A People-Centric IT Company

FEELING PEOPLE

SENTIR AS PESSOAS

A PEOPLE-CENTRIC IT COMPANY FEELING PEOPLE

PEOPLE-CENTRIC IT COMPANY SENTIR AS PESSOAS

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Leonardo da Vinci

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“ THE FIVE SENSES ARE MINISTERS OF THE SOUL

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We don’t pretend to be geniuses, but there’s a little of the inventor, scientist, mathematician, engineer, painter, sculptor, architect, poet, musician and botanist in us. We also use the five senses to sate the curiosity with which we relate to the world. Only then can we satisfy our thirst for knowledge and go beyond the limits of the imagination. We see, hear, smell, taste and touch the world and the people around us in the certainty that only thus can we create solutions which are more human, more complete and happier. These are the stories of Novabase, our stories, and the sensation they provide is one of happiness.

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contents

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SEEING THE FUTURE 22

SNIFFING TO INNOVATE 32

LEARNING TO LISTEN 42

RECIPE FOR HAPPINESS 52

TOUCH OF MAGIC

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by

Luís Paulo Salvado Chairman of the Board of Directors

FEELING PEOPLE

A PEOPLE-CENTRIC IT COMPANY

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A PEOPLE-CENTRIC IT COMPANY That’s our goal. To facilitate the lives of our customers and employees, making them simpler and happier. And the big challenge is to do this in an engaging and passionate way.

People are the beginning and end of everything, the “measure” of it all. To be “people-centric” we have to start by having a real passion for people. But that’s not all. It’s also essential for us to want to change their lives, to make the difference and be the difference in their daily lives.

This attitude starts at home, because our employees are truly change makers. With bags of energy, they focus their finely tuned minds and curiosity on discovering what needs to be done in each situation. They are people who are mobilized and galvanized by causes which impact the lives of our clients and on their clients too. People who are stimulated by work which is full of challenges and helps them to grow. And who also seek their own purpose in everything they do.

So that’s why we say that our talent is our business. And vice-versa.

The success of the digital economy is not about technology in itself, but the capacity to “engage” new solutions when they create a new reality for us and allow us to experience what we previously considered inaccessible and unthinkable – indelibly changing the way we live our lives, the way we work, communicate and entertain ourselves.

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And what makes the difference, what brings value, is not the virtual world but the ability to “touch” a person fully in every aspect of their physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual existence.

And so we come to the senses. This is terra incognita, but it is both challenging and stimulating at the same time. But there is nothing new about this for us. After all, the path that has brought us to this point was also a rocky and uncertain one. And to navigate it successfully, we are proud to have made use of pioneering approaches and tools, such as design thinking and gamification.

The senses don’t exhaust our perspective of the world, they make it much more interesting. They put us in contact with an endless number of rich and original experiences which, when properly combined, add incalculable value to the final result.

With this brochure, we present some of our projects based on the five senses. We want to show the invisible. In reality, when you immerse yourself in each of these stories, we want you to read yourself and to discover something new.

Feel and follow your senses!

by

Luís Paulo Salvado Chairman of the Board of Directors

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Seeing the future

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sight

• noun / 1. the faculty or power of seeing. 2. the action or fact of seeing someone or something. 3. the area or distance within which someone or someone can see or something can be seen. 4. a thing that one sees or can be seen.

SIGHT

PEDRO FARIA Product Manager Celfocus

Pedro Faria, a product manager at Celfocus, is the father of two children aged 3 and 4. There are a lot of changes going on in his life right now and maybe because of this looking at the horizon gives him particular pleasure.

He puts on his glasses and leans forward in the certainty of being able to glimpse the future, far off in the distance.

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SIGHT

A strategic gaze

The British philosopher John Locke said that “our knowledge reaches very little further than our experience”.

He argued that the mind was a blank slate which is filled up with our experiences in life, creating our knowledge and personality. It was precisely because of several years’ experience helping telecommunications operators solve their daily challenges and supporting their business and IT strategies that the Celfocus project team saw an opportunity that was as innovative as it was strategic: providing customers with a consistent experience regardless of the type of channel they use.

