As the holiday season is upon us, it’s a wonderful chance to reflect on a very interesting, challenging and successful year.
It’s been wonderful to see much of the world opening up after the Covid-19 lockdowns of the last couple of years, although we know there is still a way to go for many people, especially in some places.
We’ve taken full advantage of this newfound freedom as a team. With the growth we’ve experienced, and the new employees and contractors we’ve brought in (welcome Jenna, Debs, Simone, Akshay, Becks, David, Liz, Vishnu, Shweta, KN Ishwarya, Chandan, Abhishek, Shreetika, Ashutosh Tiwari, Gopa, Aditya, Chandra, Abdul and Ameet!), it’s been more important than ever to get people together. Meeting people in person when we operate remotely is a necessity.
I deeply respect the time our team take out of their personal lives, and the burden they place on their families and partners to travel to meet together once a quarter. This year we’ve had the pleasure of meeting in Chamonix near a few of our alpine customers, in London which is perhaps our spiritual home, at The Belfry Hotel and Resort which allowed some well-deserved relaxation and team building time and most recently in beautiful Ghent, in recognition of Belgium being home to Ingmar and Davy. Every single trip was packed with work, fun, and provided the opportunity for us to grow as a team and created strong bonds and memories for all.
For the business it’s been a year of successes for our customers and our partners. We’ve delivered many CPQ and NSPB projects which help our customers run their businesses more effectively, and if our customers and partners are successful, so are we. What’s been extra pleasing is seeing many of our existing customers return to us for further development and support. This tells me we’re doing something right!
So, my thanks go to the Delivery Operations team – Jenna, David, Lesley, Emeline and Becks as well as our superb offshore teams including Divya, Bishap, Akshay, Achal, Seema, Sandip, Prateek with great guidance from Shweta, Soban and Raju. Underpinning all of this our delivery processes continue to improve under the watchful guidance of our Delivery Management Group, Jenks, Daniel and Pradeep. They really are the best at what they do.
A large part of our success comes from a culture of Continuous Improvement. The principle of ‘Kaizen’ was drilled into me in my formative years at Xerox and I’ve loved seeing the team embrace and institutionalise those tenets within Walpole Partnership. The amount of cross-functional improvement we’ve seen, with the team helping each other improve processes and find new and better ways to serve our customers is truly inspirational.
Our Sales and Marketing team continue to find and attract customers and inspire new projects from people we already serve. Alex, Davy and Cassa present us in our best light, show the value we can create very clearly and help our customers plan and execute exciting new programmes that are truly transformational. A special mention also goes to Stuart who covers so much ground for Walpole (possibly due to his unfeasibly long stride!), from leading our Customer Success team, to managing our NSPB business to developing our brand, and who this year has battled cancer with bravery and great humour, setting a brilliant example for the team in adversity and uniting us all in our support.
We’ve also invested in our systems. We’ve updated our CRM and Service systems thanks to the sterling efforts of Debs, and our investment in the back-office is also paying dividends with great efficiencies being discovered by Simone, Hayley and Liz. I’ll give another special mention for Davy for developing our toolset to support our account management, and Jenna for leading the way on our KPI dashboards. In 2023 I hope we’ll prove that we can practice what we preach and join front and back office together to give a full and seamless experience, inside and out.
There is so much else to look back on with pride. Our ISO 27001 Information Security Certificate has been renewed for the 8th year. We launched our Social Sustainability programme and as a result have volunteered time and donated money to institutions and charities that are key to the hearts of the Walpole team. We also made new friends and partnerships with Logik.io, Elfsquad, Billing Platform, and Pros & celebrated success with existing partners including Oracle, BPIOnDemand, Fujitsu and Ben Consulting Services.
And finally I give an extra big thank you to my partners in the business – to Lisa who coaches and guides us from afar, to Ingmar who is the beating heart of the company by leading, selling, delivering and helping me plan for our future and finally to my wife Sapna who not only puts up with me but who also overcame a cancer diagnosis this year with inspirational spirit and humour.
It’s been a year of great challenges, and together we’ve risen to every one of them. This year, more than ever, I want to thank my team. You are the best.
So, all that’s really left to say is Merry Christmas (or Happy Holidays) to you and yours, and all the very best for 2023.
‘Looking back at 2022’ was written by Walpole Partnership’s MD, Andy Pieroux.
