Model. But in future we are looking to explore product maturity modelling and mapping our portfolio into external domains so that we have a true picture of where we’re going and where we can go.
Is there anything else we should know?
We would like to say a big thank you!
We’re not an easy business to understand which may have been challenging for you too, but for us now knowing what we need to focus on, has been critical. Being able to push through and engage more effectively with senior stakehold’rs has been extremely helpful.
It’s been a leaning curve but I really have to thank you for trusting us and we look forward to continuing the journey in the future.
