Driven by the Unthinkable: An Overview of Flux IT’s 2020
If in December of 2019 someone had told me that the following year we would face a global pandemic which would trigger unprecedented world health and economic crisis, which would, in turn, force us to close the borders and practice social distancing, and which would make us adopt home office, home school, home gym and all sorts of “home” routines…I assure you I would have thought I was being told the script of an apocalyptic movie.
Yet, here we are, wrapping up an incredibly strange and atypical year that made us challenge our limits, reprioritize our plans, set new schedules, and adapt; a year which made us step out of our comfort zone… in fits and starts!
The key driver that cut across the year was adapting, at a drop of a hat, to a completely remote environment. 2020 forced us to speed up the process, and we had to change the mindset overnight. We had no choice: from a Friday to a Monday, we found ourselves working remotely, without an office to bring us together, performing daily activities with LOTS of new challenges.
Despite the contingencies, this was a year of growth and consolidation for Flux IT. In this article, I’ll go through the ups and downs of 2020.
Expanding Our Business
The software industry came off well in a context that, as users, forced us to operate 100% through digital channels. Entering the process digitalization race and adopting new channels to reach consumers were decisions that those who lead businesses had to make very quickly in order to stay on track. Those businesses that had a low digital transformation degree had to make great efforts to start going down that path or else they would miss out. Instead, for those who were undergoing digital transformations, it was an opportunity to accelerate the process and keep up with their strategic plans, improving their clients’ experience to meet new demands.
Despite the first semester’s uncertainties, it was a year of sales growth for Flux IT. We had a +90% billing regarding 2019. We quadrupled the closing of sales opportunities in Flux IT Nearshore, which is a major achievement if we take into account the context in which this took place, where the quality of our services, the relationships with our clients, and the aligned work to execute business plans were key to increase projects and introduce ourselves in a market in which we are still developing and where our brand is working hard to find its place.
We grew stronger in the local market, leading ambitious projects that placed us as leaders in the development of digital channels, and which allowed us to grow with our teams, adding new fluxers to the challenges.
In 2020, we strengthened the relationship with our main clients, which are leaders in digital transformation processes in their respective industries, such as Telecom and Galicia; and others that also resort to digital investment to scale their businesses, such as Grupo Supervielle, Credicoop, GDM, Gire and Relocation Insurance, among others.
This year we focused on the solutions suite for the port industry. We launched Container Hub, a digital product that, along with Bulk Hub, comprises the suite that tackles common issues at ports.
We became technology partners of ABB, one of the industry’s most important vendors, and, together, we started offering solutions for different port terminals, reaching new territories, such as Asia or Europe. Regarding 2021, we’ll focus on broadening our suite with products we’ve already detected, which will keep us focused on long-term development.
In order to be able to address all that in due time, meeting the growth needs of our business, we put great effort into finding fluxers that match these challenges as well as our culture. That’s why, during 2020, we grew by 30% regarding the number of fluxers that have joined our family.
Our Culture Arrived at Home
Let’s flashback: in 2019 we started talking about becoming a decentralized company. That meant not limiting the organizational growth to the geographic location of our workplaces. We aimed for something bigger while keeping our culture alive.
Thinking about ourselves like that allowed us to set plans to meet the challenges that came up this year: How might we provide a unique experience for fluxers beyond our offices? How might we foster a culture remotely? What should we take into account regarding initiatives when there’s a hybrid modality (on-site and remote) so that these work in a variety of contexts?
That said, this year made us skip a few steps within that plan. Rethinking culture and employer branding actions, and adopting virtuality overnight wasn’t easy. Many of those actions were designed to take place on site, one-on-one, looking into each other’s eyes, communicating beyond our voices during the breaks, the after-office drinks, the common areas, or sharing “mates” in the hallways.
One of the first actions we introduced at the beginning of the lockdown, which started to accelerate our mindset change, entailed taking a piece of the office (and our culture) into the fluxers’ homes, giving them all the necessary elements for them to be comfortable. With a firm conviction that we must keep fluxers at the core of our decisions, we learnt from our mistakes, and that was the driver that pushed us to be better every day.
Our recruiting and onboarding processes suddenly underwent a full transformation. We constantly sought the experience to remain a warm welcome to the fluxer family despite the harsh context we were living in as a society. We designed actions for fluxers to feel at home from home: we set up game nights, the Flux IT trivia, wellness spaces, our annual on-demand perk (a wine, coffee, or cocktail tasting). We launched new communication channels and revamped the traditional ones: we introduced the collaborative chat tool, we released a new version of our internal news platform (Flux IT News), and our radio, Fluxstation, went live for all the IT community. All these actions aimed at bringing us closer together and keeping us connected.
In 2020, we looked forward to counting on a new training framework so that fluxers could develop new skills. However, the context prevented us from fully implementing it. Working remotely made us readapt the dynamics and try out the most functional initiatives. We were unable to reach the expected results, and this is a pending issue which, along with the design of interactive spaces for our fluxers’ professional growth, we regard as a “to do” for 2021.
In the second semester, we embarked on an assessment of our organizational leadership style to detect gaps regarding the style we want to boost. The introspection and analysis were performed by the entire management team. Next year, we look forward to implementing a direct action plan linked to the development of the necessary skills to achieve the ideal we strive for. This is a huge challenge and it’s also a great opportunity to learn.
Thus, we wrap up this year with the peace of mind that comes with knowing we are on the right track, and with the confidence that comes with counting on the necessary skills to move forward even in uncertain times.
Towards 2021, we seek to continue growing and expanding our business: to keep broadening our client portfolio, balancing the local and international markets, and working together with both fluxers and our clients to create an ever more digital world.
We’ll stick to our clear vision, working on the fluxers’ experience no matter where we are, but following our motto: being amazing together!
