In today’s age of digitization and rapidly advancing AI, it appears the world’s knowledge is readily available at everyone’s fingertips. And if we think of knowledge as information that has been codified, that is true. For example, the product description you publish online in the US tonight will be read by your competitors in Asia by daybreak tomorrow.
However, human insights are locked in the minds of experienced professionals worldwide and simply unavailable to browse on the web. And the world’s sharpest investors and operators – from private equity investors to hedge fund managers to Fortune 500 strategists – increasingly focus on these insights and perspectives to gain a competitive edge and drive innovation across industries.
It’s no surprise that demand for expert knowledge has become the fastest-growing segment within the global information services market, referred to as Expert Network Services. As a leading global provider of knowledge on-demand, AlphaSights is a leader in this industry, which has grown at double digits annually to achieve ±$2bn in revenue by 2023. The success of the AlphaSights business model is underpinned by its highly agile and client-centric Client Service Team, which offers a white-glove service to its client base.
Challenge: retaining speed and quality of service as market dynamics evolve
As market dynamics and client needs have evolved, AlphaSights’ Client Service Team has adapted their project delivery model to continue to support them. This has meant upskilling their project management skills: from pivoting project briefs, often at short notice and under strict external time constraints, to the reallocation of team resources and more frequent project updates to ensure client deliverables are clear.
Expert requirements have also expanded significantly across geographies, with the team sourcing niche experts from across the globe. In all cases, communication in real time has been essential to continue competing successfully for both the firm and its clients. While email has been used in conjunction with Slack in the past, it meant slower response times and an inability to collaborate in real time across multiple teams without overwhelming inboxes.
Retaining strong employee engagement and collaboration while scaling
Since the firm has grown to 1500+ employees across the world, the need to maintain high motivation levels, team camaraderie and a one-firm feel has only increased in importance.
Whether celebrating wins, sharing delivery best practices or continuing firm-level internal communication, building a working environment conducive to driving client success has been key.
Solution: Slack serves as main communication channel to support growing business needs
To address growing pains and changing market dynamics, AlphaSights has been integrating Slack into its project workflows and employee engagement programs since 2017.
“Across teams and offices, our clients need access to expert insights yesterday,” said Liz Freda, VP, Client Service at the company’s New York office. “Everything is urgent across the board. We are the best at what we do, but to remain in this position, we need to be agile and ensure we’re sourcing quality experts at speed while keeping our clients and colleagues updated on projects.”
With the help of Slack, people have been able to connect with colleagues all over the world and create project groups instantly. “Most teams have a channel for every client project with more than one person working on it,” explained Freda. “So, they use those for pretty much everything, such as organizing client briefs and people and updating project progress and priorities. We also speed up communication between teams by asking members to use emojis to respond to questions and actions.”
“The intensity of our work means that over communication sits at the heart of our success. Slack enables us to remain agile with client needs, hold each other accountable to a project's milestones and jointly celebrate wins.”
Using tools to manage projects and proactively meet client needs
At AlphaSights, ‘running’ projects is more like sprinting. Project Leads often manage 15-20 projects in a single day, juggling multiple priorities and teams. They use Slack channels, workflows and integrations to drive efficiency and automate recurring team tasks with Slackbot reminders. The workflow feature is helpful to automate collection and dissemination of client requests and feedback across teams in a structured format that is easy to review and access. It ensures that project expectations are clear from the outset and that key information doesn’t fall through the cracks, ultimately setting the team up for success.
Freda stressed the importance of simplicity in the storm of constant communication: “If our colleagues didn’t have the ability to organize and manage projects on a single platform outside of email, project delivery would not be as efficient as it is today. We reserve email communication for our clients and experts to ensure we can read and respond to their requests without getting lost in internal emails.”
Slack enables teams to push for 1% incremental improvement daily on client service excellence
“We aim to add more value for our clients daily,” said Bee Patel, Director of Marketing Communications at AlphaSights. “Through Slack, we encourage teams to share wins like creative ways to identify experts, how they’ve gone the extra mile for their clients and how to keep a pulse on changing market needs. Custom Slack emojis also offer a more authentic way to build genuine connections with colleagues that email can’t!”
“When it comes to speed of project delivery, Slack substantially reduces response times and allows the team to remain agile and adaptable to constantly changing client needs.”
Turning knowledge into success for its clients and its people has been AlphaSights’ founding philosophy. To do this and stand out in a crowded market, its speed and quality of service delivery rely on a highly engaged workforce that is able to adapt and respond to changing client needs at the drop of a hat. This requires the help of a platform to enable communication across teams and multiple geographies. Slack has served this purpose since it was introduced to the business in 2017.
Looking ahead, the Client Service Team is exploring ways to continue leveraging Slack to support their project management efforts, strengthen colleague connectivity, and increase collaboration as they scale.
“While technology continues to move, for us, the single most important driving factor behind our success is human touch when it comes to delivering a high-quality service,” said Patel. “Technology complements the service we provide to our clients, but does not replace it. Slack allows us to mobilize as a group very quickly and maintain clear communication to ensure clients’ needs are met, and often exceeded.”
With ambitious growth plans in the near future, Slack will play a central role in uniting AlphaSights’ colleagues and building the workforce of tomorrow. It allows a continued focus on building a robust internal communication strategy, whether through the likes of Canvas for its internal company newsletters or by encouraging more conversation through shared Slack channels.
