Organisation: TAFE Queensland North
Job Title: Director, Client Engagement
Location: North Queensland Campuses
Shape strategic thinking
With a proven record of conceptualising and delivering solutions to novel and complex problems, I am able to lead and shape a culture of success within organisations and work units. During my role as Head of Digital Integration and Customer Care with Digicel Media, I faced the challenge of rolling out a subscription television service in Papua New Guinea (PNG). This was a difficult proposition due to a number of potential barriers.
The first challenge was that as a developing market, many households in PNG did not own a TV, meaning that not only could a subscription TV service not be advertised and promoted in the traditional way, but that the value proposition of Digicel’s service needed to be sufficient to drive not only the subscription to the pay TV service, but the purchase of a television itself.
Further challenges were presented by language and cultural barriers, with regard to both the intended market of consumers, and the local employees and contractors engaged to facilitate the launch of the service. Additional barriers existed in the form of relatively low incomes of the local population, meaning that the commitment to a subscription service was a more difficult proposition than to a developed market with proportionally higher incomes. In developing and implementing marketing strategies, I therefore focused on country-appropriate methods of building brand awareness and interest, including through prominent print an billboard advertising rather than the traditional (in a developed market) television media campaigns.
Forecasting of predicted subscription uptake had been conducted by a previous scoping team and had been based on expectations of a developed market; these forecasts did not reflect the reality of the situation in PNG and hence were an inappropriate foundation upon which to build marketing and development strategy. I therefore undertook a continual process of evaluation of subscription performance against targets and, when it became clear that initial forecasts were inaccurate, revised forecasting numbers and re-established key performance indicators to take account of emerging data and knowledge. This provided a more realistic picture of potential revenues to guide organisational decision making and prevented harm to staff culture that can be caused by the presentation of unachievable objectives.
Measures of success for this project included call centre feedback received, focus group outcomes, number of new subscriptions and retention of subscribers. On all of these measures the rollout of the Digitel subscription service was a success, and what commenced as a single channel offering was able to be rapidly expanded to five, and then 10, channel offerings under my leadership.
Achieve results
Demonstrating a strong record of achievement in account management, my current role of Senior Account Manager with Seven West Media sees me pursuing sales opportunities for existing accounts as well as identifying and securing new account business. Through building an engaging and appealing environment for advertisers, I am able to deliver high quality outcomes both in terms of successful advertising campaigns for account clients and increased revenue for the organisation. I maintain a strong focus on communication with advertisers, acting as a business partner to assist them in achieving their organisational goals through facilitating media advertising in line with their marketing strategies.
During my tenure to date on this limited term contract, recommendations and referrals from existing clients have increased and there has been a 30% growth in revenue from direct accounts. This is just one example of my record of successfully managing accounts of key clients; I also draw on further experience from my sales and marketing management roles with previous employers where I managed sales, marketing and branding for organisations with sales revenue of up to $100 million per annum. As well as successfully managing key accounts directly, I have a record of success in leading others within a sales or marketing team to contribute to organisational outcomes.
I have direct experience in leading the delivery of high quality outcomes in a service environment as during my time with Digicel Media in PNG, part of my role included launching a call centre to support the sale of television subscription services. This required me to develop a training plan focusing on the objectives to be achieved, followed by negotiation with stakeholders to implement this plan. Key interests included the technology service providers and the outsourced provider of call centre staff. This was particularly challenging in an environment of stark cultural differences with regard to work practices and attitudes.
Having produced a training plan, I engaged with the contract staff provider to facilitate delivery of this training to staff prior to launch of the call centre. As a result of the planning and development which I contributed to the launch of the call centre, it was fully functional and equipped to provide customer services by the required deadline.
Cultivate productive working relationships
Experienced in building and maintaining productive relationships for mutual benefit, I am able to deliver high quality results and business improvements through working effectively with internal and external parties. Additionally, I have the proven ability to lead others to greater success in a customer service environment through facilitating customer relationship management programs to deliver improved business outcomes.
My position as Head of Programming for Sky Racing (one of the Tabcorp stable of companies) saw me develop and deliver a high impact brand new customer relationship model which changed the way customers interacted with the organisation in the online environment. Recognising the advances in technology that had opened up new ways of engaging with customers, I drove and delivered a project to relaunch and rebrand the digital media platforms of Sky Racing, including the website, video on demand module and launch of a mobile application.