The result was CELFOCUS Omnichannel, a solution which provides customers with a unified experience thanks to the integration of all operator contact channels. Pedro Faria, Celfocus product manager, can’t conceal his visionary enthusiasm: “The scenario that existed before Omnichannel was one of separate ‘islands’, with a portal, an app and a shop but without any correlation between them. In other words, when I, as a customer, interacted with my operator at a certain

SIGHT

touch point – the online shop, for example, to make a purchase – there was no record of this in the physical shop. The process had to be started all over again. The experience was disconnected with no flow between the two channels.”

Today, customers have huge expectations with regard to everything digital. The need for the experience to be consistent across different channels is truly strategic.

“CELFOCUS Omnichannel came about after identifying a problem faced by operators that wasn’t being solved by existing solutions,” explains Pedro, who seems to be able to foresee the future through the lenses of his glasses. “There was no solution on the market which addressed the problem in that way. There were several solutions which were quite good in terms of sales and e-commerce, but which didn’t offer much in terms of customer service and support, or solutions which focused on the digital experience but which neglected everything that had to do with the operator’s internal vision.”

To this strategic gaze was added a tactical vision of what Celfocus had already done in different projects.

“We could see that operators faced similar challenges whose solutions could be made systematic.” And since we had a lot of experience – both in terms of business knowledge and technology – we bundled everything into a value proposition that made sense jointly. The result?

“A product which reinvents the relationship between the operator and the customer by offering a continuous and consistent experience regardless of the channel used.”

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SIGHT

The horizon is not the limit Fact number one: Vodafone Portugal acted as the laboratory for CELFOCUS Omnichannel.

Fact number two: Vodafone Ireland, where this solution is undergoing deployment, would make an excellent case study to show its flexibility and adaptability, “Because it is the first client to receive the complete product, within a more wide-ranging project of digital transformation covering all the channels, while they are changing all of the business’ supporting technology.”

But Pedro Faria makes a point of stating that “The problem CELFOCUS Omnichannel solves is not specifically related to telecommunications.” For a company with innovation in its DNA, the horizon is the limit. And both Pedro and his team can already see more comprehensive applications for the product. “Telecoms are at the forefront of these issues of seamless customer experience and delight because they operate in a highly technological market and the issue is primarily a strategic one.”

Anticipating trends, Novabase is already applying this concept to the company’s other business areas in recognition of the value of the solution developed by Celfocus which demonstrates its relevance and value for a new industry, solving new challenges but always focused on improving the relationship with the end customer.

“One of this solution’s main differentiating factors is the business knowledge with which it is imbued. What the Novabase group can do is pick it up and apply it to other sectors. When, for example, we use the same solution in the banking sector, we provide this framework and then develop the business processes that are relevant to the sector,” explains Nuno Periquito, head of marketing at Celfocus. And because it is highly flexible, the solution is prepared to handle the need for customization.

Essentially, it offers the best of two worlds: technological excellence, with a solution that is proven to add value, complemented by major business knowledge.

“It works like an accelerator, allowing the solution to be rapidly deployed and providing the client with the wealth of others,” he concludes.

Developed to ensure a consistent, continuous and integrated experience, Omnichannel’s motto is “reinventing relationships with the client”.

SIGHT

Reinventing relationships In what way? “By breaking down information barriers and blinkered thinking throughout the organization. By ensuring that the customer interacts with the organization autonomously through the channels they prefer at the times they consider most opportune and that, whoever is face to face with the client, has all the information (and background) at their fingertips to provide good service.

It is almost like promoting widespread knowledge,” says Nuno Periquito.

Another key issue: it represents a radical paradigm shift from the past.

“Traditionally, the approach was to change the technology in the hope it would be reflected in an improved experience. Today, the market is much more focused on the user experience facilitating access and creating greater emotional engagement with the company. Our solution allows a very different kind of streamlining.

We can be more predictable and make smaller but more valuable changes,” says Pedro Faria, who doesn’t hesitate call CELFOCUS Omnichannel a solution which fully complies with Novabase’s aim: “Simpler and Happier”.

