September 10, 2023 • 21 mins
Get ready to unlock the secrets of optimized business operations as we converse with David Rogers, VP of Sales and Marketing, EMEA for WorkJam. This episode covers how WorkJam is revolutionizing industries, with its applications spanning retail operations, logistics, and supply chain. David offers his insights on how the platform simplifies deployment and uniquely targets audiences, reducing noise in corporate communication. We also delve into the value WorkJam brings to efficient store operations, the culture of continuous learning, and task management.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the productivity podcast.
This is number two in ourseries of three episodes with
our friends at work jam, andtoday I am joined by David
Rogers, vp of sales andmarketing, emia for work jam.
Hi, david.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hi Simon, how are you ?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, I'm good.
Thank you you well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm good.
Thank you All.
Good, very busy, very good.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Good, always a way to beat time moves faster when
you're busy.
All that kind of stuff.
So thanks for taking the timeout to chat.
So this is episode two in ourseries of three.
We spoke to marketing episodeone.
We've got yourself in episodetwo, and then yourself and
Rachel, who's a special guestfrom our marketing episode three
, which will be good.
Today we're going to have achat about a number of things.
(00:45):
I think you've got somebusiness case information to
chat through which will be goodfor the listeners, and then
we'll look at kind of simplicityof deployment and some of the
benefits that brings from workjam.
Before we dive into that detail, though, just give us a bit of
career background, David.
What were you doing before workjam?
How did you arrive there?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, long history, probably longer than I want to
remember now.
But yeah, really started as abusiness analyst in retail.
So I've been around retail andhospitality for kind of over 20
years, working predominantly inkind of retail operations in
store technology, some logistics, supply chain manufacturing as
(01:29):
well, which led me really toworking in the kind of workforce
management space with Reflexusfor a few years and then they
were acquired by Zebra, workedthere in North America leading
their kind of software go tomarket for a number of years,
(01:52):
which is very interesting.
And then I've known of work jamfor quite a few years and the
guys there they convinced me tocome over and help scale the
Amia business, which we've doneover the last three or four
years.
I've been here for nearly twoyears now so I enjoyed every
(02:13):
moment of it.
Very interesting valueproposition and taking that to
market has been really wellaccepted and I'm working with a
lot of the vendors and suppliersthat I'd previously worked with
as well, so being verycomplimentary to the sector that
I've been around and thesolution providers that I've
(02:34):
come to know and love over thoseyears really.
And now just really leading thego to market predominantly in
Europe, although we are beingpulled into other areas like the
Middle East and Eastern Europeas well.
So very interesting times and anice converging point of kind
(02:56):
of market readiness and valueproposition.
That's a little bit about me.
Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Brilliant, so good credentials in the industry kind
of grown up around all thisstuff and, as you said, that
evolution on from workforcemanagement into frontline
engagement and trying to get intouch with the teams and the
colleagues that are quitedifficult to reach or rely on a
(03:26):
hierarchical cascade processwhich is only as good as the
person that has the time todeliver it or the people around
at the time to take thatinformation off them.
And Mark touched on some ofthat in episode one.
I think you've got some recentkind of business case
crystallization of ROI stuffthat you wanted to share.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I think it's all derived from a couple of
things really, where I thinkretail and retail is really
focused on kind of providingsolutions around, you know, in
store, logistics, supply chain,omni channel and I guess you
could probably say that theywere a lot of those do a great
(04:07):
job but they work in isolationof each other somewhat and I
guess you could call them pointsolutions and they offer a value
.
And I think, you know, peoplehave invested and focused very
much on that over the last fewyears and I think maybe they've
left the front line behind.
I think COVID probablyillustrated that point that you
(04:30):
need to kind of touch your frontline as much as you can to kind
of communicate, enable,motivate and develop you know.
So I think we've seen that realconvergence of you know front
line being left behind a littlebit and I think that, as I talk
to retailers around Europe,that's fairly consistent.
(04:52):
There's also still a lot ofmanual process in place where
people have focused on perhapssome of the you know, the bigger
systems to automate and, youknow, in an attempt to kind of,
you know, drive down their costs, improve their sales and engage
with their customers in abetter way.
So that kind of leads us to.
(05:13):
You know how do you releasesome of, realize some of that
benefit and you know it doescome down to the business case
at the end of the day.
