Reflections on 12 months at Wizeline

Last week marked my one year anniversary at Wizeline. 

I have learned a lot during the last year, and I thought I would share some reflections.

Wow, Vietnam!

Vietnam is a dynamic, growing economy with amazing talent and wonderful people. The people in Vietnam are energetic and there are a lot of superbly talented software engineers. Vietnam has also made it very straightforward to bring expatriates to live and work there, so the raw engineering talent in Vietnam is complemented by a diverse skills from other markets.

As my exposure to the broader Vietnam business environment increases, it is clearly a place where local companies want to take on the world. While Vietnam was originally seen as a talent centre, serving Australia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. Somewhat unexpectedly we are now seeing opportunities in Vietnam, with Vietnamese companies who value world class design and engineering methods. 

I also can’t go past the incredibly effective response to COVID-19 in Vietnam - at last count there were less than 350 cases in the whole country and no deaths. Vietnam borders China. Such an amazing result from a well executed approach, having learned from experience in managing coronavirus outbreaks like SARS and MERS . The economy, while severely impacted by the loss of tourism and after effects of a strict lockdown period, is basically open again. 

“Agile in Asia”

NB: I am exposed to Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and a little of China, Singapore and Indonesia - so that is what I mean by “Asia”.

Having seen (and attempted to accelerate) the rise of agile and lean methods in Australian enterprises over the last 10 years, it is interesting to observe the different maturity levels and approaches in Asia. In some ways, lean startup methods are quite natural for Asian entrepreneurs - start with your constraints and learn quickly. Having said that, the more structured approaches of agile methods, and self organising teams etc are not very apparent. There are some cultural aspects across the different countries that make this intersection challenging - for example there is strong deference to leadership and the need to protect reputation means challenging questions are not regularly asked in a meeting. This means you need to adjust your approaches to various ceremonies.  There is probably a book or two to unpack this, and I won’t attempt to address the subtleties here.  My main takeaway is to remain curious about the ways to apply these methods from a point of the base intent, to then build back a culturally appropriate approach. I have a lot more to learn here.

Startup life

Wizeline is growing, fast. Even with challenges of the Covid-19 pandemic. I have learned a lot about operational improvement in a scaling company, leadership in ambiguity, collaboration across countries when you need to rely on people in 5-7 timezones to execute things fast. Also, I have learned how malleable a company can be when it is of a size that one or two conversations where everyone agrees the path forward and takes action.

Hiring

I recently made my first direct report hire. Hiring in another country, with a different culture, and language is (surprising, I know) very different. I had to remain curious and adapt my process and mental models. So far it has worked out well!  

In the clouds

Cloud maturity in enterprise in the Asian markets I am working is very different to Australia. There is vast opportunity to help Asian companies reap the benefits of more flexible, secure, on demand infrastructure and related services. We have to remain humble, curious and focused on educating senior people in these companies about the benefits of cloud services.  When combining the energy and entrepreneurial spirit that is pervasive across Asia, cloud could unlock some amazing innovation in Asian enterprises. 

Business Development

Building a business and pipeline with close to zero brand and limited marketing budget has meant I have had to be innovative. I have had some success and failure along the way with different approaches. For example, I have learned a lot about prospecting. With my approaches so far, a tailored, 1-1 (but cold) approach gets a 1:10 response rate, which goes up to 4:10 when you have a simple follow up.  Content marketing is a good strategy, but it takes a lot of work and needs to be tailored, and you need learning loops to improve. 

Doing deals

There are two dimension to this. Wizeline has some innovative commercial approaches and a level of flexibility that have been great to explore. I have also learned (and have a lot more to learn!) about doing business in Asia. Qualification is different. Commercials are different. Decision making is different. Contracts are different. I am still at the point of conscious incompetence here, so remaining very open to learn. 

It has been an enjoyable year. I look forward to emerging from Covid-19 a stronger company, and I cannot wait to be able to go visit the team and our clients in the region when travel restrictions ease.