Digital Power, a fast-growing data organisation

At the time of acquisition, I saw Digital Power as an organisation that could grow further with the right attention. I wanted to do this not only by hiring good colleagues, but above all by keeping the current team interested and committed within the organisation for as long as possible. As you grow, you can take on nicer and bigger projects. That way, you are constantly offering new challenges to your people and keeping them engaged.

Doing business with attention 

Paying attention to each other and listening to each other's ideas are hugely important at Digital Power. To me, 'attention' means communicating openly and transparently about your plans and ideas with all the people who are part of your organisation. In my view, this ensures a high level of commitment. Everyone is constantly pursuing the same goal.

In 2016 we introduced a monthly update where the staff informs the entire team about new developments and future plans. Figures such as turnover, margins, declarability and sickness rate are also shared monthly with the whole team. By communicating openly about this, you as an entrepreneur strengthen the feeling of wanting to do it together, as a team.

Building the organisation together 

As an entrepreneur, I realise that I cannot do it alone. That I am building with the team and that everyone contributes to it. Therefore, to facilitate the growth of our team, we have been professionalising our Sales, Operations, Business Support (HR/Back Office), Finance, Academy, Marketing and Recruitment in recent years.

You have to make sure you have the right people around you who can and do actually take their own responsibility. From this foundation, you are able to grow fast in a sustainable way. My colleagues are the experts in the field. They are therefore best placed to indicate what ingredients we need to grow qualitatively.

By listening carefully to the team and giving people room to come up with their own initiatives, we also continuously optimise existing processes. Think of the recruitment process, the onboarding of new colleagues and our internal training programme, but also of our own working method based on our Building Blocks model and concrete products such as the data pressure cooker and the cookie scanner. In addition, new and important initiatives such as internal meet-ups, peer groups and a buddy system regularly emerge. Knowledge sharing and development of our colleagues and organisation are at the core of this.

In order to offer colleagues room to become even more part of the company, we have set up a participation model. Colleagues can become co-owners of Digital Power. As of now, about 20% of our team is part of this. I think it's really great that colleagues commit in this way!

Culture eats strategy for breakfast 

Involving the entire team in the organisation created a culture that we cherish to this day. It greatly influences the decisions we take within, and about, the organisation.

In 2020, we worked with the entire team to define this unique culture. To this day, we use this to make our decisions as an organisation. Together, we created a working environment in which everyone can come up with ideas and initiatives, but also give (un)solicited feedback.

You can learn a lot when you work for us: both from the challenges you face with your clients and from your colleagues. In application processes, we therefore mainly look at whether someone would fit within our organisational culture. You can then learn the necessary skills with us.

From THE data partner of the Netherlands, to Your data partner 

At the start, Digital Power's mission was 'To become the data partner of the Netherlands'. We wanted to be able to help any organisation between SME and corporate get more value from their data.

An acquisition also gave us international clients. This accelerated our ideas for further growth beyond national borders. Our mission was no longer sufficient. We therefore changed it to 'Your data partner'. With this, we appeal to a broader target group, in the personal way we find so important. This is because we are not just another supplier, but a data partner who stands beside you as a customer and takes you into our world.

We also want to make our data knowledge and expertise accessible to everyone. This means that we want to contribute to a data-wise society. We have already done this by working for various social organisations. In 2021 we established a foundation, the Digital Power Datahub. This forms a connection point between the social sector, the commercial sector and the data domain around the theme of data. This way we can really fulfil our promise as a data partner for everyone.

Challenges will always be there 

Entrepreneurship is a continuous challenge; of course, not everything goes well for us. We still see all kinds of opportunities to do things even better. In recent years, for instance, we improved our automation, our remuneration system and the guidance of employees in their development. There also came a time when our structure no longer suited the size of the organisation. We will continue to face these kinds of challenges in the future, especially as we keep raising the bar for ourselves. This is also healthy for continuous improvement and optimisation.

On to 200 colleagues 

Our ambition is to grow to 200 colleagues in a sustainable way, while retaining our current colleagues. We have shaped that goal based on market needs and with an eye on preserving our culture.

To facilitate this properly for our employees with the right attention, we appointed our first management team (MT) in the summer of 2021. A great process in which we involved the entire organisation as much as possible. This team facilitates our colleagues to ultimately realise our ambition together.

2021 had even more highlights:

Data strategy partner 

In the first few years, our focus was on operational themes that were relevant to our clients. After all, the basics first have to be in order before you can really start working with your data. This sometimes meant holding up a mirror to customers who already wanted to get started with Data Science. First their data had to be in order! Not only do we meet the client's demand, but we also investigate whether it is the right question being asked. That is why I now dare to say that we are one of the best data consultancy firms."

In order to achieve our growth ambition of 200 colleagues, we have to go one step further together. We want to help our clients not only on an operational level, but also on a strategic level. We have already grown into this role with a number of clients, so it makes a lot of sense to us. As Your Data Partner, we help you step by step from data strategy to operation. In the coming years, we will further facilitate the position of data strategy partner and thereby further facilitate our growth.

Proud 

I am extremely proud of our team. Without them, I could never have done and achieved this. I was able to learn a lot, make mistakes, celebrate successes… a great ride so far! I am therefore looking forward to the coming period to realise our ambitions.

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