And I guess when you starttalking about work, jen, you can
blow people's minds veryquickly because it is
multifaceted, is made up ofmultiple modules that can be
(05:36):
deployed in isolation of eachother but work very consistently
in an orchestrated way together.
So one of the key features inthe ROI is, you know, target
audience.
You know, going back to myearlier point around kind of
point solutions.
You know people have tried todevelop things in the past, but
(06:01):
I think now with work, jen, youcan see starting very simply.
You know a lot of our customersstart with comms, you know so
immediately they can engage withtheir front line.
The front line only ever seewhat is relevant for them.
So their skills, theirattributes, their interests,
(06:22):
their development path ispresented to them.
So they we remove a lot of thenoise through having to access
multiple systems but we bringthose point solutions together
in a very orchestrated way.
So you know, just talking aboutcomms, and obviously that leads
(06:42):
into task management which youknow gives you 100% visibility
of everything that is going onin your store.
Obviously a lot of ROI aroundthat, which I will cover in a
second, but really putting yourfinger on the pulse of the store
operations.
I think people are seeing realvalue in that.
And then, obviously, you knowlearning in the flow as you go.
(07:06):
You know, instead of having todo classroom based trainings and
learnings, you can open upthose kind of learnings in the
moment as you need them throughone single app.
And then, laterally, you know,being able to link out to, you
know, the current workforcemanagement systems to exploit
(07:27):
those even further and have realvalue through being able to,
you know, have one place to go,one app to go.
So some of the businessstatistics that we're finding
really kind of centre around twoor three kind of key areas and
around my point of front linebeing able to free up managers
(07:53):
time, which I think is often oneof the biggest challenges where
managers typically developthrough the business, that often
the best sales people, the bestoperators, the most credible
people.
But they often get consumed inthe back office juggling
multiple things, often admin,often manual.
(08:15):
So freeing up time for themanager is a big number, you
know, and I think we found withone of our customers that we can
give back 15% of time to themanager and in this particular
case that was 61,000 hours peryear.
(08:35):
You know, and then it's okay.
Now I can focus on mentoring,motivating and engaging with my
customers as well as doing, youknow, those simple things around
, perhaps task management ofwastage, my core through
routines, my markdown routines,my promotional compliance, all
(08:56):
adds value to the business case.
So you know, obviously freeingup hours is one thing, but then
maximizing what you do withthose hours is that is an extra
challenge.
So that's been a, that's beenan eye opening kind of number
for us.
And then, obviously, in thesame same customer, we had
35,000 hours going back to thefront line.
(09:17):
So that means that they're ableto do tasks and a lot quicker
and you know, into the app, dothe task, read the
communications, do what theyneed to Get out and actually
spend time with their customersand improve that, that customer
experience.
And one of the biggest ones wefound was in today's kind of
(09:39):
hiring market, hiring andretaining people was one of the
biggest challenges thatretailers have, particularly
when they're they're seasonaland they need either part time
or seasonal workers, and wefound that we were able to
improve retention by between onein five percent, one being a
(10:00):
very conservative number, fivebeing more of the reality.
You know, and when you've got,you know, many thousands of
users, front line workers, inyour business, that's often a
very big number and you know,within that number comes, you
know, I can now develop mypeople better.
I can give them the tools thatthey need.
(10:21):
They can have some fun with itas well, you know.
So there's a certain amount ofgamification, learning from your
peers.
You know, we've got onecustomer that's got a channel
for, you know, table footballleagues, you know, and it just
it starts being a lot more funand gets people more engaged.
So, and then other things, like, you know, product recalls,
(10:47):
able to reduce product recallsfrom days down to minutes, which
is often a very big, big number.
And I think I mentioned theother.
You know in my previous pointsthat affecting wastage, even by
a small amount, is all to thebottom line.
You know you're not throwingaway anymore, you're, you're
being able to sell it,particularly when you factor in,
(11:10):
you know, markdowns andautomated markdowns through the
WorkJam app, then that adds ahuge amount of huge amount of
value.
So you know, and you're alsoturning your people from, you
know, shelf stackers and to more, you know, evangelists of the
brand.
You know, and I think that's abig thing for retailers at the
(11:32):
moment, where you know perhapsconsumer confidence is is low
due to, you know, trust, and youknow the rising food costs
doesn't help.
So having people that are onhand, able to communicate,
engaged, adds a huge amount ofvalue to the business case.
