Can companies in today’s environment apply the success of the 2020 Toronto Raptors to their operating model?
Many companies out there are not akin to the LA Lakers, a big market team with ample resources and a brand that garners attention from talented professionals. For these companies, taking a page out of the 2020 Toronto Raptors’ playbook is a game-changer.
I’m not saying that if the Raptors had the choice to bring back Kawhi Leonard that they wouldn’t; the obvious choice is “hell yes!”. After all, they won the NBA Championship and Kawhi was MVP. President Masai Ujiri made a calculated, risky decision acquiring Kawhi and it worked. However, keeping that superstar was not a reality for the Raptors. It has always been a challenge for the Raptors to compete with the “big market” teams to acquire and retain talent. Likewise, if a company recruits a bright professional and they develop into a superstar or specialist, keeping them is extremely difficult and it really impacts your team’s ability to execute on projects and drive growth.
The Raptors have great leadership on and off the court with President Masai Ujiri and the coaching staff led by Nick Nurse. Ujiri and Nurse have assembled a team that has depth with players willing to take on a given role night in and night out. If you follow the Raptors, you notice that the leading team scorer changes on a nightly basis. However, the team plays a strong system of defense and offence with an emphasis on a collective effort vs solo heroics.
Over the course of 5 years, having worked with hundreds of executives, I would routinely be asked: how do I build my team? Where can I find a Salesforce specialist? These are extremely important and relevant questions that need to be addressed.
With the demand trends for Salesforce talent, gaining a specialist is going to be daunting and difficult to maintain. According to Harvey Nash/KPMG annual survey of CIOs, More than two-thirds of surveyed execs said a skills shortage was a bottleneck to hitting their growth projections.
In my experience, companies that succeed are ones with a strong group of generalists or subject matter experts (SME). With current conditions, I suspect that a model of subject matter experts will be more important than ever.
Similar to the Raptors, SMEs are a group of players that can be assigned to tasks depending on what the project needs. For example, executing a Marketing Cloud project may require two members of your team to be subject matter experts on the Marketing Cloud platform. These two SMEs would need to understand how the platform operates, how to articulate key functions, and administer the platform through clicks, not code. They need to know enough to be dangerous. Remember, they are a SME, so managing the day to day of Marketing Cloud is not their only task. They might be asked to PM the project, generate reports, or manage web activity. As SMEs, they look for their number to be called and execute the play needed to win the game.
For all the folks out there that consider themselves an SME or a generalist: you are the key to this whole operating model. You are the Kyle Lowry, Pascal Siakam, or Fred VanVleet of your organization.
As I’m introduced to more Bubblebox customers, I am finding their success on Salesforce Marketing Cloud hits a common theme. I recently had a discussion with a Bubblebox customer about this topic and here is what he said. “For every platform we implement, we look to gain a subject matter expert on that environment. Whilst they have the capability to execute the majority of the campaigns we deploy, they don’t have the time. They act as the integrator between our internal requests and Bubblebox. Hiring a full-time employee (or employees) is risky to our business as it is always challenging to retain the employee and keep them abreast of new techniques and products that come online from Salesforce. The overall cost of ownership is less when we employ an outside marketing technology consulting partner. Initiatives are executed quicker and as such reduces the opportunity cost of delay that results from relying on internal resources.”
Bubblebox supports companies through a sustainable approach with our technical expertise working with the SMEs to execute projects successfully.
The operating model of a group of SMEs vs Specialists allows companies to be agile to help generate results. The Raptors can compete with big market teams through an operating model without a superstar. Your company can compete with “big market” teams by leveraging a partner like Bubblebox and a strong group of SMEs.
