How much of your planned marketing activity did you have to re-evaluate or completely redesign?
With the vast majority of our clients working remotely, we evaluated the best ways to use online channels to continue supporting our clients in their response to Covid-19.
Within Deloitte Private, we brought our clients together in smaller forums as well as larger webinars, exploring how leaders were navigating their response to the crisis and sharing perspectives on the impact that this was having with peers. Creating an environment for clients to share and learn from each other worked well.
How far in advance are you currently thinking? How far in advance is it possible to plan?
We are working with a dual approach that includes a view of the next six months alongside an assessment of future trends and how these could impact future marketing plans further down the line.
What things are you doing differently?
Many of our clients have welcomed the opportunity to network with their peers across sectors and geographies, learning from their experiences.
With the borderless attributes of working online, we are connecting even more across the globe. We are bringing international insight to our clients in an accelerated way – recently we’ve had speakers from our Asia Pacific and US businesses join online forums connecting our clients with an international outlook, which helps them develop their future strategy.
There is also an acceptance that online forums both small and large can be organised and held at relatively short notice given people join online from their homes, instead of in person.
What’s happened to your approach to innovation in the last four months, and what do you expect will happen to it for the remainder of the year?
Innovation has been critical and we have had to think differently in terms of how we engage and what topics we engage with them on. It will continue to be central to our approach for the remainder of the year and, if anything, there will be a natural expectation that it is built into how we work in the ‘new-normal’.
How has your relationship with the rest of the business changed? Has it been an opportunity to reframe things for the better? Have you been able to deliver more and new kinds of value?
We’ve been required to work and innovate at speed, producing insight quickly and delivering this to our clients in a range of engaging formats.
Understanding our clients’ key challenges and the best way to deliver insight to help inform this has been vital.
What do you wish you’d done differently if you had your time in lockdown over again?
Moved to the countryside!
Are there any positives that you can take from the last six months?
It has been incredible to see our organisation rapidly move to remote working, with 20,000 of our people now working from home in the UK alone, productively and in a connected manner. I think it has brought peers closer together as we’ve understood more about each other’s home lives whilst delivering impact through our roles at Deloitte.
From a personal perspective, it has given me more time with my husband and twin girls, as well as a new-found passion and appreciation for the outdoors. Finally, I value every interaction I have with family, friends and work colleagues even more.
