Tradition, innovation and thought leadership – How do they interact?
Family-run companies are always steeped in their own kind of traditions. Traditions are important; traditions are the stable foundation that a company has been built on. However, many people associate the term with old-fashioned, antiquated ways of thinking. This should therefore always be taken into account in the external presentation of the company. It is important to think along the lines of “innovation from tradition”.
Industry experience also plays an important role in innovation. Experience gained from customer projects teach you about the needs and demands of existing and of potential customers and what challenges they are facing. This helps you to develop the right solutions – solutions that are needed not only now but also in the future.
For example, many of our customers are struggling with digitalization and the growing demands of market regulations and directives. As a company, you can draw on your wealth of experience and find a remedy for current issues. You anticipate problems and develop solutions for them. When the customer then becomes aware of the problem, you have an answer ready and are therefore always one step ahead – a first step towards thought leadership.
Innovation with vision: “The cloud will be the future”
In order to keep pace with the time and successfully endure in the market, constant development is required. For this, a company needs someone with the courage to promote a vision. Günter Müller, owner of ASC, had one of those visions long before others thought along the same lines: “The cloud will be the future.”
ASC has invested in the cloud even before customers became aware of their demand; when many of our competitors merely sneered at the topic. It is exactly for this reason that today we are one step ahead when it comes to compliance recording from the cloud, that we may call ourselves an opinion leader in the field.
The challenge in this is that every time a company shifts its business activities to a new field, this brings about a cultural change, too. It involves acquiring new skills, new know-how and a new way of going to market - and the company must be willing to be flexible and take occasional risks. It is not always easy to take all employees on board and fully implement this change.
Taking all customers on the journey
But not only employees must be convinced that the chosen direction is the right one. Also customers who are not among the early adopters of cloud computing must not be left behind. Therefore, new visions should be spread in more than one channel to ensure that employees, customers, and stakeholders are equally involved. This is why we offer hybrid solutions to our customers who prefer to have their PBX and our solution on-premise.
Thought leader for compliance recording from the cloud – how does that work?
ASC is a specialist for compliance recording and analysis of communication and guarantees the fulfilment of legal regulations and compliance requirements. We are a strong partner you can rely on when it comes to security and compliance. And this goes far beyond the mere performance of duties. The innovative processing of data is future-oriented, involves AI as well as automatic evaluation, and offers insights into communication. In addition, ASC draws attention to risks and provides decision templates for the management. But how do we communicate this to the public?
First of all, for me, thought leaders are persons with their own clear opinion. Persons who see what is happening in the market and what the drivers are; persons who inspire other and help to shape the future. Usually, thought leaders can be seen heading a company but this is not necessarily always the case. There are many employees who have major influence and promote certain topics but who are not in the public eye. ASC therefore tries to take all employees aboard by granting them a thought leader role in their special field or creative environment. So, there does not always have to be a massive corporate strategy in the background but thought leadership can also be implemented in a more individual approach.
Consistent narrative for thought leadership: cloud, recording, compliance, and trust
By means of our strategic alliances we build additional brand trust. We cooperate with worldwide leading technology partners. This allows us to distribute our solutions through their channels and position ourselves in this environment - they are, so to speak, a multiplier for our central topics: cloud, analytics, compliance, security, and trust.
It is important, though, that we all use the same narrative in external communication. Our narrative is that we help our customers to meet compliance requirements and to improve the quality of customer service - in harmony with laws and works councils. In addition, we are a trailblazer for a secure cloud. This involves two contrary requirements: security and flexibility of the cloud. But this are the two topics that must be harmonized - and this is exactly what we do and why we are a thought leader.
Thought leadership – what does this mean?
In the article series “Thought Leader Stories”, marconomy and TBN Public Relations present success stories of thought leaders from B2B companies. Read the interview with Katrin Henkel “For me, thought leaders are persons with their own clear opinion” and learn more about the strategies of thought leadership in the field of compliance recording from the cloud.
