This article first appeared in Zawya.
There’s no doubt that Covid-19 is accelerating the digital transformation of many sectors and bringing the future of work forward, says Nadim Samara
“Humans, we have a problem”. This adaptation of astronaut Jim Lovell’s famous line from Apollo 13 is the best way to describe today’s global emergency. To take the analogy further, like the engineers on the ground who fixed the problem using only the items the astronauts had on board, we’re having to find ingenious ways to get out of a bad situation using the tools available to us.
Though dwarfed by the scale of the health emergency the world is experiencing right now, with modern day heroes putting their lives on the front line and beyond, businesses are also facing an emergency. Dealing with every level of erosion imaginable, and even unimaginable, many are in a life and death situation for reasons beyond their control.
There’s no doubt that Covid-19 is accelerating the digital transformation of many sectors and brought the future of work forward. As a business, the sooner we figure out how we are going to accommodate these new forces into our business mantra, the sooner we will transform, evolve and, ultimately, adapt.
So, what can we learn, for example, from the first few weeks of Working From Home (WFH)? The top line is that we’re more resilient than we think, and ingenuity is still our ally.
Focus: Some may have thought that we’re more focused in a workplace, that the home environment provides a lot distraction and breeds a lack of accountability. In fact, it’s the opposite that appears to be true. The heightened sense of duty and need to demonstrate performance at this moment in time is certainly a contributing factor, but an office environment certainly comes with its own interruptions and distractions. At home, people tend to become more self-sufficient and resourceful, which means we’re seeing tasks being completed faster and better.
Time management: Like with other aspects of our lives, the situation pushes us to prioritize what’s important. People are more respectful of their time and others’. Online meetings drift less than physical ones and are more efficient. Even our inboxes are becoming less cluttered with unnecessary emails. The absence of commute not only gives people more choice on what to do with this time, exercising for example, but also has a positive impact on the environment.
Agility: Old habits are being replaced by new work practices and expectations. A key one is being comfortable with uncertainty and volatility, to the point where our brains shift to navigating point to point and focus on solutions. Agility and flexibility are now required at all levels. Instead of regimented time and place settings, work can and will happen when and where people are at their best and collaboration will happen regardless. Teams no longer need to comprise individuals in the same place and therefore can involve remote professionals. This enhances a company’s reach and ability to attract and retain the best talent.
Collaboration: Flexible working policies demonstrate openness and trust, between the company and its staff, but also between employees. This improves the employee experience and shapes the organisational culture, a vital component of productivity and employee retention. With the distance, we see greater efforts in briefings and reporting. Because physical interactions are rising in value, WFH will clear out our schedules from unnecessary interruptions and increase productivity further.
Technology: The ability to rapidly adapt to this new reality from an IT perspective was a concern, both in terms of hardware and software. Be it with the availability of laptops, remote access to applications, stable video conferencing, and servers or desk-phone alternatives, all of this at regional scale, the move to WFH hasn’t proved as taxing on the IT infrastructure as initially thought. It definitely makes a version of what we’re experiencing now a viable option for the future.
Office environment: The fewer interruptions and lower noise level employees experience while working from home creates a better environment in which to focus and multi-task efficiently. It also increases job satisfaction. There are lessons in this for the future, in terms of office space management and utilization. This will ultimately lead to lower overheads.
Lower absenteeism and better balance: WFH entails a greater availability for life admin and loved ones, reducing stress and inner conflict. From lower stress comes better health, both physical and mental, and therefore lower absenteeism. The lockdown is a formidable obstacle to this, particularly for parents who home-school young children, but in normal circumstances, the logic could and would apply as people would find a way to adapt.
The future of work is being shaped in front of our eyes, quicker than we thought possible. To keep teams engaged and motivated in this context, leaders have to be brutally honest and share credible hope. Framing the reference of the current situation while painting a picture of what’s ahead, we can align our socially-distant teams and put them on the same path towards recovery and beyond.
This article was originally published by Arab Ad.
Nadim Samara has taken on the mantle of chief executive for OMD across the entire MENA region. He talks consistency of product and the importance of purpose with ArabAd.
The office may be the same but the role has changed significantly. Nadim Samara, once the khaki jacket toting chief executive of OMD UAE, has swapped the UAE for MENA, bringing a new level of accountability and pressure to his professional career. Not that you’d guess from talking to him, such is his affability and composure.
“If you have that four-letter acronym in your title you’re responsible for them,” he says. “I don’t want these four letters to be just a brand. I want to own them.”
Samara stepped up to the plate in early October, tasked with leading a network of 15 offices and managing more than 200 clients. His challenge? To drive the network’s transformation and to better respond to current and emerging client needs.