“Even when, as in our case, it took many years to develop,

analyse and deploy solutions to make this technology simple without compromising the level of functionality available and the sophistication of the experience. We invested all our knowledge and commitment to develop a successful solution, one that makes us happy!” And one that applies to both the client and Celfocus.

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SIGHT

challenge

DRAWING WITH OTHER EYES This game can be played in pairs or in competing teams of two.

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One member of the team holds a drawing, and must help his/her partner draw a copy matching the original as closely as possible.

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The other team member is blindfolded, and must draw a picture by “trusting� entirely in the instructions of his/her partner. The players may talk between themselves.

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At the end, the picture is compared with the original or, in the case of a competition, points are awarded for the most accurate drawing.

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Sniffing to innovate

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smell

• noun / 1. the faculty of perceiving odours by means of the organs of the nose. 2. a quality in something that is perceived by this faculty; an odour.

SMELL

JOÃO MAIA

Product Manager Financial Services

The strong aroma of coffee is something João Maia is used to. The product manager from Novabase’s Financial Services business is preparing himself for another marathon session in front of the computer. He’s happy to be called a tech junkie because ever since he was a small boy he has lived and breathed technology 24 hours a day. “It’s like an addiction,” he says, smiling, while he savours his freshly brewed coffee.

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SMELL

The smell of success For most animal species, the sense of smell is a question of life or death. For human beings, a simple inhalation is enough to cause various sensations: hunger, passion, old memories and even a desire to go further…

This is what happened to Jorge Rodrigues, one of the heads of Novabase’s Financial Services business, and to his team. A short while after starting to develop the technology features associated with Wizzio, the multichannel platform for the banking sector, they felt they had a solution on their hands with huge potential.

One of the most recent challenges came from Banco CTT: “They asked us to work on the process of opening a digital account that would be quicker, safer and simpler,”, recalls João Maia, a product manager.

Originally paper based, the traditional process means high operating and administrative costs for banks and a long wait for customers. “We had already had experience with opening digital accounts and were very familiar with the regulations imposed by Banco de Portugal in

these processes,” so it was “a question of optimizing the process,” Jorge Rodrigues adds, always one step ahead.

“The idea was to create an entirely paper-free process.”

Customer data is collected via the automatic reader on a PC or tablet, eliminating the need to fill out hardcopy forms. Electronic signatures lower the amount of time needed to fill out a form, and increase the quantity and quality of the information collected. The result is clear: an account at Banco CTT can be opened in just in 20 minutes! “Actually, it’s only for guidance because the average length of time is 15 minutes compared to the roughly 50 minutes needed to open a normal account,” explains João with the natural pride of someone who lives and breathes technology 24 hours a day. Using this method, you can open an account remotely, anywhere, although in the case of Banco CTT it’s done in person with a manager. “All because the bank, which is new to the market, wanted to create a relationship with its customers.”

SMELL

JORGE RODRIGUES Executive Financial Services

When he’s not heading up yet another project, Jorge Rodrigues likes taking photographs and riding the motorbikes he builds himself. These are hobbies which bring him into contact with nature, allowing him to sense the world in a different way.

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SMELL

Future experience It may not seem overly ambitious for a tool with such huge potential, but “opening an account is the first moment of contact with a bank and defines its experience with the customer in the future. If the latter’s initial impressions are excellent, they will want to strengthen their relationship with the bank. It’s like a calling card”, says Jorge Rodrigues. “The fact that we can create a paperless process for the client means that we can then apply the same formula in various places, and the customer can consult his/her data via any channel. We want to create a product which is a customer experience platform.”

if it is concluded and the signing of the deed can be scheduled.” As simple as that.

João Maia gives a few examples of the tool’s capabilities: “If I were thinking about taking out a mortgage, I could do a cost simulation online and ensure that, when I got to the branch, the person who helped me knew I had done it and what my requirements were.” The aim is for the entire process to be integrated. “If a document is missing, I could be notified, via the app or home banking, send a scanned copy with the document automatically attached. At any given moment I could check the status of my mortage request – whether it is being validated, whether a document is missing, or

With an insatiable curiosity for all kinds of technology and innovation, João sees the future arriving: “The information banks have about us is kept hidden away in silo and in practical terms never empowers your experience as a customer. Today, our experience with banks is passive, but that can change.” Jorge Rodrigues corroborates the idea: “Banks could play a more proactive role in the choices we make, this is going to be very important for their future.”

