Ahead of the Future of Business Webinar on July 21st, we spoke to Richard Boon of Webmart UK, about some of the effects of COVID-19 on business, what that will mean going forward, and the importance of finding the right balance and embracing change.

HAS COVID FORCED A RETHINK OF BUSINESS STRATEGIES, AND YOUR BUSINESS SPECIFICALLY?

 Absolutely. I would say that COVID has made everyone accelerate their pace of change. Some people traditionally have been quite fearful of transition in their business and of making big leaps. I can speak on behalf of Webmart and say that we embrace change. We have always been a very fluid business, and we were able to bring forward projects and rethink the timescales of changes. I joined Webmart 14 years ago when I was 18, so I have had long term ambitions to develop Webmart, and it happened to be the first week of lockdown that I started as Managing Director! Because of that, my vision for evolving the company was put on a very different timescale. There were probably some changes we would have delayed to have a smooth transition, but because of COVID, rather than saying, ‘we will tackle that in 6 months’, or ‘we will tackle that in 18 months’, we just said, ‘let’s get cracking.’

WHAT HAS BEEN THE IMPACT ON WORKING PRACTICES?

 We have a lot of people with growing families, and it has been important to us that we have given people flexibility over the last few years. Whether it is working remotely for part of the week, or changing their hours to fit around school hours, we have always had flexibility as part of our DNA and been a ‘family first’ business. We have a number of roles that are more suitable to remote working, but do encourage people to come into the office when we want to create a buzz, or have certain meetings planned that make more sense to have in person, as there’s a lot of value in being face-to-face. We didn't really have any preconceptions over whether there's a best way to do it. I think there needs to be a balance, and it's become easy for us to embrace it very quickly in our disaster recovery plan, because we’ve all been able to go home and work, using all the systems we’ve invested in, from about two weeks before the lockdown which gave us the time to adjust if needed.

 The biggest adjustment was likely for the departments that are used to relying on the office and do not normally travel in their roles. You could see who were really embracing it, because they walked out with a monitor under their arm – they knew that they were in this for the long term! What we have proven through this is that everyone is absolutely able to work from home. I think the most interesting part is we've had so many issues over the years with video conferencing, where we have some people remote and some not, and I think if you're all remote, it seems to work and if you're all in the room, it also seems to work. A blend of both is quite tricky. So, I think the future working practice is definitely a balance of both. When it's safe to do so we'll actively encourage people to embrace flexibility around their lifestyle and the way that they work, but also we miss out on a lot of communication and collaboration if we are always talking heads on a screen somewhere. I think right here right now, everyone's kind of getting used to it, but in the future, we will have to have a balance.

HAS IT CHANGED YOUR VIEW OF YOUR RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR CUSTOMERS?

 I'd say if you ask someone for a video call maybe a year ago, they might have taken offence that you weren't going to take them out for a coffee! Very quickly, that's changed. I know a couple of people in the past have been quite resistant to us saying that we can probably nail this in a half hour video call, they feel like we’re not willing to pop in and see them. Again, there will need to be a balance on that.

 In terms of how we've worked with customers, I would say we've put them into two brackets really; there are customers with a growth mindset, who are looking into how they can embrace change themselves – a part of what we do as a business is help customers make that step into the future with the way that they operate their marketing, so obviously we're working rapidly with these customers with new ways that they can tie up their marketing. And then I would say that there are customers with a more fixed mindset, where they are saying, ‘okay, this is going to be tougher that we thought. What can you do for us as a partner to help us tackle some of the tougher challenges we're facing?’ These challenges could be anything from reduced budgets, reduced headcount, a need for outsourcing certain elements or automating certain elements.

 Gone are the days of the kinds of salespeople that promise the earth, and we are a company that provides solutions. It's about really making sure that when you speak to a customer and build a relationship with them, that you understand whether they're going to be open to new things. It could be that they've got some serious challenges in their day job that they need to address, so we don't want to pitch new ideas and processes while they're currently concerned with issues like redundancies in their team, or cut budgets.

IS TRUST MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER TO CUSTOMERS?

 Trust has always been a central value of Webmart. We are a very transparent business and we do a lot of our trading based on trust, and we can provide much more value to customers and suppliers through trust. We have a focus on our customers, but equally we care about our suppliers - in the first few weeks of this, we were paying suppliers on seven days terms and it was our decision to do that. From a cashflow perspective, there were not many others out there doing the same and coming out the other side of this, we hope we will be remembered for doing the right thing when the time came. Words are cheap, it's very easy to stand up and do presentations saying you do this and that, but this really marks a moment in time where we have stood by our values, and can confidently say that we have made decisions over the past three months with integrity and maintaining trust with both our customers and suppliers. 

DO YOU HAVE A FINAL THOUGHT ON THE FUTURE OF BUSINESS?

Over the last two years, I've put in place a very successful sales and marketing strategy that has given us record highs in terms of sales right up until March, with March in fact being our peak in terms of growth, which was fantastic. So, of course it was very disappointing that everyone has had to go through the hardship of the last few months, personally and professionally. However, if we can't adapt to the business quickly, and provide strategies for our customers and suppliers to allow us to navigate these kind of crises, it's going to be very difficult for us to future proof the business. What's been amazing is we've had three back-to-back record breaking months from a growth perspective, which doesn't mean we haven’t found this very difficult, but it reflects that we have developed a strategy to tackle change and to challenge people to adapt the way that they approach things. We've been pushing water uphill, and I think now everyone's re-evaluating everything, everyone wants that trusted adviser that they can ask, ‘how do we navigate this? How do we change our business?’ That is why it's so important that we share as much as we possibly can through this. We are not pushing water uphill anymore, it is flowing downhill, which means it is the time is right to accept change, whatever that may be. Don’t fight it!

You can register for the Future of Business Webinar here.