Much of the hard work on a UAE level has already been done. The agency’s service offering has been strengthened, a new breed of talent brought in, a new agile structure created, and expertise in tech, analytics and performance has been scaled up. The end result has been the creation of what Samara describes as a business performance company, not a traditional media agency. The job now is to roll that out regionally and to ensure consistency of service.
“The purpose of this appointment, or this role, isn’t a fix-it job. It’s a grow-it job,” says Samara, who is sitting comfortably in his Dubai Media City office. “That’s important for us to understand. There are no market weaknesses: there are market opportunities and there’s a network opportunity first and foremost.
“In terms of priority, it’s the consistency of the product, it’s the consistency of the leadership team, and at the same time (which is an oxymoron) it’s the specialisation of each market and the specialisation of each leadership team. I want to make sure that we have this intersection of consistency – to make sure that you get one version of OMD across 15 offices – and the bespoke mentality of each market. That character, that culture that comes out in a positive way.”
Samara is one of the industry’s more likeable characters. He talks of pain and suffering as only a true Star Wars geek would, referencing Yoda’s terminology for training like a Jedi, and views data as sexy. He uses words such as extrapolate and talks finance with the best of them (“When OMD is seen as the investment banker for brands, whether it’s on the short or long term, you need to think like an investment banker”).
“If you have that four-letter acronym in your title you’re responsible for them. I don’t want these four letters to be just a brand. I want to own them.”
He has been with OMD for 17 years, beginning his career as a media manager in 2002 and working his way up the corporate ladder via a five-year stint at OMD in the US. Since returning to the UAE in 2012 he has helped build OMD into an agency that currently sits second in RECMA’s agency rankings for the Middle East and North Africa. For the first half of 2018 it was rated number one in pitch performance by Comvergence and has submitted gross billings of just over $1 billion to RECMA for 2017, up from $931 million in 2016.
Challenges remain, however, not least the level and frequency of uncertainty in the market, while still being labelled a media agency is of concern.
“The more we are treated as an agency – we take something with the right hand, add our fees or subtract our commission, and then give it away with the left hand – then that’s something that I think is going to make us obsolete,” says Samara. “This intermediary role is something that’s vague, that doesn’t show value. The second you show you’re providing value through a unique proposition and you have a vested interest in performing for a brand, which will also have an affect on your own performance, then you start to have a viable and sustainable role.
“And I think that purpose is yet to be defined. It’s very important to talk about purpose, and when we sit in a pitch or a client meeting, I want our clients to know that our purpose is one and the same – which is to create work that works”
What does work?
“Personalisation at scale,” replies Samara. “The fact that personalisation at scale is a combination of creative and media is actually something that’s working for our clients, and OMD’s structure is designed for that. In fact, it is harder and harder to de-couple creative, technology, distribution, measurement, analytics and the many other disciplines within marketing.
“And something that I have driven for a handful of accounts but should be scaled out is ‘flawless execution’,” he adds. “It’s something that I would love to be able to claim with full confidence, but we’re not quite there yet. Every time the rubber hits the road it needs to be 100 per cent. But we’re human, there are some errors, and we’re in a very complicated infrastructure when it comes to digital. But we should get to a point where we have flawless execution.”
It’s very important to talk about purpose, and when we sit in a pitch or a client meeting, I want our clients to know that our purpose is one and the same – which is to create work that works.
Samara is not alone of course. He is supported by Wissam Najjar, who leads OMD’s offices outside North Africa, and Eric Bequin, who heads its luxury practice and the three offices in the Maghreb region. Samara himself reports to Elie Khouri, chief executive of Omnicom Media Group MENA.
“There’s a level of frustration that in 2018 AI is just an acronym,” he says, discussing the need for further transformation. “Machine learning – or ML – is just a term. That’s the transformation that we should go after. Not specifically these two terms, that’s just the tip of the iceberg, but there’s a lot in that belly of the iceberg that is low hanging fruit.
“For example, ad tech solutions are now foundational to every investment made on measurable media, augmented with new focal areas, such as what we are labelling as ‘CreTech’ (technology that further enables creative and content solutions) revolving around dynamic creative optimisation, rapid response management, on-ground/online real-time activation synergies, and so forth. Most of this is common practice. However, it is not systematically scaled to cater to the consumer demands each brand deserves. Now that our 15 offices are working in unison for 2019, it’s a key focal point to further add to our integrated structure.”
“The fact that we’re intersecting our business performance company mentality with our portfolio of integrated products, all under one roof and with one goal, is something that will help us grow,” he adds. “And I know that we’re structured in a way that we’re very resilient; we’re very agile, and we’re very integrated. And when you have these three things in you as part of you’re DNA, then you come out on top.”