Dosh’s 4 Strategies for Success During the Pandemic

It’s no secret that 2020 was a challenging year. From personal to business, everyone has been impacted in some way. As the CEO of a high-growth technology company, leading the team through the pandemic was not an experience I expected. But that doesn’t mean that our team wasn’t prepared to implement strategies for success. 

The unknowns facing us when the pandemic hit were numerous, from how long it would last, to what extent it would impact business, and most importantly, what toll it would take on people’s lives. At Dosh, we had a two-pronged crisis management strategy — an essential part of our four core strategies — to proactively manage the company and our team through all those unknowns. 

Focus on Our People

First, we focused on the people side of things. I’ve always believed that people are the most important component of any business. From the people who work with you, to the people you serve, to the people on the board. A strong leader needs to consider the impact on all the people connected to the organization and how to best support them throughout. 

Working with the people and technology teams at Dosh, we closed down the office and made sure everyone had what they needed to work remotely. And our executive team worked with the board to present the new financial plan for the year, one that had to be viewed through a completely different lens given the uncertainties in the shopping, dining, and travel industries that Dosh serves. 

Making quick decisions and acting fast enables our employees to take a proactive stance over the strategies and business areas they are responsible for. It changes the mindset from “What is happening to us?” to “What is happening for us?” It creates opportunity in the face of challenge. 

Like everyone, our employees were facing more than just the logistical challenges of working from home and meeting with co-workers while remote. They were also facing the emotional challenges associated with the fear of a global pandemic, the isolation of lockdown, and heavy reality around the Black Lives Matter protests. 

As a company, we needed to show unified support for our people beyond ensuring their computer could connect to Zoom properly. We quickly transferred our weekly All Hands meetings to a virtual format, led by a different employee each week with an opportunity to learn a little more about who they are as a person. Our People Team set up fun weekly Zoom calls that are still going on and we launched “Dosh Day,” surprise Fridays where the whole company gets the day off to be with family or indulge in some most-needed selfcare. And as a company, we launched our first step toward supporting black and minority communities in a more deliberate way. 

Financial Scenario Plans 

The second prong of our strategy was the financial angle. Every year, my team creates multi-tiered economic and business scenarios, and strategies for success associated with how we will handle them financially, operationally, and organizationally. This was something I first put into place during my time as a CEO in 2008. Understanding how the company will operate in a range of economies, from worst to best case, allowed us to pivot quickly and be proactive in our approach as finances shifted. 

In March of 2020, our leadership team decided to take the most aggressive measures immediately to give our brand the opportunity to grow and thrive. We protected as much of the business as possible, so we were prepared for what the rest of the year would bring. We asked our team members at every level to consider, “How do we take this challenge and make it an opportunity for our business and our brand to thrive while always keeping in mind the most important element: the people.” 

Be Part Of The Solution

Third, we looked to the data we had available to us. We knew that we had something that could be useful to struggling local businesses: data. So we set up the Dosh Data Labs, with regularly updated data on consumer spending trends. 

Demographics that were previously less likely to use an app or order online were now learning and getting more familiar with a digital shopping experience. People and industries that were highly cash-based now started using cards or placing orders remotely. Plus, Dosh reached out to consumers to understand their mindset and their preferences around cash back, so we and our partners could meet the consumer where they are. The initial data we gathered in March and April enabled our team to create strategies that best served the consumer. The consumer data gathered early fall further enabled our team and partners to understand how consumers were adjusting several months in. This, plus our insights from additional data, continues to inform our strategy and help our brand and merchant partners with theirs. 

Continue to Learn and Grow

It was still a year of learning. While we were prepared and were able to position ourselves strategically, this is something that no one has experienced on this level. We kept our eyes and our minds open. We learned from our internal team, enabling our employees to come up with creative solutions to these new challenges. We learned from the industry, meeting with and doing frequent roundtables and webcasts with experts to hear how they are managing the challenges. 

As we reach the halfway point of 2021, now almost a year and a half into the pandemic, we created a remote work environment that keeps employees engaged, shifted strategies and adjusted as new information on travel, dining out, and in-store versus online shopping has evolved, but ultimately, our strategies for success focused on how we can learn and grow from the unknown. The learnings we gathered as a team throughout 2020 and into this year have made us stronger as a business, as a brand, and as people and have been the foundation for success we are already realizing in 2021.