We love lofty ambitions. Big fans of them. It’s why our eyes lit up with excitement when the stock photography specialists, Alamy, engaged us to build a proposition that identified the opportunities, positioning and roadmap to support their ambition to 10x their ecommerce revenue over the next 5 years.
Let’s set the scene.
Alamy has established itself as a leader in the highly competitive UK stock imagery market. However, by its own admission, the ecommerce side of the business lacked a real identity, target market or direction. The team recognised it as a key lever for growth so needed to work out who they were for, how they would play and what they needed to do to get there.
This is where we came, in working with the team to:
- Explore the market and customer needs to identify gaps and opportunities primed for Alamy to fill.
- Identify ways Alamy could uniquely address the opportunities, testing, iterating and prioritising the strategic options to land on the chosen direction for the business.
- Articulate the strategic direction, the lead proposition to bring the strategy to life, commercial case for change, and transformation roadmap to get there.
Throughout the project, we worked hand in hand with the then Operations Director, Alan Capel. Alan had been with Alamy for over two decades and was perfectly positioned to work closely with us to build the new direction for the ecommerce business. So what did the relationship look like and how did it come about?
Alan explains: “We were looking for consultants to come in because the business needed to change. We knew there was a lot of potential in the business that could be realised and felt that if we had some outside help to come in then it would really give us free headspace to challenge each other, make better decisions, and use the expertise of others to guide us.”
“We hit it off with Tom and Fin straight away and immediately everybody said the same thing about them – they were astonished at how quickly they picked up, learnt, and could speak very intelligently and assuredly about the business. And it’s not a straightforward business.”
“They understood the landscape, they were speaking with insight about our competitors very early on, they were straightforward, transparent, and remarkably easy to deal with. Their dedication and commitment were on show right from the start and they were always available and if we could do something face to face we would, which is something you can’t put a price on.”
Our process always involves getting under the skin of the businesses we work with and this was no different. We knew the potential was there and saw it as our job to coax it out of the teams we were working with in a way that everyone would understand and buy into. It’s this personal and highly invested approach that we know can make all the difference – and Alan agrees.
“Thinking back, I can remember the pitches we saw from some of the big names in the consultancy business.” he says. “But they felt soulless, and the pitches felt like they’d simply switched out a logo of an old client and put ours on there instead. It was consultancy by the numbers whereas what Stratinn offers is anything but.”
“While with others there were no nuances about our particular challenges or our industry, Stratinn bought an investment into understanding what we’re really about and convinced us, without any bullshit, that they were speaking our language.”
“It was a much more personal experience and they were brilliant at handling big personalities, calling things out when they saw it, and manoeuvring people in a very positive way. On top of this, they are really nice guys which helps no end with projects like this. We had frank and open discussions but we had fun as well. They were always up for making it interesting in the way we approach things and the sessions were incredibly interactive with lots of interesting tasks.”
“And the great thing about this approach is we all felt involved all of the time. They presented us with options and got buy-in through us absolutely feeling involved in the decision making. They ran some truly brilliant workshops, one in particular that really stood out was when they got us to physically stand next to our preferred strategic option and argue our case for it. It was a brilliant way of fostering engagement and ensuring collective ownership of decisions.”
From our perspective, our work helped generate three very clear outcomes:
- We got business case sign off and exec agreement to execute the strategy.
- The team gained clear understanding of market opportunities they could pursue.
- We gave Alamy a clear direction that can be communicated internally and alignment on the roadmap to deliver being followed by a newly appointed transformation team lead.
And while we were delighted with this, for us the true test of how well a project has gone is what the people we work with say afterwards.
So we’ll give the final word to Alan…
“With Stratinn, there was never a bad meeting, there was never a bad interaction. If you’re thinking about working with them, take the time to have a conversation with them, talk to them about how they work and you’ll get a gut feel about how they work. They’re smart guys, they’re incredibly committed, they’ll give you a level of service you won’t get elsewhere, and they’ll make everyone feel involved and included in the project. I’ve honestly only got good things to say about them.”
If you want to find out more about what we do, how we work, and how we can help you, then we’d love to have a chat.
