MBR SEPTEMBER ALL LR

Malta Business Review
IN DEPTH INTERVIEW SERIES
IN DEPTH INTERVIEW SERIES
Malta Business Review
EMPOWERING ORGANISATIONS
to improve their Customer Engagement
Philip Micallef, member of the company board of directors, iMovo Ltd.,
the acknowledged leader in Customer Experience Management (CEM) and
Business Intelligence (BI), tells us that one thing he learnt in his thirty years
of working in so many different countries is that culture is important. As
we discuss his recent appointment, Philip emphasizes the importance of
respecting the culture of the customer instead of managing with a colonial
mentality, which is doomed to fail in today’s age. Philip reveals that iMovo,
have employees who hail from different countries like Malta, Italy, Greece
and others and this helps make iMovo very sensitive to other cultures.
MBR: Why did you join the iMovo board?
PM: Pierre Mallia, the Managing Director of
iMovo and myself go back many years, when
we were both working for the Strategy and
Planning Group at Management Systems
Unit, introducing Information Systems and
attempting to re-engineer the way the public
sector worked. Since then we both went our
separate ways but I followed Pierre and kept
in touch even though I had gone abroad for
a number of years. When Pierre asked me
earlier this year if I would be interested in
joining the iMovo Board as a non-executive
director I immediately accepted. I joined
principally for two reasons: Firstly, the
nature of work of iMovo which specialises in
Business Intelligence solutions and Customer
Relationship Management, two areas which
I realised are key to any organisation in my
career with France Telecom, Melita, MCA,
By Martin Vella
Regulatory Authority of Bermuda, and Air
Malta. Secondly, I wanted to practice what I
always preached that board members should
provide the strategic vision to an organisation,
support management and staff and not
meddle in operational matters.
MBR: You had an impression of iMovo when
you joined. Was it accurate?
PM: I always saw that iMovo was working
in the areas of Business Intelligence and
Customer Relationship Management, two
areas so important and key to the success of
any organisation. iMovo are associated with,
among others, two leading solution providers
in these areas: Zendesk and Salesforce and
this reinforced my impression of a forward
looking company providing holistic solutions
for the businesses of tomorrow. I came across
Zendesk when I was Regulator in Bermuda of
Telecommunications and had contacts with
the US Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) in Washington which uses Zendesk
to deal with 2000 complaints per day and
has transformed the FCC into an efficient
customer facing regulator at an 85 per cent
savings.
MBR: How would you define the iMovo
brand?
PM: The iMovo brand is a forward looking,
dynamic one providing tomorrow's solutions
for today's organisations and having the
customer as the raison d'etre for all its work.
iMovo builds software for better customer
relationships and empowers organisations
to improve their customer engagement and
better understand their customers. The brand
is that of a solution provider simplifying the
tough work of customer service.
MBR: Would you discuss the heritage of the
property and the vision around its recent
transformation?
PM: iMovo started off with a couple of success
stories in the local market such as providing
eCabs with customer service software that
is easy to use and gave the company the
flexibility to move quickly, focus on innovation
and scale with their growth. With success
comes growth which needs to be properly
managed and nurtured. iMovo then ventured
abroad successfully in UK and Greece and
is in the phase of further growth especially
internationally. Any company is as good as its
employees and Pierre has managed to build
a team of strong, professional individuals all
eager to learn and keep improving the way
things are done and very customer focused.
The vision is to keep growing especially
internationally, providing excellent solutions
to our customers and investing heavily in our
staff and having staff who feel proud to be
working for iMovo.
MBR: How do you intend to contribute to
this trajectory/vision?
PM: I sincerely hope to put my experience
gained over the years both in Malta and
abroad to good use in the iMovo Board. I
have a strong background in customer service
internationally having been responsible for
France Telecom/Equant Business Services in
consolidating 200 help desks round the globe
into five global centres: London, Atlanta, Rio
de Janeiro, Cairo and Sydney. There I learnt
the complexities of providing excellent
customer service. I have worked in Italy,
Switzerland, Spain and France and there can
provide some input on the local culture, way
of doing business and call on my contacts in
these countries in the various sectors I was
involved with. Some of these contacts have
their own technology companies and areas
of collaboration could be explored in due
course. Another area I can contribute is in
mentoring. I am in fact doing some mentoring
for an American Company which specialises
in mentoring and am mentoring a US C+
executive working in Europe. This is an area
I enjoy and gives me great satisfaction seeing
young professionals take on important roles.