So then, for the main finding,simon, you know there's there's
(11:55):
a lot of peripheral thingsaround.
You know savings in thebusiness case and for a company
like ours, you know we really dolike to start with the business
case and not functions andfeatures, and I think that's you
know, and focusing in on thefront line, where there's a kind
of a bit of a gaping holereally is, is really important
(12:18):
and and that's essentially whatwe're doing- Absolutely, and
some, some really big numbersthere in terms of putting hours
back into, I suppose, morecustomer focused or, from a
manager's point of view,colleague focused activities,
which is is good to hear.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Mark touched briefly in episode one around quick
deployment and I think we wetouched on this isn't something
that should take months andmonths and months and maybe even
years to deliver and slow downthe realization of those
benefits.
So can you kind of talk usthrough at a high level Is this
(12:58):
something that takes weeks todeploy and I know there's always
a reliance on or are youworking with to get you some
data?
But is it a a typically a weekstype of deployment, months?
How does it work?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, I think we are.
We generally start with ourcomms module and that's really
weak.
So as long as we've got accessto a hierarchy, then we can.
We can start building that inin weeks, even at scale, and I
think that's one of the, youknow work jam was set up by
individuals that set it up forscale, flexibility, robustness
(13:31):
and security, you know from dayone.
So and, and multi language aswell.
So a lot of our customers youknow are spread, you know,
across multi country, multiregion, multi language, all of
which you know is done in themoment.
So you know, one of our newestcustomers started with comms and
(13:54):
from start to finish they wereup in money in six weeks and
they really saw that as a changekind of enabler.
They were going through aworkforce management and digital
transformation program andputting comms in the hands of
all of their workers really gavethem that platform to say this
(14:15):
is coming, to be able tocommunicate with them regularly
around training aspects, removea lot of the manual effort in
the run up and in readiness forthose other systems that were
coming in place.
So you know, weeks rather thanmonths or years.
You know task management isgenerally relatively quickly
(14:40):
deployed.
On top of that, I guess the onlycomplexity is, as you say,
access to other systems, and oneof the things that we're really
good at now, and I think we'reseeing a lot of value from, is
integrating into those IoTsystems, which again can be very
(15:02):
quick.
So one of our customers we'reintegrating into their fridges
and freezers and sending autoalerts through tasks and
communications If temperaturethresholds are reached, all of
which has been deployed in sixto eight weeks.
So I think retailers have beenthey're probably a little fed up
(15:26):
with the over promise and underdeliver of some of those big
systems, whereas we've reallyfocused on being very lean, very
focused and get value in thehands of customers as quickly as
possible, and then obviouslylayer in other components and
(15:46):
value on top of that.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, I think it's back to that not trying to solve
all the problems in one go,isn't it?
So you talked about theresomebody starting with comms,
but ultimately you could alsostart with, maybe task or
integrating into WFM or the IoTstuff.
So I suppose it's that buildingthe layers of the cake, isn't
it?
So not trying to do everythingall in one go and getting bogged
down, but getting in some realtangible return and then
(16:12):
layering on top.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of retailers that
are going through that wholeeither unified comms, digital
transformation, where they put alot of systems in place and
there's often no way to jointhose up into one unified way of
working.
And we kind of use the wordorchestration.
(16:38):
So that one app to go to to doeverything that you need is
really important, but alsosweating and exploiting those
current systems that you've putin place.
You wanna maximize that.
And also you know people thatperhaps have got you know they
(16:59):
want to sweat a particularsolution for another two, three,
four, five years.
You know WorkJam can allow themto do that by having an
integrated app to their, youknow, as a front end to their
existing system.
You know whether that'sServiceNow, whether it's
Cornerstone, whether it's, youknow, ukg.
(17:20):
We've done multipleintegrations into all of those
kind of vendors to ensure thatwe offer a real intangible value
.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And just talk us through, because you've got some
unique bits.
We've got the task automation,haven't we in the target
audience?
So again, Mark touched brieflyon target audience, but it'd be
good to understand how thatworks and the task automation.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, so you know it's been built.
I'll start with target audience, because that's kind of the
foundation and the buildingblocks of everything we do.
So I'm David, I'm a user, I'mset up with my core profile but
as I do certain things, so if Ido a set of tasks you might be a
(18:08):
promotional end of aisle for aparticular brand, I earn a badge
, I gain a recognition.
That all builds my profileautomatically.
