When I began my Mando journey six years ago as an Account Director, I didn’t quite expect the types of opportunity I’d get to shape the future of the business.
I spent my first few years in Client Services and helping out with new business, before getting involved with the Marketing Team to shape the broader value proposition.
What I would like to explain in this interview is the opportunities we have at Mando, what helps you thrive in an environment like ours and what possibilities are going to shape our future.
How important is it to have a clear value proposition?
When I first joined, one of my observations was that we were trying to be all things to all people, and nobody knew what Mando stood for.
We had clients across multiple sectors spanning education to retail, so to create uniformity, we brought the focus back on to clients that have common challenges.
Those were challenges that played to our strengths as a business, in our ability to create fast, secure, scalable and accessible digital experiences that were far simpler than the solutions already in place.
When Mando made the decision to work with regulated industries, such as utilities and insurance companies, we focused all marketing effort to build the brand association - this was a bold move for the team and one that has certainly been incredibly rewarding.
One of my proudest moments must be when we pitched to a water company who had just chosen to work with us and they had told our competitors that they had chosen somebody else, without naming us. Seconds later we had a text from one of the competitors congratulating us, having assumed we’d won the business.
What are Mark’s thoughts on future technologies and challenges?
Personally, I’m excited for the emergence of voice and chat as a way of enabling all people to communicate and transact on digital channels. I fundamentally believe that it will change the way we interact with brands online, moving away from the traditional keyboard and mouse on a desktop, laptop or tablet, to a new digital experience that is controlled by voice, chat and natural language – like a messaging app or a voice-controlled smart speaker.
Implementing these and other digital solutions into large enterprises at scale is a challenge, but it’s one that we’re used to taking on. Our approach to creating enjoyable experiences built on solid technical foundations, coupled with our experience of helping clients with their digital operations, means that we are perfectly placed to tackle big problems and make a difference for lots of people.
How our team is evolving
The way we’re evolving as a team is by getting everyone behind the brand purpose, which is to
“create digital experiences that simplify people’s lives.”
It’s an understanding of how the work that we do can impact millions of individuals every single day. It’s not always about being a digital agency or being great at digital, but more about the outcome, the change and the good we are doing at the result of doing work and collaboration with clients.
What Mando can offer new members of the team joining?
Mando is a hybrid between a digital agency and a large systems integrator or consulting firm. We’re very focused on the verticals that we specialise in, both from a sector and technology perspective. We understand the challenges in those sectors and the opportunities that digital presents in years to come. We’re focused on how we can deliver solutions to our clients that affects change for them and their customers over time. We don’t operate in traditional ecommerce spaces, creative or campaign spaces, we’re very much focused on being the digital partner across all aspects of digital for our clients in a very business-oriented way, which will see them be successful in the short, medium and long term.
How you can thrive without a digital background?
Lots of people start their Mando journey without having a digital background, and that’s fine. To thrive, you just need to understand your strengths and see where they can add value into our business. It’s a collaborative effort here - all components are greater than one single part of the business which means that holistically, the business can be great.
If you know what it’s like to work in a water company or perhaps if you have a customer service background and understand how to reduce costs for a business – this can be extremely valuable to us.
The right mindset, mentality, approach and the ability to see how digital can be used to transform lives for the better is vital. Why? Because building an understanding of how digital can contribute to saving time for that end customer and give them more minutes back to their day is what we’re passionate about.
There are lots of opportunities for career progression here. I was promoted onto the board within two years and I’ve seen people get fast-tracked to those senior positions more than I’ve seen anywhere else.
If you would like to talk to take a look at our current vacancies click here.
Interested in talking to one of our consultants?
