Our Year in Review: 2020
What a year. 2020 was a memorable 12 months for the whole planet and We Are Sweet has certainly had an eventful year too. The arrival of 2021 will mark the 2nd anniversary of the 'crisis meeting' between myself and my Technical Director James Haigh where we decided it was time to take the “little company that could” and turn it into an industry-leading technology business.
This article is a self-indulgent look back at how we grew a tech team in the face of a worldwide virus and how we’re going to keep it up in 2021.
COVID-19
Nobody wants to dwell on the global-pandemic-sized elephant in the room, but it does need addressing. We talk a lot about impact, and Coronavirus has had a huge and widespread impact on almost every business around the globe.
Firstly we would like to share our appreciation for all the great work that has gone into facing the challenges head-on. Thank you to all the NHS heroes, healthcare professionals and key workers, but also extended applause to the scientists, decision-makers and pretty much everyone else that has played a part in keeping the world moving.
We understand COVID-19 has put huge pressure on many individuals and businesses and we hope that those who have suffered are safe, healthy and able to have a far more prosperous 2021. Despite all the negativity caused by the pandemic, there have been huge positive advancements in the adoption of effective remote working and smart ways to use technology to drive business.
Forward Thinking
Experts have estimated that technology, business practices and attitudes to work have been accelerated by 10 years or more as a direct response to COVID-19.
We Are Sweet has always been fully remote, and for the first time ever, we’ve not had to defend remote working as a viable way to run a successful business. By combining the best talent with effective equipment, information, tools and time to do their best work, we have successfully operated and managed a distributed team through the crisis. We have always leveraged online platforms to access and share information but this year has also seen much more refinement to the systems and processes we conduct.
An example of refining systems and processes is our continuing investment of time and energy into our internal Stack Overflow for Teams, an internal, protected knowledgebase which provides the team with answers to common questions ranging from “how do I request holiday” all the way through to technical, client-specific Q&A.
This year, many businesses have had their eyes opened to how effective remote working can be, the power of flexible hours, the benefits offered by cloud-based systems and need to go digital to remain relevant in the future. The clients of ours who have continued to invest in digital have seen the most success over the past 12 months.
Digital Transformation
Until recently, we have described We Are Sweet as a “multimedia design and development company”, doused in consultancy. This year the penny dropped and I realised that what we do is actually “Digital Transformation”. We listen to our partner’s pain-points and advise them on how to solve those issues by using technology in an effective manner. That technology might be our own, or somebody else’s, but it's all about focussing on the solution. It is an added bonus that we are also able to build and implement custom solutions and integrations to realise our recommendations.
One of our longest-standing clients has had a wildly successful year. Sure, they have benefited from the fact that everyone has been trapped indoors and turned their attention to home improvement. However, the key to their success has been the ongoing investment with We Are Sweet to digitise their systems and processes. Despite a largely furloughed workforce, their online setup continued working through Lockdown and meant the sales kept rolling in from customers that continued to be nurtured by the CRM system. Even with no salespeople out in the field during those gloomy months between April and June, they posted their highest-ever revenues thanks to digital tools and transformation.
Digital transformation has been the centre point of many conversations for us recently and we’re hoping that next year will see us assist more businesses to move forward using technology and make them more resilient during times of uncertainty.
Sweet Scale-up
The master plan that we came up with 2 years ago involved We Are Sweet growing from just 3 of us to a much larger team with clear roles and responsibilities that could tackle new projects with a wider skillset. We were adamant that we were not a start-up: we already had clients and a proven approach, but we needed to scale up to meet the increasing demands from our clients.
Our non-executive Director stressed the importance of making recruitment and onboarding a seamless process by putting HR systems and onboarding processes in place early - and we did just that.
We entered 2020 as a team of 8 people which was a big step up from the previous year, but as we enter 2021 we will be a team of 16 incredibly talented individuals.
Running an agency is a constant balancing act of people and tasks where we aim to make everyone feel like they are the only client we work with. Timing is crucial for all business, and now is a truly exciting time to take the bigger-and-better team to market.
Leadership Development
As the team grows, it needs structure.
Jake Levell has been the longest-standing team member, working as a developer at We Are Sweet for 4 years. Jake has not only championed our processes but also helped create many of them. When we created the new Head of Production role to manage the day-to-day operations of the Production team, there was no better individual to take it on.
We constantly invest in training to develop people professionally and our senior team is no exception. Our Directors, Head of Production and Project Coordinator have all been attending bespoke training sessions with Clemorton Training and applying teachings from an ongoing Leadership Development programme to nurture the team and constantly get the best from everyone.
The Sweet team has transformed from something that James and I had total control over, to something much more powerful, more capable and far more exciting. We still oversee operations and steer the metaphorical ship, but our time is now spent nurturing the people that are taking We Are Sweet to new levels.
A New Era
We described our scale-up as We Are Sweet 2.0. We’re there now, and next, we’re looking forward to 3.0. We have a rich history of working with sports organisations and we understand the challenges the sports verticals face. Our rewritten toolkit describes how we intend to take everything we have learned and apply it to the sports tech industry with a vision to be recognised as the go-to partner that sports organisations aspire to work with.
To reflect this exciting new era, we have a rebrand under construction and a glitzy new website in the skunkworks that we can’t wait to reveal. If all goes to plan we will continue our journey to being the best damn agency in sports and we’ll do it in style. Despite all the adversity 2020 has thrown, we’ve come out of it in the best shape we’ve ever been in. We owe thanks to a lot of people that have made that possible. So let’s do that now, Grammy style.
Thank you to everyone at We Are Sweet. I know how hard you’ve all worked to get us this far already and I know next year will be just as demanding. Thank you to all the partners for your input and support, from training to recruitment to the SaaS systems that we couldn’t operate without. And of course, an absolutely massive thank you to our clients that have come on the journey with us. We want to work with the best and you guys have enabled us to build some top-notch tech.
Merry Xmas
I am so relieved that I’m not separating Skittles into separate colours this year. Instead, the team came up with the fantastic idea of using Santa as a fictional client that wants to digitally transform the way he manages his Christmas operations. We are also putting together a full article that will share the behind-the-scenes details of the project.
The centrepiece of this campaign is the Naughty or Nice Santapp that gives you a little peek into Santa's lists so you know what to expect on Christmas day. Take it for a spin and see how naughty or nice you have been this year.