Used to travelling at high speeds on his motorbike, Jorge ups the ante: “Afterwards, from the bank’s point of view, this integrated approach can be used to sell additional products, both those of the bank and its partners, be they insurance, furniture, electricity… With this tool, the customer’s experience can be better managed to increase brand loyalty. Essentially, that is our goal: to generate greater revenue for the client and provide a better experience for the client’s clients.”

With Wizzio, “what we brought was the whole process of the business in itself and all the knowledge of banking

SMELL

and regulation, joining them together in a more agile and simple method. When you think about systems which are very business and customer oriented, you always find ways to improve (and simplify) the path.”

For Jorge Rodrigues, this is a significant part of the value associated with this solution since instead of computerizing what already existed they designed a better, simpler, process which truly serves the customer and also supports the bank’s employees. “It organizes their work and provides overall integrated control. The bank becomes much more efficient.”

João was recently provided with evidence of the satisfaction “his” solution has generated: “I visited a Banco CTT branch to open a personal account (without identifying myself as the person responsible for Omnichannel). The account manager said: ‘Wait a moment while I get the tablet to open the account, since it’s much easier.’ That made me really happy. In ten minutes it was done!” Ultimately, that’s the goal.

“There’s no efficiency if the employee’s experience isn’t as pleasant as our own, and their life isn’t simplified.”

But what’s the secret?

“We know our customers’ business inside out,” replies Jorge almost immediately. This competitive advantage is the result of lots of experimentation and experience as well as Novabase’s clear vision of wanting to make people’s lives simpler and happier. “We always work with the customer, using facilitation maps which make the process of analysing the business quicker, ensuring a far superior experience in which everyone is aligned.”

Nobody has any doubt about the benefits of design thinking as a tool for innovation.

“We don’t wait for reports which nobody reads. With these methods, everyone can get an overall view of the business and be inside the process in a more interactive way than in the past,” stresses João Maia.

It’s a way of working that also allows information to be re-used and projects to be completed more quickly.

“The idea is to have a set of predefined processes which work like an accelerator and make us more efficient.

Looking further ahead, as Jorge Rodrigues states: “There’s a war going on for the customer’s attention and this platform lets our clients join in the fight.”

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SMELL

challenge GAME OF AROMAS

Each person brings a jar from home containing an unidentified smell. It should preferably be a pleasant smell, since it will be “opened� in the office by their colleagues who will then try to guess what the smell is. An essential oil is a good choice, as well as spices, your favourite shampoo, etc.

The jar should have dark glass so that the contents are not identifiable. For the same reason, the smell should not be too obvious, such as coffee, for example.

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SMELL

Tip

Have you ever noticed how a dog smells?

It doesn’t inhale a lot of air like we do. It sniffs smoothly and in sequence. Dogs have a far more highly developed sense of smell than we do. Next time, try imitating man’s best friend, rotating your head to prioritize each of your nostrils.

You’ll notice a lot more smells and their small nuances.

aromatherapy

Many doctors recommend daily “smelling” exercises. Choose a few aromas you feel comfortable with and practise every day for a few minutes. This will awaken your olfactory receptors and improve your sense of smell in the future. After a few weeks, your nose will be able to sense these smells much more easily.

When this happens, change the aromas.

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Learning to listen

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hearing

• noun

/ 1. the faculty of perceiving sounds. 2. the range within which sounds may be heard; earshot. 3. an opportunity to state one’s case.

HEARING

MIGUEL LEOCÁDIO

Executive Government, Transport & Energy

Music is part of the creative energy of Miguel Leocádio, an executive at Novabase’s Government, Transport & Energy business. A drummer in his free time, he has a passion for music and believes his artistic side gives him a professional advantage, motivating him to let his creativity flow and to “think outside the box”.

