Building the Right Team to Create Successful Client Partnerships
To call a partnership successful, most companies would measure only the outcome to deem it beneficial. But how many organizations put an emphasis on the journey, the team work, and the collaboration? As part of the Leadership Team at Blue Acorn iCi, we put a priority on succeeding at the beginning, the middle, AND in the future of a partnership with every one of our clients. And we build our company to help us facilitate that.
Our Process Starts with Hiring the Best
Hiring exceptional employees is the foundation for successful companies. The qualities that make up an ‘exceptional’ employee will differ widely from one organization to another. At Blue Acorn iCi, our first priority is to maintain a level of excellence that differentiates us from others in the industry. Our hiring managers and consultants have proven interview strategies to make sure every person is the right culture fit. We also make sure this person brings substantial subject matter expertise.
Download Blue Acorn iCi’s Complete Customer Experience Report to learn how to create an unforgettable, personalized customer experience.
We hire problem solvers, not just resumes. We look for technical knowledge but also consulting expertise, trustworthiness, a positive energy, a desire for continuous learning, an ability to stay calm during high stress situations, and a tendency to put the team first. Strong resumes get you noticed, but we hire the right mix of skills, personality, problem solving initiative, and learning capabilities.
Creating a Well Rounded Employee
It’s a priority at Blue Acorn iCi to ensure that our employees have the skills they need in order to give the best results to our clients. Everyone from a junior developer to a director level is given the same due diligence in their onboarding to our team.
New team members, from engagement to delivery, complete a training and mentoring program. They do this before being put on a project to gain a familiarity with our processes and technology. Mentors not only help enhance technical skills, but help build a new hires’ consulting ability, ensuring they are well rounded.
Creating and nurturing a collaborative environment is also a priority. Despite the availability of digital communication tools, nothing beats face to face discussions. Blue Acorn iCi team members can regularly be seen spun around in their chairs discussing an issue with fellow colleagues. Our close knit culture gives team members the right space to develop professional and personal relationships. Building these relationships further solidify trust, respect, and integrity.
Our Adobe Partnership Enhances our Capabilities
Blue Acorn iCi consultants come from a variety of technical backgrounds, experience and perspective. It’s the foundation that has helped us to develop our own set of technical and strategic best practices. Our close relationship with Adobe has given us insight into their technology. These insights allow us to both solidify and improve upon our own methods. We are closely aligned with Adobe’s technical blueprint, but have our own best practices. These practices of ours derive from decades of experience and expertise. The end result is what matters: every client gets high quality work, strategic guidance, and measurable results.
Our partnership with Adobe allows insider access to webinars and other resources before the general public. This gives us a head start in acquiring new knowledge. And it feeds into our desire for continuous learning across the Adobe technologies and others. In addition, we have dedicated Adobe reps that help answer any questions. When we find a bug with AEM or are seeking input on an implementation strategy, this is utilized.
Benefits to the Client’s Team
A benefit to both the client and our own team here in Raleigh is our Executive and Senior Leadership Team has an open door policy. Anyone can easily access leadership, all the way up to our CEO with a question or concern. In addition, our Leadership Team often travels to the clients site to offer additional strategic direction, ensure they are satisfied and get feedback on how we can improve.
Our open communication continues back and forth to the client in other ways. Once we have taken the time to understand our customer’s business goals, we work together to create the delivery plan. Often times customers may have cornered themselves into technological decision that may be less than ideal (and they may not even know it). In these cases we bring our expertise to the table and help guide our clients onto paths that consider the long term implications. A cornerstone of our partnership is putting our customer in the best position for success, and that means presenting on our expertise and experience to provide strategic options.
Building trust and communicating constantly are keys to any project. At Blue Acorn iCi, we believe in the importance of being on site with the customer’s team. Our own team is often viewed as members of the clients team, not as outsiders or just a vendor. After working with us for a period of time, customers often request our team members to provide them training. This is a direct result of the value customers place on our consultants’ technical skills. Not to mention their patience, diligence, positive energy and willingness to teach and share what we know.
Why Blue Acorn iCi?
Building a relationship with a digital partner can be challenging. Blue Acorn iCi is here to help our customers every step of the journey. We believe in building a long lasting relationship and a strong foundation of trust that few other companies can provide or prioritize. Feel free to get in touch with us if you have any questions or are interested in developing a partnership with us.