So everything I do, if I do atraining or learning, I get a
badge for that and a recognitionfor that.
(18:29):
So if I express an interest inbeing a manager or assistant
manager, again that's embeddedinto the target audience.
So you know what it really doesis build my profile through a
level of AI and automation.
So I only ever see what'srelevant for me and I can help
(18:53):
develop myself by the trainingsor communications or just that
overall development within theapp.
And you know the task automationis really.
You know we've got this reallysophisticated engine that allows
you to either have tasks youknow generated by into those
(19:14):
target audiences.
So, for example, I can only seea task if I've taken a, if I
have a particular profile.
So again, it only I only get tosee what's relevant for me,
which is very unique in themarketplace, and the automated
engine that we've got alsoallows you to go out to those
(19:35):
other systems and have tasksgenerated by.
It.
Might be a service now ticketthat goes to a particular
individual within the targetaudience.
It might be a shift that'sbecome available and integrated
into into WorkJam and I then seea pool of shifts that I can
(20:00):
apply for and get extra hoursfor.
So you know, it's all that kindof engine and task plays a big
part within that.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So lots of complexity , kind of, with that thinking
and all those bits that aregoing on behind the scenes and
all the processing, butultimately all in the spirit of
keeping things targeted to you,certain types of people, by user
group, job group et cetera, tokeep their comms streamlined to
(20:30):
only actionable points orinformation points that are
applicable to them.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Essentially, I only ever seewhat's relevant for me and I can
just remove the noise and geton with my day job, and that's
really what you know.
Having that one single app,which is WorkJam, allows you to
do so, I think it's very unique.
The target audience iscertainly very, very unique, and
(20:56):
you know people.
You know we come acrosscustomers that are either
looking to you know work and buysomething, or build something
you know.
So the fundamental differenceis that you don't have to go
looking for anything.
It's only ever presented to youthrough WorkJam.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Amazing, amazing, brilliant insight, david, really
really interested on those kindof big numbers in terms of the
business case.
So I think that brings us to aclose of episode two in this
series and I will see you forthe recording of episode three
with Rachel from Aramark soon.
Appreciate your time.
Yeah, my pleasure, simon.
(21:37):
Thank you.
Welcome to the productivity podcast.
This is number two in ourseries of three episodes with
our friends at work jam, andtoday I am joined by David
Rogers, vp of sales andmarketing, emia for work jam.
Hi, david.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hi Simon, how are you ?
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Yeah, I'm good.
Thank you you well, yeah.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm good.
Thank you All.
Good, very busy, very good.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Good, always a way to beat time moves faster when
you're busy.
All that kind of stuff.
So thanks for taking the timeout to chat.
So this is episode two in ourseries of three.
We spoke to marketing episodeone.
We've got yourself in episodetwo, and then yourself and
Rachel, who's a special guestfrom our marketing episode three
, which will be good.
Today we're going to have achat about a number of things.
(00:45):
I think you've got somebusiness case information to
chat through which will be goodfor the listeners, and then
we'll look at kind of simplicityof deployment and some of the
benefits that brings from workjam.
Before we dive into that detail, though, just give us a bit of
career background, David.
What were you doing before workjam?
How did you arrive there?
Speaker 2 (01:05):
Yeah, long history, probably longer than I want to
remember now.
But yeah, really started as abusiness analyst in retail.
So I've been around retail andhospitality for kind of over 20
years, working predominantly inkind of retail operations in
store technology, some logistics, supply chain manufacturing as
(01:29):
well, which led me really toworking in the kind of workforce
management space with Reflexusfor a few years and then they
were acquired by Zebra, workedthere in North America leading
their kind of software go tomarket for a number of years,
(01:52):
which is very interesting.
And then I've known of work jamfor quite a few years and the
guys there they convinced me tocome over and help scale the
Amia business, which we've doneover the last three or four
years.
I've been here for nearly twoyears now so I enjoyed every
(02:13):
moment of it.
Very interesting valueproposition and taking that to
market has been really wellaccepted and I'm working with a
lot of the vendors and suppliersthat I'd previously worked with
as well, so being verycomplimentary to the sector that
I've been around and thesolution providers that I've
(02:34):
come to know and love over thoseyears really.
And now just really leading thego to market predominantly in
Europe, although we are beingpulled into other areas like the
Middle East and Eastern Europeas well.