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HEARING

Listening for a good cause The German writer and poet Johann Goethe said that “talking is a necessity, listening is an art”. An art which Novabase doesn’t neglect and which

it believes is key to the success of its mission. “More than systems, we design happiness.” A good example? PRIA, the new information management system for the Santa Casa da Misericórdia de Lisboa’s areas of Social Welfare and Health, primarily focused on the need to listen and serve this organization’s roughly 65,000 users as part of its social role in the greater Lisbon area. For Miguel Leocádio, one of the heads of Novabase’s Government,

Transport & Energy business, “this was one of the most emblematic projects of recent years for the challenge, size, complexity and impact it had on the client.”

“Over the years, Santa Casa has built up various information systems to suit the needs of each of its support areas, namely social welfare, health and education. But it got to the point where it had too many supporting systems for its activities,” explains Leocádio.

PRIA is the response to a need felt for a long time within the organization to integrate all of its information into a single platform to cut red tape and make its operations more agile and efficient.

“More time for people. More time to achieve better outcomes.”

“Today, we are very focused on digital transformation processes and this is a perfect example. Using technology, we managed to make a change to the business. In this case, with a major impact at various levels,” says Miguel Leocádio. Interlinking the various areas of Santa Casa was complex, due to the range of services it provides, from establishments such as care homes and nurseries to health centres, professional colleges, adoption programmes, various types of financial support and income support supplement (RSI), and technical support and telephone assistance, to

HEARING

name only a few. The data recorded was not being fully shared or listened to based on technology, with many time-consuming manual processes which complicated analysis.

“This was the so-called silo vision of sub-activities without full data sharing. By introducing a single platform to be used by all employees, we significantly improved the business and optimized its service provision, with a direct impact on the people who benefit from this social support.”

The roughly 1,500 employees who already use this tool every day have quicker and more efficient access to information on users which frees them up to dedicate more time to what is truly important: on-the-ground support.

There are several benefits to this technology solution.

“The optimization of processes is not limited to operations; it also has an analytical component, since by supplying aggregated information, the platform also provides decision-makers with an overall view of the business therefore greatly improving of strategic planning.”

Another differentiating factor is the ease of use.

“It is very easy to access the information, without ‘long detours’, and it is very quick. In a single click, users have access to their tasks, alerts, schedules and frequent functions. The app’s menus adapt with each action, and the information is very visual for faster interpretation, including for example a timeline to see event chronologically and a web-type graph with the user’s family and social network and its correlations.

We want to make users’ lives easier so they have more time to help those in need, who are ultimately the final beneficiaries of this project. Our goal is two-fold: to make life simpler and happier for our client and to make life simpler and happier for our client’s clients.”

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Making the complex simple “When you talk about 1,500 users of an operating system that’s used every day, you’re talking about a very big system and very different people with different backgrounds, profiles and technological awareness… in other words, we have to do very careful preparatory work to understand who will use the app and design it with the target audience in mind.” Miguel knows what he’s talking about. One of Novabase’s differentiating factors is precisely the way in which it looks at a project, bringing approaches and methodologies from the area of design and creativity to these processes of digital transformation. And that is how this project was approached.

reducing risks. “We spent a lot of time listening to the client in order to identify its real needs, which are often not verbalized and must be observed,” adds Miguel, a strong advocate of the concept of creative energy.

“At the start of the project, when we began to analyse and design the new platform, we made use of several practices common to design, conducting various co-building workshops and using facilitation maps and other tools, to actively involve the client’s decisionmakers and the real users of the app as well,” thus

This executive has no doubt that it’s always worth listening to what others have to say:

“Given the complexity of the problems we face, our profession can be considered very intense and even one of rapid burnout. We live in a world of constant challenges; we are in many situations solving problems and searching for better solutions, so I really believe in the importance of biodiversity. Experience has taught us that this is the solution to practically everything, including the creation of better projects.”

“The right idea can come from where you least expect it.” A philosophy that extends to the whole of Novabase, which encourages its employees to bring their private lives into the company, recognizing that

HEARING

only fully rounded people who live their hobbies and passions are able to build more human and complete solutions.

“For example, I don’t need silence to think.

