This is the third and final post of a series on the shared economy, how it is similar to outsourcing, what you need to succeed, and finally my perspectives.

In the first post, I shared an intro on how the shared economy is an extension of outsourcing. Rather than outsource anything that is not your core business, the shared economy is essentially outsourcing your core business - you better do it well - or you will fail.

In the second post, I shared three things your business needs to do well to master the execution of your sharing or outsource strategy.

Now on to my personal story for how process, trust, and knowledge are applied from three different perspectives; as a business operations leader, as a member of a shared community, and as a consumer.

Business Operations Perspective

By the time we were ready to outsource our installs at Geckotech, we had established our baseline process internally. Even though the team was consistent with the defined process, the remote hands would have hiccups. Our relationship was with one vendor that managed the hundreds and thousands of partner technicians across the US.

After each install, we refined our checklist and process so we could avoid the issue in the future. As you refine your process to outsource, I suggest to build continual improvement into every process, start simple, and expect to change consistently.

We required initials to confirm areas were reviewed, provided example pictures for technicians to recreate, and NA where steps were not applicable versus leaving them blank ensured the content was not overlooked.

After we were acquired by M5 Networks, there were a lot more people to understand the process and relationship with our outsourced vendor. We went through a few more hiccups of knowledge and trust gaps.

As a solution, I planned trips to the vendor site with cross functional teams to help transfer knowledge and build trust. We produced a standard guide of expectations for each team. It was a success - The outcome was improved process, trust, and knowledge!

Shared Platform

I participate in a Shared clothing program, Closet Collective. The concept is similar to Rent The Runway or Stitch Fix; however, Closet Collective does not own the merchandise. The lenders open specific items of their closet to borrowers of the monthly service.

I started out with 10 dresses from my closet, later added 10 more items, and will continue to build my virtual closet to share with others. In fact, the top lender makes $10K per year renting out her closet.

Closet Collective has a simple process for both lenders and borrowers. The process is clearly defined from initial setup, profile and clothing posts, through monthly lending - all confirmed through thoughtful emails for each interaction.

During the initial setup, Closet Collective made a personal contact with me to establish the necessary trust required for me to feel comfortable with the process of lending my clothes to strangers. They build upon the trust monthly with consistent processes with each of my monthly rentals.

Closet Collective’s model requires very minimal training - hence a perfect opportunity for sharing or on-demand economy. I simply need to know how to print a label, put a dress in a bag, add my thank you to the pre-provided card, and drop off at the nearest USPS.

Customer Perspective

I recently ordered five different leather stickers from Anya Hindmarch from the website Farfetch. As I read, Farfetch is a platform that sells products that are sourced by independent shops around the world.

While I don’t know the back end of their systems, I can only assume they have their processes and appropriate knowledge training in place from my first experience.

By luck, I received all of them on the same day. Kudos if that was coordinated as they were all out of country. Every shipment came in a Farfetch branded box, with a Farfetch branded envelope, and a unique letter from the shop itself - which added a nice personal touch of their shop.

What companies do you think have process, trust, and knowledge nailed? Do you agree that each are important to support a consistent customer experience?

I would love to hear your input. Please give this post a thumbs up or share if you enjoyed the content.

Yours Truly,

The Pukka Panda

"Communication is the process of sending and receiving messages. However, communication is effective only when the message is understood and when it stimulates action or encourages the receiver to think in new ways." (Courtland L. Bovée, John V. Thill, and Barbara E. Schatzman, Business Communication Essentials. Pearson, 2004)

As we are buried in endless communication from every channel, we need to bypass information overload and help our audience capture and lock into their memory?

In the beginning, its simple…

Being the first employee for a startup, I designed and implemented the operational processes used with the systems to support the voice SaaS business. At Geckotech, I led the teams responsible for implementation, customer service, and the data center infrastructure. Since we were all located within one office, communicating change was simple - and it occurred frequently. A combination of email communication, weekly training sessions, and management of defined metrics was a great recipe for success.

Once business grow into more than one location, the recipe needs to adapt. In fact, using an application called RescueTime to understand productivity by application use, I noticed that my email usage went from 5 hours a week to 15 hours a week when managing teams across different locations!

When you grow, it becomes a challenge...

When M5 Networks acquired Geckotech, I transitioned to oversee business process and the service delivery teams which span across several locations. As a growing business implementing new technology and systems, it was a careful challenge to communicate change effectively and continue to maintain top NPS scores. Technology and systems will only have the expected impact when the people and change process are managed properly.

Emails, meetings, Powerpoint decks posted on Salesforce.com chatter, and knowledge base articles didn’t seem to be enough to effectively communicate the information required to both the impacted teams and the rest of the company. After all, everyone else is using the same communication channels. Rewind back to the comment about information overload... As a company, we adopted quarterly change sprints so make change consistent. Even with a corporate movement, there is room for creativity.

It’s time to disrupt the norm…

I can almost guarantee your message will be the only one in the restroom. Just like we need to take some time away from our smartphone and technology at times, we also need a ‘bio’ break!

I found the ‘sacred’ place a great way to capture everyone’s attention and generate some funny emails from those who were shocked by the placement. Here are some tips that I learned along the way through positive and constructive feedback which I used to iterate into the weekly posts.