So very interesting times and anice converging point of kind
(02:56):
of market readiness and valueproposition.
That's a little bit about me.
Yeah, that's me.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Brilliant, so good credentials in the industry kind
of grown up around all thisstuff and, as you said, that
evolution on from workforcemanagement into frontline
engagement and trying to get intouch with the teams and the
colleagues that are quitedifficult to reach or rely on a
(03:26):
hierarchical cascade processwhich is only as good as the
person that has the time todeliver it or the people around
at the time to take thatinformation off them.
And Mark touched on some ofthat in episode one.
I think you've got some recentkind of business case
crystallization of ROI stuffthat you wanted to share.
Speaker 2 (03:46):
Yeah, I think it's all derived from a couple of
things really, where I thinkretail and retail is really
focused on kind of providingsolutions around, you know, in
store, logistics, supply chain,omni channel and I guess you
could probably say that theywere a lot of those do a great
(04:07):
job but they work in isolationof each other somewhat and I
guess you could call them pointsolutions and they offer a value
.
And I think, you know, peoplehave invested and focused very
much on that over the last fewyears and I think maybe they've
left the front line behind.
I think COVID probablyillustrated that point that you
(04:30):
need to kind of touch your frontline as much as you can to kind
of communicate, enable,motivate and develop you know.
So I think we've seen that realconvergence of you know front
line being left behind a littlebit and I think that, as I talk
to retailers around Europe,that's fairly consistent.
(04:52):
There's also still a lot ofmanual process in place where
people have focused on perhapssome of the you know, the bigger
systems to automate and, youknow, in an attempt to kind of,
you know, drive down their costs, improve their sales and engage
with their customers in abetter way.
So that kind of leads us to.
(05:13):
You know how do you releasesome of, realize some of that
benefit and you know it doescome down to the business case
at the end of the day.
And I guess when you starttalking about work, jen, you can
blow people's minds veryquickly because it is
multifaceted, is made up ofmultiple modules that can be
(05:36):
deployed in isolation of eachother but work very consistently
in an orchestrated way together.
So one of the key features inthe ROI is, you know, target
audience.
You know, going back to myearlier point around kind of
point solutions.
You know people have tried todevelop things in the past, but
(06:01):
I think now with work, jen, youcan see starting very simply.
You know a lot of our customersstart with comms, you know so
immediately they can engage withtheir front line.
The front line only ever seewhat is relevant for them.
So their skills, theirattributes, their interests,
(06:22):
their development path ispresented to them.
So they we remove a lot of thenoise through having to access
multiple systems but we bringthose point solutions together
in a very orchestrated way.
So you know, just talking aboutcomms, and obviously that leads
(06:42):
into task management which youknow gives you 100% visibility
of everything that is going onin your store.
Obviously a lot of ROI aroundthat, which I will cover in a
second, but really putting yourfinger on the pulse of the store
operations.
I think people are seeing realvalue in that.
And then, obviously, you knowlearning in the flow as you go.
(07:06):
You know, instead of having todo classroom based trainings and
learnings, you can open upthose kind of learnings in the
moment as you need them throughone single app.
And then, laterally, you know,being able to link out to, you
know, the current workforcemanagement systems to exploit
(07:27):
those even further and have realvalue through being able to,
you know, have one place to go,one app to go.
So some of the businessstatistics that we're finding
really kind of centre around twoor three kind of key areas and
around my point of front linebeing able to free up managers
(07:53):
time, which I think is often oneof the biggest challenges where
managers typically developthrough the business, that often
the best sales people, the bestoperators, the most credible
people.
But they often get consumed inthe back office juggling
multiple things, often admin,often manual.
(08:15):
So freeing up time for themanager is a big number, you
know, and I think we found withone of our customers that we can
give back 15% of time to themanager and in this particular
case that was 61,000 hours peryear.
(08:35):
You know, and then it's okay.
Now I can focus on mentoring,motivating and engaging with my
customers as well as doing, youknow, those simple things around
, perhaps task management ofwastage, my core through
routines, my markdown routines,my promotional compliance, all
(08:56):
adds value to the business case.
So you know, obviously freeingup hours is one thing, but then
maximizing what you do withthose hours is that is an extra
challenge.
So that's been a, that's beenan eye opening kind of number
for us.
And then, obviously, in thesame same customer, we had
35,000 hours going back to thefront line.