By nature, I am always challenging the status
quo and seeing how things can be improved
and done in a better way and I shall certainly
do this at board level.
MBR: What is your strategy for growth?
PM: iMovo has a solid base on which it has
to continue exploiting its accomplishments
and expand its client base both locally and
especially internationally. One of the board's
next main tasks is to define an international
strategy. Growth has to be properly managed
both from an organizational perspective
and from a human resources one. As they
say "Growth can make or break you", and
at iMovo we are determined to manage our
growth to expand the company and ensure
that it keeps increasing its profitability year
after year. Staff are vital for the success of any
organisation and this growth must be coupled
with continual training and development of
our staff both in hard and soft skills.
Ensuring that your present customer
requirements are satisfied is another
important facet of growth as a satisfied
customer could lead to providing solutions
to its suppliers or distributors or its overseas
offices etc.
MBR: What in your view are the key
ingredients of success for a new economy
business?
PM: The key ingredients of success for a new
economy business in my humble opinion are:
• Organisational leadership and culture.
Organisations must reconfigure their
structure to better deal with the much
demanding electronic environment and
business models. Certain structures that
worked yesterday will not work in the fast
changing digital economy where agility is
a prerequisite for success. Organisations
that are more able to change course
of action in the shortest possible time
will outperform those that spend most
of their times in boardrooms seeking
approvals.
"
Growth has to be
properly managed both
from an organizational
perspective and from a
human resources one
• Commitment. Commitment must
always start at board level and permeate
to all other levels of the organisation.
The digital economy requires processes
to be transformed to meet the needs
of the digital environment. Without the
proper commitment, organisations run
the risk of simply translating old business
models into the digital era. This is surely
a recipe for disaster.
• Customer expectations and
experience. Today's customers are
more empowered, demanding and
knowledgeable and can easily change
suppliers, complain and can make
any discontent go viral with the flash
of a second. Meeting expectations of
these digitally empowered customers
is the biggest challenge for modern day
marketers.
• Product Enhancements. The digital
world has brought opportunities
to extend and restructure industry
boundaries creating new industries
in the process. Related products
and services can be integrated into
sophisticated industry solutions. The
digital nature of the digital economy has
also disrupted conventional distribution
channels and intermediaries.
• Collaborative Innovations. Doing
everything alone has become a burden
and collaborative innovations become
key to success. Innovation enables
organisations to better respond to the
highly competitive global business
environment. Collaboration is crucial
for this innovation to take place and
this could be within the organisation,
outside with other partners, customers,
competitors, research institutions and
communities.
MBR: You place a major emphasis on service
standards. Would you discuss iMovo’s
focus on employee training and providing
personalized service?
PM: As mentioned previously no company
can be successful without the proper staff
who are professional, motivated and have
the right attitude. iMovo works at the leading
edge of technology and it is vital that its
staff keep abreast with developments in
technology. iMovo invests in training of staff
and this training is not only on technology or
what we call the hard skills but also in soft skill
training such as customer service, team work,
right attitude, and other behavioral aspects.
Each customer at iMovo is a special customer
with his/her own needs and requirements
and iMovo provides this personalised service
during the sales phase, during the project
and implementation phase and then in the
maintenance phase.
MBR: As you look to the future, are there
key markets that you are focused on to grow
the iMovo brand?
PM: We are in the process of finalising an
international strategy and Italy could be one of
our next target markets. As regards sectors we
are particularly strong in transport, iGaming,
local Government and retail in UK so we need
to focus on these sectors in new territories.
Having said that we are always on the lookout
for any sector which has a strong customer
interaction as our "forte" is to provide a cloud
easy to-use platform that simplifies the tough
demanding work of customer service. MBR
All rights reserved - Copyright 2017
EDITOR’S
Note
"
Prior to his appointment at
iMovo, Mr. Micallef was
most recently the Chief
Executive Officer of Air
Malta. He has also held the
position of CEO of other
major organisations such
as Malta Enterprise and
Melita Plc. He previously
was the Chairman of the Malta Communications
Authority and Chief Executive Officer of the
Regulatory Authority in Bermuda. He has also
held strategic roles with organisations like
Management Systems Unit, Olivetti in Italy,
Switzerland and Spain as well as France Telecom
Equant.
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