JOY ABDULLAH

IT’S ALL ABOUT THE PEOPLE

JOY ABDULLAH

“Brains, like hearts, go where they are appreciated” —Robert McNamara former US Secretary of Defence

The regular world of business, as one had known it, is no longer in play.

The days of one-way brand communication or a cold transactional approach or simply using the latest in technology, to bring efficiency and cost-saving, are no longer able to create sustainable profitability.

There’s a new paradigm in doing business now.

Given the numerous crises’ trust and value have emerged to be of key importance for any and every business. The technological advancements and adoption have brought the global community closer, with regards to sharing of information. Resulting in the word-of-mouth reference being a key driver of trust.

Change, trust, engagement, value and sustainability are now key management jargon bandied about in every organization as they grapple with this new paradigm of doing business. Today any business clearly needs to show tangible social benefits.

Benefits that impact positively on the employees and customers. On people and society.

The business world is slowly realizing that the strategic advantage is, actually, in their people and in their purpose.

PEOPLE ARE WHAT MAKES A BUSINESS

People make organizations. Without people organizations are just empty shells. Employees and their leadership and its behaviour create culture. That culture is expressed as the brand experience which then forms the perception of the organizations’ identity and ability and ultimately is reflected on their stock price. Employees are the most important stakeholders for any brand.

Strangely enough organizations fail to acknowledge this importance. It’s resulted in creating some major gaps in the overall brand experience. As an example, view the brand experience that occurs from an employer brand perspective in the recruitment stage to a potential employee; compare that with the ongoing employee experience felt by current employees and hold these two sets of experiences up against what’s being delivered to a customer.

ONE WOULD NOTICE THE GAPS CLEARLY.

This occurs as each of the functions are operating in a silo. Often with no overall connectivity to the organizational purpose or with the operating strategy. Each function runs its own activities, which is measured and reported, based on the all-famous numerical KPIs. Yet we wonder why we aren’t having higher engagement and not achieving the forecasted revenue numbers.

VALUE PEOPLE

In this new paradigm, for businesses stability occurs only by focusing on employees. By valuing them through exploring and using their ideas, strengths and their advocacy. It not only strengthens the purpose it creates empowerment.

WHICH LEADS TO INCREASED ENGAGEMENT.

With increased engagement comes brand advocacy that creates trust and leads to sales and financial sustainability.

WHERE DO WE START?

Change starts from within. Not from outside.

Businesses need to re-learn how to touch the hearts. Create emotional connections with its people—employees and customers. That becomes possible when the experience delivered is a positive and relevant one.

It needs attention, planning, and leadership support for effective implementation. Every organization has positional leaders and then there are the actual influencers who work cross-functionally. These influencers need to be identified, assessed for selfmotivation and alignment with the business purpose, recognized by leadership and then empowered as change champions. These are the employees who work from within in impacting on changing behaviour.

This is the most difficult part as work habits are part of our individual cultural make-up that we carry with us when we walk into a job.

Affecting change requires having consistent interaction where values and the strategic objective are held up all the times through one-one-one conversations to ensure an employee has clarity on goals and expectations.

The conversations create a safe environment that enables creativity, ideation, accountability, responsibility and most importantly brand advocacy to flourish.

The more a business focusses on using its employees as its advocates. The more it will attract and obtain engagement from its customers. Creating a experiential cycle that brings sustainability to the business.

ABOUT JOY ABDULLAH

Joy Abdullah is a strategic marketing leader who helps CEOs make marketing decisions, which are based on having a unique brand experience that creates sustainable profits.

He creates strategic marketing solutions which emerge through having clarity of business purpose and strength.

His mission is to humanize the workplace by guiding employees in creating a unique brand experience, for themselves and customers, and getting business heads to engage, appreciate and recognize the value employees bring in creating this strategic advantage that results in sustainable profitability yearon-year.

He has Asia-centric international experience in business strategy, marketing, and business operations that deliver measurable and profitable growth. His expertise is in helping businesses harness the value of their employees in creating a unique brand experience that delivers sustainable profits.

He guides, consults, and speaks on the importance of brand experience in business strategy from an Asian market perspective.