(09:17):
So that means that they're ableto do tasks and a lot quicker
and you know, into the app, dothe task, read the
communications, do what theyneed to Get out and actually
spend time with their customersand improve that, that customer
experience.
And one of the biggest ones wefound was in today's kind of
(09:39):
hiring market, hiring andretaining people was one of the
biggest challenges thatretailers have, particularly
when they're they're seasonaland they need either part time
or seasonal workers, and wefound that we were able to
improve retention by between onein five percent, one being a
(10:00):
very conservative number, fivebeing more of the reality.
You know, and when you've got,you know, many thousands of
users, front line workers, inyour business, that's often a
very big number and you know,within that number comes, you
know, I can now develop mypeople better.
I can give them the tools thatthey need.
(10:21):
They can have some fun with itas well, you know.
So there's a certain amount ofgamification, learning from your
peers.
You know, we've got onecustomer that's got a channel
for, you know, table footballleagues, you know, and it just
it starts being a lot more funand gets people more engaged.
So, and then other things, like, you know, product recalls,
(10:47):
able to reduce product recallsfrom days down to minutes, which
is often a very big, big number.
And I think I mentioned theother.
You know in my previous pointsthat affecting wastage, even by
a small amount, is all to thebottom line.
You know you're not throwingaway anymore, you're, you're
being able to sell it,particularly when you factor in,
(11:10):
you know, markdowns andautomated markdowns through the
WorkJam app, then that adds ahuge amount of huge amount of
value.
So you know, and you're alsoturning your people from, you
know, shelf stackers and to more, you know, evangelists of the
brand.
You know, and I think that's abig thing for retailers at the
(11:32):
moment, where you know perhapsconsumer confidence is is low
due to, you know, trust, and youknow the rising food costs
doesn't help.
So having people that are onhand, able to communicate,
engaged, adds a huge amount ofvalue to the business case.
So then, for the main finding,simon, you know there's there's
(11:55):
a lot of peripheral thingsaround.
You know savings in thebusiness case and for a company
like ours, you know we really dolike to start with the business
case and not functions andfeatures, and I think that's you
know, and focusing in on thefront line, where there's a kind
of a bit of a gaping holereally is, is really important
(12:18):
and and that's essentially whatwe're doing- Absolutely, and
some, some really big numbersthere in terms of putting hours
back into, I suppose, morecustomer focused or, from a
manager's point of view,colleague focused activities,
which is is good to hear.
Speaker 1 (12:35):
Mark touched briefly in episode one around quick
deployment and I think we wetouched on this isn't something
that should take months andmonths and months and maybe even
years to deliver and slow downthe realization of those
benefits.
So can you kind of talk usthrough at a high level Is this
(12:58):
something that takes weeks todeploy and I know there's always
a reliance on or are youworking with to get you some
data?
But is it a a typically a weekstype of deployment, months?
How does it work?
Speaker 2 (13:07):
Yeah, I think we are.
We generally start with ourcomms module and that's really
weak.
So as long as we've got accessto a hierarchy, then we can.
We can start building that inin weeks, even at scale, and I
think that's one of the, youknow work jam was set up by
individuals that set it up forscale, flexibility, robustness
(13:31):
and security, you know from dayone.
So and, and multi language aswell.
So a lot of our customers youknow are spread, you know,
across multi country, multiregion, multi language, all of
which you know is done in themoment.
So you know, one of our newestcustomers started with comms and
(13:54):
from start to finish they wereup in money in six weeks and
they really saw that as a changekind of enabler.
They were going through aworkforce management and digital
transformation program andputting comms in the hands of
all of their workers really gavethem that platform to say this
(14:15):
is coming, to be able tocommunicate with them regularly
around training aspects, removea lot of the manual effort in
the run up and in readiness forthose other systems that were
coming in place.
So you know, weeks rather thanmonths or years.
You know task management isgenerally relatively quickly
(14:40):
deployed.
On top of that, I guess the onlycomplexity is, as you say,
access to other systems, and oneof the things that we're really
good at now, and I think we'reseeing a lot of value from, is
integrating into those IoTsystems, which again can be very
(15:02):
quick.
So one of our customers we'reintegrating into their fridges
and freezers and sending autoalerts through tasks and
communications If temperaturethresholds are reached, all of
which has been deployed in sixto eight weeks.