Music is part of my creative energy; it provides me with the right atmosphere in which to create.”

By involving, listening and testing, “we can get to the final stage without any major upsets, fine-tuning a product which provides the best solution for this diverse world of users,” concludes Miguel Leocádio.

“Santa Casa liked our approach a lot and even said that it would start to experiment with the same approach for its own internal projects as a means of uniting different people with different languages and profiles, which is often a major obstacle when developing new projects and innovating.”

Because the idea is that information systems should facilitate the business, that they should be accelerators which open opportunities, “projects are increasingly a close-knit exercise between those designing them and those who will use them. Real people, behaviours, expectations and, above all, inclusiveness are an increasingly more fertile breeding ground for Novabase’s projects.”

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challenge ACTIVE LISTENING

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Invite your work group to a team meeting. Prepare a speech which is long and boring, but relevant to the project you’re working on, only enlivened by a few phrases containing instructions or contradictory information.

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Read it in a monotonous and uninspiring tone. See how many times people in the audience yawn.

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At the end, ask each member of the team to draw a priorities map. Discuss who heard what and see who was able to listen proactively.

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OUR SPEECH HER E AR E Y P R EP

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Recipe for happiness

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taste

• noun

/ 1. the sensation of flavour perceived in the mouth on contact with a substance. 2. a brief experience of something. 3. a person’s liking for something.

4. the ability to discern what is of good quality or of a high aesthetic standard.

TASTE

PAULO P. SILVA Project Manager

When he enters a kitchen, Paulo P. Silva feels right at home. He loves cooking, so when he was offered the challenge of creating a recipe to bring all of Novabase’s employees together around the table, this young project manager threw on his apron and started assembling the best ingredients.

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Space banquet At Novabase, the taste of victory is not based on results alone. Attention on the personal growth of all those who work at the company is the main focus when the goal is to ensure everyone’s happiness.

“The world wasn’t big enough for us... so we returned to the stars. They were always there, waiting for us. New worlds with new possibilities ready to be discovered.

But the NOVA fleet needed a new race of explorers. We needed people like you.”

The presentation of NOVA, an ambitious internal project within Novabase related to the feedback given by and to the staff, takes the form of an invitation to enter a game in outer space. “The most important thing here is personal development. You will learn to release all of your potential and become the best version of yourself.

Prepare to face unlimited challenges and overcome impossible situations,” states the material provocatively.

“The initial challenge involved the issue of retaining talent,” explains Paulo P. Silva, an employee who, after participating as a pilot in the first development stage, got a taste for it and began to accompany NOVA as a project manager.

“The idea was to try to detach the assessment process from the feedback process, which should be more regular throughout the year.” Doing justice to one of Novabase’s mottos, “A People Centric IT Company”, several meetings were scheduled to learn what people thought and recognized as the greatest problems and challenges, and what they valued the most, from recognition to career advancement.

To achieve a successful new recipe, innovation is the watchword.

“In the past, the assessment was only done by the project manager. With NOVA, we changed to a 360-degree

TASTE

feedback model conducted regularly every three months,” stresses Paulo. “From now on, there is a set of skills for which associated behaviours and actions have been defined (on a scale of 1 to 10), according to the level of experience a person has, to ensure the greatest cultural alignment.”

Even the way Novabase arrived at these behaviours and actions was disruptive. “Design thinking methodologies were used, holding workshops with people at various career stages and with different profiles.

We listened to people to design the process in itself, and the pilot project underwent changes according to the feedback.” Methodologies which reveal the desire to get to the bottom of issues, savouring the teachings that come with each person’s experiences, and the ability to listen, and then evolving concepts. In the end, Paulo, also a cook in his spare time, and the rest of the team hope to cook up a solution that everyone finds agreeable.

Technology was the last of the ingredients, adding advantages in terms of the process and time.

The people who managed it were still using too many manual processes. Now they use a platform where they can easily give and receive feedback, both planned and spontaneous.”

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Did I win an Easter egg?

Using gamification tools, the space environment given to the platform is a way to engage with people and generate more interest in a very important tool for Novabase.

