Scott Megginson, President, Kantar Canada speaks about business in the time of COVID19 and how its going to shape our future
How has COVID19 affected your business?
If anything, it has accelerated our move into agile methods and service delivery models to meet the changing timing and budget expectations of clients. We’ve been developing these approaches for a while, but now more clients are open to trying them. Because of this infrastructure, we’re in the fortunate position where we haven’t encountered a research question for our Canadian business that we can’t address in the current work environment.
How are your teams working and communicating during such times?
We had already moved almost all of staff to remote service delivery the week before Provinces start to advise or require it, so we’ve been at it for a few weeks now. Like many other companies, we use video enabled platforms to meet as much as possible. This allows us to maintain our personal connections, while keeping our staff and clients safe. We had a very thorough business continuity plan in place before the pandemic, and were able to maintain our business without interruption because of it.
Systems and processes have seen new changes. Do you feel the new way of working will change the way we worked in offices?
I don’t see how this cannot change our views of working, and I think this is a good thing. The days of private offices and assigned seating were already on their way to extinction, and now we’ve let the agile working genie out of the bottle. We have proof positive that teams can come together virtually, and days can be more productive when you don’t have to spend time choosing which colour of socks to wear. I would expect a hybrid evolution to emerge as a result.
How are you helping your local community during such times?
Physical distancing needs have made it difficult for our staff to contribute to the community the ways in which we normally do. Since we are not manufacturers, we don’t have protective equipment or food to donate. However, Kantar’s assets are data, insight, and expertise, and we have been focused on delivering thought leadership to the industry as they navigate this uncertainty.
This is a once in a lifetime event for all of us, do share your reason for optimism?
Personally, I believe in people. I’ve never been through an event of this scale, but generations before us endured much worse. In my career, I’ve witnessed recessions, 911, SARS, and other crises. Companies are people, and people come together to help one another. We are also seeing higher confidence in our Government response to COVID-19 in Canada than in other G7 countries in our research. This coming-together of people and government to one shared purpose will not only get us through this event, but help to prepare us for future unexpected challenges.
Kantar is a leading full-service custom market research agency in Canada. For more information kindly log on to www.kantar.com
This story is written and edited by Yugbodh, for The Onside Media, Canada, If you have stories to share kindly email: – info@theonside.com
