Recently, Cyberconnecting had the opportunity to work with
Midsun IKM, an innovative player in the field of silicone coatings and wildlife outages protective covers for high voltage networks. In response to the turbulent shifts experienced in 2020, Cyberconnecting helped guide the new IKM team in the process of uncovering and reconnecting with their core identity and business values.
Just like anything in life, your business is in a constant state of transformation. In order to turn the inevitable challenges that come your way into opportunities, your business needs to be built on a sturdy foundation.
THE CHALLENGE: Facing disruption
“As for any other company, 2020 brought with it new challenges,”
Jacqueline López (Marketing Manager at IKM) notes, looking back at the previous year. “Covid-19 made us rethink the way we do business. Our sales strategy had to be rebuilt in order to keep having business meetings as usual and therefore gain new customers, while being able to attend to the customer base we had already built since 2015,” she explains.
“Not only did the pandemic affect our strategy, we also had to build a brand new team from scratch and that meant spending time on recruiting, training and adjusting the strategy to mix and match the new employees’ competences and qualifications into a new and more powerful company. We knew what needed to be done, the question was: how?!” Jacqueline says, outlining the situation in which IKM found itself last year.
METHOD: Reconnecting with your core identity
At Cyberconnecting we start tackling challenges by distilling your core identity and by applying the
Cyberpower Brand Framework.
Research shows that there are 12 identity elements, which constitute the foundation of your brand and your business. Awareness of your identity composition connects you with the depth of your business values and helps build a strong foundation for shaping your business strategy.
The Cyberpower Framework takes companies through the process of uncovering their identity components all the way through to strategically applying the newfound awareness in their business communication.
“During the fall of 2020 we met with
Dr Priya E. Abraham from Cyberconnecting to help us set out a new marketing and business strategy. We wanted to discover our main advantages as a business, our core audience and the way we should talk to them in order to increase revenue during these times of change,” Jacqueline says in hindsight.
At Cyberconnecting, our collaboration with our clients typically begins with our
VAELIOU identity tool. Vaeliou is a data-driven, research-based, and inclusive methodology. It helps uncover the identity elements that each team member activates the most, as well as the elements that could still be tapped into, essential for establishing meaningful business relationships and, as such, for further business development.
“The first step was for each of our team members to go through the VAELIOU methodology, in order to discover the true identity of Midsun IKM as a brand. Each member got individual (and private!) feedback. It turned out that wellbeing and ethnicity ranked as highly important elements for our employees. From that moment we knew that our new strategy should be built around them,” Jacqueline highlights.
The idea is to help uncover each team member’s individual identity, which contributes to the composite identity of the whole team and therefore the business. The aim of the private feedback sessions is to engage each team member in the process individually. Once everyone is onboard, the whole team then receives an aggregate report, which reflects the identity of the whole business.
RESULTS: Your business transformation impact
Through a moderated team-wide process, the brand identity results can be further applied in business strategy and communication. For IKM, their most activated identity elements – wellbeing and ethnicity – helped reconnect their team with the core values of their business.
“The ethnicity element ranked high because each of our team members comes from a different country, even a different continent. Together, we speak 12 languages. That allows us to communicate with virtually everyone around the world and adapt to their specific needs, cultural and negotiation backgrounds. Now, every sales employee has a sector of the world that they are responsible for, our catalogues, brochures and
website are published in 5 languages and our
Youtube videos are subtitled in at least 2 languages,” Jacqueline reflects on the insights gained from the Vaeliou process.
“As for the wellbeing element, the company started leading employee engagement initiatives like
mini-retreats to practice sports together, special lunches, educational workshops and hours off when all the goals of the week or month are met. Also, we started giving more attention to the fact that our products not only prevent power outages, they can also
help protect animals by allowing them to roam freely around high voltage installations without getting hurt,” she says, touching on the internal wellbeing of the team as well as the external impact of their company on environmental wellbeing.
“Now, over a semester later, we have been able to restructure our communication and improve our online presence following the recommendations from Cyberconnecting. As a result, we have gotten more client engagement, more interactions with sales leads, positive comments, newsletter subscriptions and overall a better relationship with our customers,” Jacqueline reports.
By becoming aware of your unique identity composition, you can make informed decisions around their strategic positioning and the narrative of your brand. This supports authenticity, differentiation on a competitive market and a consistent communication style, stretching from the core of your business to the messaging that reaches your wider ecosystem.
The collaboration with IKM was an exciting challenge for both Cyberconnecting and the IKM team. Adaptability is the key to survival in the inevitable turbulent shifts of our modern world and IKM has been an exemplary collaboration partner meeting the challenge head on!
For more info on what IKM is working on,
check out their blog here.
If you wish to uncover your core identity, get in touch here to schedule a conversation with Cyberconnecting. We are delighted to guide you through your business transformation!
Schedule a Free Advisory Conversation