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Moderator: Hi. I'm Victoria Price and I lead the private tax team for UK&I and I'm your presenter for this instalment of Real Insights. At EY, we're driven to ask better questions, so with this series we're speaking to business leaders and allowing them to share experiences and insights in their own words as they succeed in this challenging business world. I've been really amazed with the response of business leaders during COVID and so it felt right in this episode to unpack how businesses have strategically adapted to the volatility of these past twelve months, and also to see what's in store as 2021 progresses, and we have three inspiring leaders who are going to share their experiences. Anyway, that's enough from me. So, let's hand over to the guests to introduce themselves.

Sarra Bejaoui: Hi, my name is Sarra Bejaoui and I am the Chief Experience Officer and Founder of SmartPA. We deliver expert business support services, PA services, admin services to our clients, to support our clients to create transformation within their organisation.

Steve Hill: Hi. I'm Steve Hill, Managing Director of Light Source. We design, build and operate major telecommunication infrastructures throughout the United Kingdom.

Per Vegard Nerseth: So, my name is Per Vegard Nerseth and I'm the CEO of CMR Surgical since January 2020. CMR is a global medical devices company with its headquarters in Cambridge, UK.

Moderator: Thanks all, that was great and welcome to today's episode. So Sarra, let's start with you. What's the purpose behind SmartPA?

Sarra Bejaoui: Our purpose is to support our businesses to transform and that's a pretty big statement. But the way we do that is, you know, we're supporting your business to create resilience, to sharpen their competitive advantage, to create brand advocacy. So our focus is around about transformation and creating that wow factor and impact for our customers. We want to be part of our customers story, we want to be part of our customers journey and their successes and challenges, and that, you know, life space if you like.

Moderator: Super, and Per Vegard, what do you find the most rewarding about your role?

Per Vegard Nerseth: Yes, CMR is really a dynamic and fast-moving company and I'm so proud actually to be working with what I would call the brightest people across, both within the technology and with medicine, and it is also great to be part of a company and to actually have the opportunity to run a company with such a clear purpose, where we really want to get minimal access surgery or keyhole surgery to millions of people.

Moderator: Thank you, that was really fascinating insight and a real breadth of different businesses there. So, let’s get into our first topic, and really interested to start by hearing a bit more about how you’ve embraced change over the last year. So Steve, I hear you’ve got a really great story here in that you had some processes and procedures in place for eventualities like we’ve seen. So, how did you implement those operationally?

Steve Hill: Yes, so roll back two years, my risk director sat me down and we were doing some business contingency planning. We're doing things like lack of, if we had a fuel shortage or if there was a terrorism attack. Another one of the subjects that came up was a pandemic in the UK. It was at that point that there was great laughter in the room, but she convinced us that that was the way we needed to go. We needed to look at the possibility of a pandemic, and we did and we spent three hours doing a study on a pandemic in the UK. Roll forward to 2020 and look what happened. But luckily enough we were prepared. That BCP came out of the folder, it was put into place and within 63 minutes, all of my staff had lifted and shifted their desks from the office, they're all IP phones and we were working and operating at 100%. Again, you know, we can evidence as well that through that period we've seen increased output from our home workers, which has been incredibly rewarding for us as a business.

Moderator: Great, thanks Steve. So Sarra, in light of the economic volatility that we've all been experiencing, how's this affected SmartPA?

Sarra Bejaoui: When I founded the business in 2008, I think a lot of people thought I was off my head when I was suggesting that, you know, the possibility of outsourcing their admin, their PA, you know, their call handling, and you know, fast forward to this year and now remote working is just now. It's here to stay and yes as we, you know, we move forward, it may not be exclusive remote working but there'll certainly be more of a blend of that traditional office-based working with remote. So for us it's fantastic and the conversations we're having with organisations from start-ups right through to large global entities, are really, really exciting because resilience and, you know, creating more agility in organisations, modus operandi is high on agenda now.

Moderator: Per Vegard, your work force is really kind of location based, isn't it? So, how did you respond to the conundrum of remote working?

Per Vegard Nerseth: In the past we had 100% of our team members basically working in one of our facilities, but now I guess this is probably more 80% working from home and about 20% working within our facilities, and I have to say, it works exceptionally and almost surprisingly well. We have been able to maintain our manufacturing throughout the whole lockdown period and being able to do that with a rota that has been working, again, very satisfactory. But then, training our surgeons and the surgical teams is an area that we really invest a lot in and I would say this is probably where the pandemic has made it the most challenging. But again, we have needed to of course continue to train and we have been able to move some of the training online, but I think as the training is so critical for a patients’ safety, we have had to adapt a bit and we have had to actually increase the number of locations where we have been able to offer training for hospitals throughout the year.

Moderator: Thanks all. It's really interesting to see how you've dealt with disruption, and in many ways turned it to your advantage and if I come back to you first Sarra. What learnings that have you taken from 2020, both internally, but importantly regarding your customer experience?

Sarra Bejaoui: Scraping it back to, you know, humans needs and there's been a lot of uncertainty and there's been a lack of connection, etc. And we know that emotions drive behaviour. So for us, what that enabled us to do was really put a spotlight on our people and make sure and really tap into our own leadership, line management, emotional intelligence to support our people, and ensure that those emotions that were possibly driving behaviour were being managed in a positive way.

