In the spotlight: econic
We like to put our customers in the spotlight. Why? Because the many insights we get as an agency at various companies are inspiring. And because working with different disciplines in different (business) cultures teaches us a lot. And we love to share the experiences with those customers, because we want to inspire you too! #growthmindset #sharinginspiration
We’re happy to tell you about our client econic. For this project, we work closely with Mike Out. He is responsible for digital strategy within econic. We asked him a few questions around our collaboration. Also, our data guru Rick Beijen – the Bammboo’er who had the biggest role in this project – tells you why he thinks it’s so cool to work with econic, and what he’s learning from it.
From home to e-home
econic believes that living from sustainable energy should be smart, comfortable and worry-free. In other words; without any hassle! With their convenient approach, you don’t have to invest in expensive equipment. They take installation and maintenance completely out of your hands.
From System Administration to Automation Engineering
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During this assignment, Bammboo (Rick) supported econic’s digital team as an additional specialist in managing the systems in the digital landscape. Rick did this partly in his own assessment and partly in collaboration.
Rick: “We looked critically at opportunities for improvement and simplification of these systems. In addition, we created and launched a customized mini ERP system to meet the internal information needs. All data is thus mapped and visualized. We did this by making optimal use of the existing tools, which allowed us to connect everything together in a single, flexible database. Here we made use of no-code tools like Zapier, Airtable and Stacker to work faster and more flexibly.
So this was not a typical growth marketing assignment. This assignment touched on the more technical, data-driven areas of growth hacking. And specifically the Automation Engineering piece, asking: how can we simplify and automate existing processes, creating room to focus more on growth?”
What’s inspiring about econic?
Rick: “What I think is cool about econic is the way they have made a fundamentally complicated process fun and easy. Their mission to accelerate the energy transition – using innovative methods – is admirable. I am grateful to be able to help with this.”
What is the challenge of econic? Why was external expertise needed?
Mike Out: “We were looking for a specialist at (very) short notice due to the departure of a colleague who was crucial for this project. The profile was tricky; part growth hacker, part data architect with more focus on internal digitization than external growth marketing.”
Why did econic choose to partner with Bammboo?
Mike: “Bammboo (unlike others) immediately knew what kind of person we were looking for and introduced Rick to us. A golden match. Rick has the assertiveness we were looking for.”
What, if anything, does econic experience as pleasant in this cooperation so far?
How does it differ from other parties?
Mike: “The speed, the empathy (working at a ‘corona rate’) and that Bammboo understood exactly what we were looking for was extremely nice. In communication they are businesslike and pragmatic, yet personal.”
What is the biggest opportunity/challenge that econic wants to address with this project?
Mike: “Designing, configuring and launching a custom mini-ERP system using only no-code solutions in two months.”
To what extent does econic’s e-home solution align with the developments of these turbulent times?
Mike: “econic has a fully cloud-based IT landscape based on a best-of-breed digital strategy. As a result, we have tremendous flexibility, a great deal of change capability, and thus the ability to move quickly in times of high uncertainty.”
How does the industry around econic respond to COVID-19?
Mike: “This is definitely also a crisis in which leadership is important. In our case, we are blessed with enterprising founders who actually see opportunities to accelerate and follow through. As frontrunners in the energy transition, it is crucial that we continue to propagate this leadership positioning and persevere. And that is what we are doing.
We can certainly see the impact of corona around us, but we also see that this crisis is not cutting equally hard everywhere: our sector has been largely spared of the nasty consequences so far. There is still so much to do in our country: the urgency to get rid of the gas and to make our buildings radically more sustainable has only grown. Digital is a crucial one in this to scale and I am hugely optimistic about the potential and momentum we have and are showing as an organization.”
Look closely at the process before you propose solutions
It’s not just the way econic wants to promote sustainability with their services that is inspiring; the collaboration itself provides important insights for Rick to take into his professional development.
“I mainly learned to look more at the process you are working with, before coming up with solutions like creating/introducing a new tool. You can come up with a quick fix for anything, but if the problem is in the foundation of the process, no tool is going to provide the solution. I also learned how Growth Hacking is about more than just marketing or product. It’s about a mindset; a process of data-driven testing and experimentation.”