“Managing various stakeholders was one of the major challenges,” notes Paulo P. Silva. “NOVA involves almost all of the areas of the group, and we have to interact with everyone and get them on board to converge on a final result.”

“No man is an island.” The phrase, made eternal

by the English poet John Donne, is part of the rules of the game and aims to stress the importance of each pilot working together with the others to overcome daily challenges. “The idea is that each person pilots a spaceship which has a set of routes, which are the various projects it passes through, and checkups (which are assessments every three months).

The terms of the application themselves are associated with this space environment.” For example, each pilot belongs to a squadron (a unit within Novabase), which in turn belongs to a fleet (a business area comprised of units). “Career wise, we believe that this game environment provides an impetus for people to visit the platform to understand what the organization expects from them on a day-to-day basis, raising their involvement and productivity.”

Amongst its various functions, NOVA allows detailed observation of everyone’s performance. There are game masters who define the rules of the game and monitor how the participants’ performance evolves using gamification tools to encourage the desired behaviours and best practices at the individual and team level. There’s a leaderboard which provides the pilot with data on his/her performance during the journey (over the course of the year) via a ranking system based

TASTE

on points won. A person’s position in absolute terms and in relation to the average for the other pilots can be observed for each skill and for all skills taken as a whole.

But that’s not all. Paying attention to details may entitle participants to an award to sweeten their appetite for the game. These rewards are called Easter eggs and “serve to use up points or just to amuse people and enhance the use of the app,” concludes Paulo, who also adds, amusingly that “There’s even a Ground Control, with a ray, for all fans of David Bowie!”

It is a big break from the old assessment process and people will inevitably make comparisons, “but if we boost dialogue and give people a more transparent idea of which behaviours and aims are expected by the company, our employees will be happier about what they’re doing.

We just want to value our employees and equip them with the skills to produce better projects for our clients.” The taste of victory will always be sweet here because, ultimately, everyone’s a winner.

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challenge

FLAVOURS THAT AWAKEN EMOTIONS

1.

Think about your favourite dish or food and then focus on how it tastes.

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Try to describe it aloud in front of your fellow colleagues but don’t identify it directly by name. Besides its taste-related characteristics – is it sweet, bitter, savoury or sour? – also describe the emotions it gives you and/or the memories it evokes.

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Everyone present should try to guess the food described.

At the end, it may be interesting to gather the different descriptions together to compare them. End the challenge by inviting all those present to prepare a meal together.

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Tip LEAVE OUT SALT AND SUGAR Food with a lot of salt or sugar masks more subtle flavours and hinders your sense of taste.

Try to reduce the amount of salt and sugar you put in your food.

At first, you may feel that the food doesn’t have any taste, but after one or two weeks, you’ll begin to taste complex flavours which you were unaware of.

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Touch of magic

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touch

• noun

/ 1. the faculty of perception through physical contact.

2. an act of touching. 3. a distinctive manner or method of dealing with something.

TOUCH

NUNO PIMENTEL VP Sales Collab

Nuno Pimentel, VP Sales for Collab for Europe and Asia, regularly travels to distant lands, adding to his CV countless stories of how it is essential to have a sense of touch to be able to communicate and even get out of tricky situations. And it is perhaps because he has this highly developed sense that he identifies so closely with socially responsible projects.

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TOUCH

Touching to communicate Sometimes, showing empathy is the best way to innovate. The ability to sense someone else, to hold out a hand and put ourselves in their place, can really help to obtain better results.

A sense of togetherness is an innate human sense which, in this case, was crucial in creating OK! Gestual, a service developed with Collab technology for speakers of Portuguese sign language for OK! teleseguros.

“The idea came up about two years ago as part of an internal process at Fidelidade group for creating new ideas. In response to the company’s social responsibility policy, we were challenged to create a customer service proposal for the deaf and dumb,” recalls Nuno Pimentel, VP Sales for Collab for Europe and Asia. The shine in his eyes can’t hide the care with which the project was undertaken. “I identify a lot with projects in this area”.

In Portugal, there are around 70,000 deaf drivers. And it is precisely because of the market is minor in terms of turnover that Nuno doesn’t hesitate to say that “what we have is a very sincere concern for the client”.