Moderator: Per Vegard, your business is at the heart of medical technology, so have you seen an increase in your customer base this year?

Per Vegard Nerseth: There is really a lot of demand for surgical robotics, and I would say, in Versius in particular, and we have been over the last year really working on scaling our business so we can bring keyhole surgery to more and more people and we do expect during 2021 to open up quite a few more number of markets.

Moderator: And Steve, I think to say that you've experienced an uplift in customer demand is a bit of an understatement, isn't it? So, could you just expand on what's been going on?

Steve Hill: We've seen an absolutely huge growth in demand through people using their IT, not just for business but equally for leisure. What that's now done is, it's put a lot of pressure on our clients that they've got additional installations. We've supported those customer provisions; customer installs and what we've seen now is we've got a real glide into 2021. So yes, we've put a lot of planning together in that and we can see because now we've got a glide, we've got a forecast, we've got a real business case to put together the right training of people.

Moderator: So Per Vegard, what benefits do you think your products and services have provided to the healthcare sector and the wider community for the future?

Per Vegard Nerseth: Yes, our mission is to bring minimal access surgery or keyhole surgery to as many people as we can all over the world, and the reason why we want to do that it, is it gives the surgeons and hospitals clear benefit, but it also gives clear benefits to the patients. But even in the wider world or society side, keyhole surgery basically is faster to perform, it gives the patient the opportunity to leave the hospital faster. We see less site infections, less rate of resubmission into the hospital, which in the end then really gives greater and wider society benefits.

Moderator: Now Sarra, you've had a real look at your line management processes to support staff through remote working. What have you implemented?

Sarra Bejaoui: Yes, a way that we implemented that was to take our six conditions, the six conditions that we've created that we believe support people to perform to the best of their ability and to be the best version of themselves, and we took these and put a much more robust framework structure around them. Which enabled and empowered our managers to ensure that they were having the regular communication with their people, and through the art of enquiry, asking and probing to fully understand the detail around, you know, the big successes that their people, their department had delivered and right down to the tiny, the small ones. Everything, you know, is worth celebrating and highlighting. So by putting that framework and that support onto our managers, what that's enabled them to do and what we do now is we're now feeding that up into the leadership team on a monthly basis. So there's a real accountability in our managers to ensure that that framework is present every day and every month, and then what that's enabled us to also do is to, you know, celebrate that on both a monthly basis and departmentally by way of giving kudos, but most importantly celebrating it organisationally across the entire company.

Moderator: Steve, I understand that you've had an initiative to support the NHS in your local area. Could you tell us a bit about that?

Steve Hill: We took some advice on one of my colleagues' wife's a senior nurse and we asked her, what is lacking? Where can we make a difference? And what she said to us was that a lot of people have come into hospital not actually realising they've got COVID, and once they'd got to hospital they weren't leaving and they weren't seeing any family, and they've got absolutely nothing with them. So what we realised then is that perhaps a toiletry bag would be helpful. So we put together thousands of toiletry bags, just simple bits and pieces that we got from a local warehouse and we packaged them up lovely, and sent them out to all the local hospitals in and around Nottinghamshire, and it went down incredibly well, and I think we made a very small difference.

Moderator: Great. Thanks for sharing those. It has been really heartwarming, not only to kinda hear your responses, but also some of the other good news stories that we've had about businesses supporting people and the wider community at crucial times. So finally, before we go on it would be great to ask a few more general questions. Steve, what's your one piece of advice for aspiring business leaders out there?

Steve Hill: For current and future business leaders, I think what you need to understand is that it's going to be a bumpy road. There's going to be a lot of turbulence along the way, but I think with the right morals, with the right DNA and the right desire, you'll get to where you need to get to, but just hang on in there. Have patience. I'm a key example of having patience. I'm in my 20th year this year, and it's just around now that I'm seeing full maturity in the business, so you can do it.

Per Vegard Nerseth: While we have a fairly strong and healthy life sciences sector in the UK, I do believe there is quite a long way to go to actually establish UK as a leader within the Med tech or the medical devices business. But we at CMR, we really want to be a part of changing that and I do believe that having a medical devices industry in the UK brings a lot of benefits for the country. It brings more specialists, so a lot of competence, it obviously gives revenue for economy, it helps to build and drive a greater supply chain, and obviously also it enables the NHS and other life sciences systems around the world to really benefit from this strong innovation that comes from us here in Cambridge.

Moderator: Sarra, let’s have a look forwards now. What's the one thing on the horizon that you think will impact your business?

Sarra Bejaoui: For us, tech is playing, is certainly there. I mean obviously we have tech in our business and that's great, and it's an enabler, and that obviously enables you know, the world to work virtually, however, we're looking to take that a little bit step further and looking at how we can really embrace, you know, the likes of AI and collaborate with AI, and collaborate with more technology to again, to enhance our customer experience and customer journey and employee journey. So, for us tech is definitely on the horizon.

Moderator: Brilliant. Thank you so much for sharing so openly with us. There's been some really cracking insight there. Well, that's it for this episode of Real Insights and I hope you've enjoyed it as much as I did. It's been fascinating to hear from leaders from such diverse sectors and how they've turned to face the challenges of the past twelve months and they've strategically adapted, but they're set for a really strong year in FY21. Thanks again Sarra, Steve and Per Vegard for your time and for your insight. Now before you go, do subscribe on the link below for our next episode of Real Insights and we will see you then.

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