So I think retailers have beenthey're probably a little fed up
(15:26):
with the over promise and underdeliver of some of those big
systems, whereas we've reallyfocused on being very lean, very
focused and get value in thehands of customers as quickly as
possible, and then obviouslylayer in other components and
(15:46):
value on top of that.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Yeah, I think it's back to that not trying to solve
all the problems in one go,isn't it?
So you talked about theresomebody starting with comms,
but ultimately you could alsostart with, maybe task or
integrating into WFM or the IoTstuff.
So I suppose it's that buildingthe layers of the cake, isn't
it?
So not trying to do everythingall in one go and getting bogged
down, but getting in some realtangible return and then
(16:12):
layering on top.
Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, and I think there's a lot of retailers that
are going through that wholeeither unified comms, digital
transformation, where they put alot of systems in place and
there's often no way to jointhose up into one unified way of
working.
And we kind of use the wordorchestration.
(16:38):
So that one app to go to to doeverything that you need is
really important, but alsosweating and exploiting those
current systems that you've putin place.
You wanna maximize that.
And also you know people thatperhaps have got you know they
(16:59):
want to sweat a particularsolution for another two, three,
four, five years.
You know WorkJam can allow themto do that by having an
integrated app to their, youknow, as a front end to their
existing system.
You know whether that'sServiceNow, whether it's
Cornerstone, whether it's, youknow, ukg.
(17:20):
We've done multipleintegrations into all of those
kind of vendors to ensure thatwe offer a real intangible value
.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
And just talk us through, because you've got some
unique bits.
We've got the task automation,haven't we in the target
audience?
So again, Mark touched brieflyon target audience, but it'd be
good to understand how thatworks and the task automation.
Speaker 2 (17:47):
Yeah, so you know it's been built.
I'll start with target audience, because that's kind of the
foundation and the buildingblocks of everything we do.
So I'm David, I'm a user, I'mset up with my core profile but
as I do certain things, so if Ido a set of tasks you might be a
(18:08):
promotional end of aisle for aparticular brand, I earn a badge
, I gain a recognition.
That all builds my profileautomatically.
So everything I do, if I do atraining or learning, I get a
badge for that and a recognitionfor that.
(18:29):
So if I express an interest inbeing a manager or assistant
manager, again that's embeddedinto the target audience.
So you know what it really doesis build my profile through a
level of AI and automation.
So I only ever see what'srelevant for me and I can help
(18:53):
develop myself by the trainingsor communications or just that
overall development within theapp.
And you know the task automationis really.
You know we've got this reallysophisticated engine that allows
you to either have tasks youknow generated by into those
(19:14):
target audiences.
So, for example, I can only seea task if I've taken a, if I
have a particular profile.
So again, it only I only get tosee what's relevant for me,
which is very unique in themarketplace, and the automated
engine that we've got alsoallows you to go out to those
(19:35):
other systems and have tasksgenerated by.
It.
Might be a service now ticketthat goes to a particular
individual within the targetaudience.
It might be a shift that'sbecome available and integrated
into into WorkJam and I then seea pool of shifts that I can
(20:00):
apply for and get extra hoursfor.
So you know, it's all that kindof engine and task plays a big
part within that.
Speaker 1 (20:10):
So lots of complexity , kind of, with that thinking
and all those bits that aregoing on behind the scenes and
all the processing, butultimately all in the spirit of
keeping things targeted to you,certain types of people, by user
group, job group et cetera, tokeep their comms streamlined to
(20:30):
only actionable points orinformation points that are
applicable to them.
Speaker 2 (20:35):
Yeah, yeah.
Essentially, I only ever seewhat's relevant for me and I can
just remove the noise and geton with my day job, and that's
really what you know.
Having that one single app,which is WorkJam, allows you to
do so, I think it's very unique.
The target audience iscertainly very, very unique, and
(20:56):
you know people.
You know we come acrosscustomers that are either
looking to you know work and buysomething, or build something
you know.
So the fundamental differenceis that you don't have to go
looking for anything.
It's only ever presented to youthrough WorkJam.
Speaker 1 (21:16):
Amazing, amazing, brilliant insight, david, really
really interested on those kindof big numbers in terms of the
business case.
So I think that brings us to aclose of episode two in this
series and I will see you forthe recording of episode three
with Rachel from Aramark soon.
Appreciate your time.
Yeah, my pleasure, simon.
(21:37):
Thank you.
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