Business Clarity
Our people are the most important to me
As an entrepreneur and leader of ORB medical, I always took on everything and found it hard to delegate. It’s something that I’m now learning to do better. So it is important that my team has the same sort of business clarity as me. I knew everything I wanted but I struggled to put it into words for my team, our suppliers and our customers.
You think you are running a good business, until BlueOcean turns up. It’s clear, very quickly, you just don’t know what you don’t know and that’s a good thing. There are so many systems and processes a good business needs to increase efficiency and productivity. It’s not rocket science; it’s common sense but not common practice. It’s been an eye-opening experience but also really fun.
I’m now more conscious of where I, and my team, put our time and effort. I used to run with so many opportunities that came our way, but now I take a pause and look at making a business case first. Being guided by external resources working within our teams, BlueOcean has hugely helped us to rationalise and step back to take a look at the bigger picture.
Structure & Processes
I knew we needed to measure more, but it’s something I have always struggled with
I have plenty of excuses why, but this needed to stop to bring Orb and the team to their full potential. We had some branding, HR and general processes in place, they were done very hastily. The scaffolding was there but very sparse.
With BlueOcean we delved into every single part of our business, turned over every process and procedure and used what we already had and what we called our “osmosis” processes, into documented and replicable procedures.
Our HR processes have always been kind of “sink or swim”. With some coaching and help, we now have put together an employee journey from first engagement to becoming a lifelong advocate, whether they stay or move on.
Team Empowerment
I’ve always believed that my team should have autonomy and self-directed leadership
I expect efficiency and productivity and there is no need to idle until 5pm just to wait out the clock. However, there was a disconnect in expectations so clarification was needed.
Hard-sell and bottom line aren’t our main targets. I want my team to be able to believe in this business as much as me and for that I need to believe in each of them as a person and in what they are doing. BlueOcean has guided me to provide them with a framework to get done what they need to, and have clear objectives, KPIs and measurements.
Clarity and empowerment help the team make the right decisions every day. We are on a mission, together, to deliver the best outcome for the patients.
Sales Performance
We used to have a sort of shot gun approach
When it came to product selection as well as targeting customers, we spread our resources very thinly and had very little focus.
Although we have only just started implementation of the resources and activities provided by BlueOcean, we can already see, using the KPIs and measures created with them, is helping us focus on the right things. We aren’t just going out ‘to sell’ anymore. We have real focus on value-creating activities that matter. It has really been about having experts in an area where we didn’t have any and we were never going to employ those people ourselves.
The Team
On a mission, together
To start with, I was very apprehensive. I had worked with external consultants and agencies before, but they just didn’t get us. The BlueOcean team have hugely impressed me at every stage, I feel like they were made for us. They take the time to listen and learn, and we can tell that they love pulling out of us what we already know and stand for, so that we can all work collaboratively in our areas of expertise.
We are looking forward to seeing what’s next and continuing our partnership for years to come.
Ben Willis, CEO, Founder