The broader project required oversight of a team of content editors and designers creating the various platforms, as well as negotiation of digital and commercial programming content rights. In the customer relationship management sphere in particular, I mapped and drove the production of a training program to be delivered to customer service staff ahead of the launch of the new media platforms. Working with an external training consultant, I wrote and produced a customer service training manual for use by staff. This training was then rolled out to all customer service staff through workshops style teaching in a classroom environment. In this way, employees were prepared for delivery of efficient and effective service delivery to our customers upon the launch of the new and rebranded platforms.
Working against a strict deadline, I successfully facilitated a smooth transition to the new customer relationship platforms without causing disruption to customer viewing habits. Positive customer feedback, always a strong gauge of success in the media environment, was immediate and consistent following the rollout, demonstrating increased customer satisfaction with the services provided by Sky Racing. Overall this project delivered improved business outcomes to Sky Racing in the form of increased number of customers with online accounts and increased overall revenue from customer accounts.
Exemplify personal drive and integrity
A part of my role as Head of Digital Integration and Customer Care with Digicel Media in PNG saw me introducing a Subscriber Management System (SMS) technology which managed all data of new and existing customers. This innovative and advanced system allowed reporting on trends in subscriber data, which in turn provided the ability to act to influence subscriber behaviour through targeted marketing and customer relations activities.
For example data reporting could demonstrate a lack of market penetration in a particular geographical area, or indicate a failure to appeal to a certain demographic group. This allowed me to return to the marketing and sales strategy underpinning our PNG operations and adapt these to better achieve performance targets. Particular outcomes of this use of technology included the ability to better focus marketing activities in this developing economic environment towards print media when it was discovered that penetration was poor in certain geographic locations due to the low levels of television ownership there, making TV advertising ineffective. Incidences of high customer churn could also be identified, enabling analysis of customer retention strategies and their effectiveness.
Within my role at Sky Racing I delivered an innovative new range of media platforms which relied on advanced technology to improve relationships with customers, leading to improved revenues. Personal Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for my position included requirements to maintain or increase revenue, increase customer account numbers, and deliver a functional team culture of value and respect for employees. All of these performance targets were contributed to through my delivery of the $100 million website and media platform project.
Within this project I delivered key outcomes of effectively managing staffing budgets and resource allocations, increasing customer satisfaction with account services, and launching the complex project in accordance with a strict deadline. Acting as a leader, rather than simply a manager, I led a team of internal staff and external contractors and stakeholders to achieve the project outcomes. Displaying effective and innovative leadership and management practices, I reinvigorated the team culture within my work unit. These efforts resulted in an improved staff morale and work ethic, meaning potential for greater team outcomes and achievements was realised.
Communicate with influence
Launching an entirely new television subscription service in an undeveloped economic and cultural environment as Head of Digital Integration and Customer Care with Digicel Media saw me needing to communicate, consult and negotiate with stakeholders in challenging circumstances. This required a complex series of arrangements to be made in order to launch the service. To simply establish the infrastructure which would allow broadcast of the digital channel required negotiation of logistics such as transport of satellite dishes from manufacturers in China to the installation contractors in PNG, which involved language barriers on both sides, as well as cultural and time differences to be overcome.
I encountered some significant cultural adjustment when encountering the local work ethic and practices. I had engaged local PNG contracting companies to provide labouring teams to install infrastructure and found that my management and leadership style needed to be adapted to get the best out of these workers and their managers. Compared to Australian employment relationships, this involved being far more hands-on in my approach, in what would here be considered a micromanagement method.
I found that very clear and concise communication about goals, tasks and expectations was required, with regular follow-up to check progress an essential element of ensuring that work moved forward at the required pace. By building a relationship with the local workers and managers, monitoring and assessing their responses to my interpersonal and communication style and adjusting these accordingly, I found that I was able to elicit more effective results in order to achieve project aims to the required deadlines.
In order to install satellite communication infrastructure in PNG, I was required to consult and negotiate with government departments and navigate a system of work orders and permits which required exercise of highly developed influencing and liaison skills to secure. This was done n the face of a campaign of opposition from an already established competitor in the country, which made my task of securing government cooperation even more challenging. Through development of networks and using communication and interpersonal styles which I adapted to be appropriate for the local political and professional climate, I was able to secure all necessary government cooperation to install the required infrastructure.
Bachelor degree in Education, Marketing, Commerce (or similar)
I hold a Bachelor of Arts degree from Charles Sturt University, with a major in Marketing undertaken through an exchange program to the State University of New York.
