David Watt, CEO of the CI Group talks to M&IT about diversification, as well as how fancy dress keeps the fun going.
Instead of setting monthly objectives, we are setting weekly objectives and daily tasks
Everyone can see what other teams are doing and what their output is. We are really well organised through embracing technology.
We are keeping up team spirit and morale
The first week we did a bit of fancy dress, and the second week we did a pub quiz. So we are finding different ways for people to be creative and relaxed.
We started to talk to our clients at an early stage of the coronavirus crisis
We had a lot of summer events and could see things were getting locked down in other countries. So we knew it was coming. We started in late February and early March to think about the possibility of postponing.
David Watt.All our suppliers are supporting us as well as our clients. That’s pretty amazing. Whether that will hold for the rest of the year, I’m not sure but people are not trying to cancel things but accept the fact that the country has been put on standby.
We have seen an upturn in some of our business sectors
In FMCG, IT and telco – these are seeing an increase in activity. I have been hearing some great stories that people are buying iPads for their grandmothers so they can FaceTime with them. People are buying more IT kit because they are working from home.
Our diversification over the years has been very fortunate
We are not relying on the events industry. My heart does go out to a lot of my friends and colleagues who have very event-focused businesses. We have six different agencies – strategy, a creative agency, a PR agency as well as digital and data analytics. So we are fully integrated.
Our clients were asking us to provide more services and that is why we went down that route. We were running events and then they were asking us to do creative around the events and then they asked us to build the websites, as well as the PR around the projects.
In these challenging times we have used tech, creativity and innovation
We have found ways to support our clients in times of need. We are helping one of our chocolate clients to get chocolates to every key worker in NHS hospitals. After all, who doesn’t like free chocolate at the end of a busy shift?
A client in the cruise industry is going through a slowdown. They are looking to see how at the end of the crisis they can give free holidays to NHS workers.
Another project we are working on is with a snack brand company and how they can get free healthy snacks into schools and also for key workers. We have also created some PR around a client (a vacuum manufacturer) who is now making ventilators to use in hospitals.
Certain areas of the business are actually stretched
There were three new hires in the last week at CI Group. We have taken on extra developers, an extra creative and a project manager. We haven’t laid anyone off but have repurposed people into other divisions.
We are starting to do some strategic planning for our clients in the future
We have developed a five-point business continuation plan. The first point was on how you reorganise live events and how you postpone. Also, how to invite in technology during the lockdown. The third point was using financial data, there’s a lot of COVID-19 data and we are preparing a research piece on that.
Going forward, there will be a huge need for people to come together face to face. That’s what we’ve got to think about in the industry – how we can keep people safe in the future.
