Experience Possible: The Story Behind the Strategy.
Companies guard their strategies carefully. After all, we expend significant resources developing them, and we don’t want to give the competition anything to leverage against us. But as Alpha brings to market a strategy that’s grounded in clarity and transparency about what we do, we welcome the chance to share our thinking with all who might be interested. For my part, I view this as a great opportunity to speak directly to our clients, partners, and staff – because you make everything we do possible.
WHERE WE BEGAN
Alpha has long been an industry leader. Our experiential, multidisciplinary focus made us an innovative company for decades, and steady investment in technology, people, and methodologies has kept us at the forefront of our industry. We’re always evolving to serve our clients.
But there’s something different about this chapter in our story. Part of it has to do with the scale of change – we’re investing across the board in operational excellence to enhance every aspect of the client experience. But what’s also unique is the nature of the change because everything we’re doing reflects a very specific strategy.
But more on that in a moment. First, I want to back up a year or so.
Despite the pandemic, Alpha was performing at peak levels in spite of a significant reduction in available business. We were earning steadily higher client satisfaction ratings. Moreover, the company was taking on higher-profile, more challenging projects than ever before, in a wider range of industries. And we were hitting them out of the park.
I had a realization, however, that while we were successful with our key segments, the rest of the world didn’t see us clearly, thereby limiting the opportunity for growth. Moreover, the way Alpha presented itself didn’t address what made us truly unique, nor what our clients loved most about us. This became clear over the course of a year’s worth of conversation with clients, partners, and employees in which we sought to gain a better understanding of Alpha’s strengths, as well as our clients’ changing needs.
What we learned was invaluable in helping Alpha transition to the next stage of our development. Let’s take our brand messaging, as an example. Alpha’s focus on leading-edge technology certainly struck a chord. Talking about the deep experience and broad expertise we brought to every challenge also resonated with our audiences. But, often, we spoke as technical experts, to other technical experts. Which is fine – except that at times we were missing the most important point- our solutions are specifically created to achieve an outcome or success for our clients and their audiences.
We realized we had an opportunity to speak much more powerfully and directly to our clients, and to align our strengths in a way that meets their needs more fully than ever before. We took that opportunity.
A NEW CHAPTER BEGINS
It’s important to note that we’re not talking about a massive change in company direction. Rather we’re evolving by focusing and augmenting the strengths we already have while building synergistic new ones.
Alpha had evolved – by design – into a company that does a whole lot more than integrate systems into solutions that deliver content. From the moment I assumed leadership of Alpha, I worked to sharpen our execution and focus on the core of what we do, which is creating exceptional and captivating experiences through technology. I knew that we could be so much more.
Simply saying we create experiences, however, isn’t giving the people of Alpha enough credit. No matter how fantastic and memorable those experiences may be (and they are fantastic and memorable), the real magic is in the translation and realization of each client’s vision to accomplish their objectives. This requires great team members.
Part of the key was looking back.
I recall having conversations with clients about deploying a screen here or another technology there and when I asked why, they would answer in the most basic way. “Because I want to share information that’s important.”
As we dug deeper and deeper into the outcomes they really wanted to achieve, it occasionally became clear that what they were planning might not be the best way to achieve what they wanted.
Suddenly we weren’t talking about technology and equipment. We were talking about an experience, about an outcome – because what the client really wanted to know was: What’s possible? What can we make happen? Oftentimes, the technology they thought they wanted wouldn’t be the best solution for the outcome they desired.
It was critically important to ask those questions. After all, how can a customer fully realize their vision if they don’t know what’s possible?
Hence “Experience Possible” – a strategy that’s all about creating the experiences that make our clients’ vision possible. Experiences that cause people to leap out of their seats at a sporting event. Or to immerse themselves in the magic of a casino. Or engage more fully with a professor.
STRATEGY MEETS SUBSTANCE
Where our new strategy really comes to fruition is in all the ways we’re aligning our capabilities to drive our clients’ success. For example, across-the-board investments in operational excellence will make the experience of working with Alpha even easier and more productive. With greater flow and efficiency comes cost-effectiveness and overall value. At the same time, technology investment in areas ranging from cloud production to IPTV will enable our clients to reach more people, more impactfully and economically. We’ve also committed to hiring the industry’s most accomplished leaders and to cultivating the incredible expertise already in our midst.
Enhanced operational excellence also allows us to effectively bring to bear Alpha’s multi-industry mastery. While some solution providers are narrowing their focus to specific markets, Alpha’s clients recognize the advantages that come from our breadth of capabilities and the cross-pollination of ideas from one market to another. From our work on complex sports stadiums and cutting-edge cloud solutions to learning centers and boardrooms, the result is a richer and more distinctive array of solutions for our clients. By investing in ways to streamline and deepen collaboration and idea-sharing within our ranks, we’re ensuring that inspiration and insight never get siloed. More on this in future blogs.
One more thought on collaboration: Truly listening to your team, including the client, produces results that would not be accomplished through one person’s experience. In most cases, only the person performing a specific task may have the ability to see the opportunities, challenges, or benefits clearly in that task. Success is built upon vast and substantial input from numerous stakeholders.
I’m grateful to the Alpha staff for their remarkable contributions to this process at every stage, from every quarter. I extend my deepest thanks also to the clients and partners who spoke with us as part of this process. Your insights were invaluable, and I’m confident they’ll accrue to your benefit as well as ours because Alpha is better positioned than ever before to make your vision possible.
