When Jon Pickering took over as CEO of workplace data analytics firm Tiger in February 2020, he made time to learn the business inside-out.
From those conversations with staff, the 48-year-old formulated a complete rebrand and major pivot of the business.
“The pivot came when we started to think about how we were going to drive value in the business,” he explains in an interview with our sister publication TechBlast.
“We decided to move from the legacy approach of selling a one-off licence to a customer and a small maintenance wrap around it and started providing the subscription contracts that will drive the MMR up.”
As account managers concentrated on converting the Hampshire company’s 400-strong customer base to a subscription model, he also oversaw a rebrand from Tiger Communications to just Tiger.
“We’re not a communications company, we’re a software company. It was out of kilter as we evolved as a company,” he says.
Before joining Tiger, Pickering spent 11 successful years as co-founder and CEO of Block Solutions before exiting in 2017, growing that business to £20m turnover.
“Block are a digital transformation consultation focused predominately on the healthcare market and working with a lot of the major hospitals in the UK,” recalls Pickering.
“We were focused on doing everything to the best of our ability and going above and beyond for the customer. Everything took over from there.”
He adds: “My approach is how you take your customers from where they are today and deliver better business outcomes for tomorrow.
“We don’t sell tech, we sell the outcome. It’s not about us, it’s about them.”
Read the full story of how COVID-19 changed the rulebook for CEOs, Pickering’s entrepreneurial approach and how he restructured the sales team at Tiger in TechBlast.