A concern and a desire to make a difference, since nothing similar exists in the market. It was therefore necessary to join forces to create a service which goes beyond communication barriers and puts Collab technology at the service of people, contributing to social inclusion.

“We already had the video and chat channels on the platform and the experience of deploying them in the telecommunications area, which provides a similar service, so it wasn’t difficult in technical terms,” he reveals. “What we did was to leverage and adapt the idea to the situation. We had the technology, the knowhow and the experience from other projects. The Collab platform is multichannel, so the technology was there.

It just had to be made to fit.”

Of course some adjustments needed to be made and needs examined, altering the app to provide a stronger link with the client in terms of communication, “since voice wasn’t important.”

TOUCH

Different processes had to be created for requesting assistance and obtaining information, bearing two key factors in mind: client limitations and the time factor.

Being able to help deaf clients quickly was an important goal, “because the Fidelidade group’s trademark is the provision of assistance in the shortest time possible.

And they wanted to provide the same level of service for this product.”

Besides adapting the processes, the other difficult part was creating specific vocabulary in Portuguese sign language (which didn’t exist) and training and preparing the contact centre staff. Within the services area, not every word is translated into sign language.

“So, the support of the Portuguese Federation of Deaf Associations (FPAS) was essential, not only to create these new signs but also to better understand the biggest communication barriers and what would be needed to overcome the difficulties.”

As it is a phased project, we needed a hands-on approach to find out what aspects were most urgent for the service’s first version. “We wanted an idea of the basic core needs, because the idea is to keep growing

and adapting the project into other products,” he reveals. For now, the insurance company’s new service is available by video call and chat from 9 am to 7 pm or 24 hours a day via the Ok! teleseguros app. “It’s been very successful and well received by the community,” Nuno Pimentel assures us, without hiding the fact that it’s still in the fine-tuning stage, “to improve flows and answering times”. In fact, he adds, “the systems are actually very simple because the focus was not on the system but on usability and service provision” to customers with very specific needs.

“I travel a lot to countries with very different languages that I don’t speak. Oftentimes, the only way to communicate is with your hands and body. So, I understand that all the mechanisms which exist to make us understand more easily are essential. If you can’t hear, you are forced to use your other senses.”

You have to see, hear, smell and feel more. And also touch – extending a hand to whomever needs it. He therefore states with certainty: “The idea behind this project was really happiness. That’s where technology can make the difference.”

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TOUCH

challenge

1.

They say that touch is the most complete of the senses. Although the skin looks delicate, it can differentiate between complex sensations such as contact, pressure, cold, heat and pain. It works like an extraordinary scanner of the outside world.

If you’re right-handed, use your left hand for your daily activities (or vice-versa), such as brushing your teeth and eating. At first, it will feel strange and difficult to “sense the world backwards”, but practising can teach the brain to learn new tricks to gain better control of your other side!

PRECIOUS CONTACT

LEARN TO USE YOUR OTHER HAND

TOUCH

2.

3.

4.

Gather together objects of different shapes and textures, put them in paper bags and number them. Pass them around the room so that everyone can feel them.

Try to draw with your finger on another person’s back or hand, inviting them to guess what you are drawing or writing.

How long would it take you to dress in the dark? Could you walk around the house blindfolded and with your ears covered?

WHAT’S IN THE BAG?

Share the guesses amongst the group and reveal the objects in the bags. Start looking more closely at the objects you touch.

OUR SKIN AS A CANVAS

DARK ROOM

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challenge 5 senses A memorable experience is one which stimulates each of the five senses to a high degree, but there are few experiences in which this happens simultaneously. Create a diary to classify the different experiences in your life according to the five senses. Using these graphs, you can compare reading a book to a trip to the cinema or running on the beach, and better understand the major multisensory experiences of your life. *Idea inspired by the Five Senses Theory developed by the South Korean designer Jinsop Lee

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MODEL GRAPH running on the beach trip to the cinema 10 9 8

intensitty

7 6 5 4 3 2 1 0 sight

smell

taste

hearing

touch

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