Emerging successfully from an economic downturn and global pandemic is no easy feat, especially if you are an SME business without large cash reserves to see you through. How do entrepreneurs combat these difficult times and come out the other side relatively unscathed? 

Warren Bonheim, Managing Director of Zinia, a leading ICT and telecoms provider, shares his strategies for success that have seen Zinia thrive through tough times. 

Embrace Customer Reviews 

Word of mouth has to a certain extent been digitised with many customers often deciding who to contact off of google and social media reviews. This strategy embraces transparency by asking customers to go public with their experience across digital platforms.

Bonheim says feedback directly from the mouths of the customer has a unique way of driving a culture of continuous improvement and dedication to customer excellence. 

By focusing on customer experience as a priority in your business, you can determine if you are delivering on your service promise or not. Simply asking what your customers are saying about your business also allows you to benchmark your service and find a starting point to improve.  However, exposing your business by actively seeking out customer reviews is not without risk. 

“Opening your business up to customer feedback is daunting because there is absolutely no control over what people will say,” says Bonheim. “In addition, it is human nature to criticize and not take the time to give positive feedback.”

Whilst this approach may open a business up to negative reviews, these reviews allow business decision-makers to create targeted intervention programmes to improve their services that are far more resource-efficient in the long run. 

Invest in people and service

During tough times leaders may seek to cut costs through their wage bill. However, making a strategic decision to not carry out retrenchments may be better as it allows you to protect the livelihood of employees who make a high level of customer service possible. 

This also proves that you are loyal to your employees, preserving employee satisfaction and motivation which leads to a productive and positive company culture. 

Zinia made the decision to stand by their employees and demonstrate their commitment to personalized service by limiting retrenchment during the Lockdown. They also improved the customer experience by incorporating easy to understand tools, sales documents, processes, checks, SLAs, and customer satisfaction surveys to make dealing with the company effortless. In the same way, links to provide customer feedback are readily available at a variety of touchpoints, making it easy for customers to share their thoughts. 

Give recognition 

Getting buy-in from executive-level members is also imperative to implementing these strategies. Reviews both positive and negative should be monitored regularly by executive level company members. This allows positive reviews and the employees responsible for them to be given validation and recognition. Negative reviews can be investigated and the challenge properly identified - be it in processes, people, or systems – to inform future strategies on how to improve the business. 

Bonheim says, “When we get a positive review everyone at Zinia celebrates, and when we get a negative one, we see it as an opportunity to learn. It is difficult not to take a negative review personally at Zinia because every staff member is so passionate about customer service. However, we know we are doing something right when 97% of our customers rate us a 4 out of 5 and above for service excellence.”  

Creating a positive service culture internally through internal communication initiatives and leading by example is essential. After all, if your company members don’t believe in what you are doing you will struggle to implement any strategy within the company.  

Digitize appropriately

Another strategic decision that paid off for Zinia was investing in a digitization strategy in 2018 that carefully considered which key business processes could be automated to support, manage, and sustain the businesses growth.

Automation has an incredible capacity to drive efficiencies and ensure that customer service is not compromised by lightening some of the manual administrative load. Investments in IT systems, customer engagement and ticketing, productivity monitoring and more, allowed Zinia to remain strong during 2020 when other businesses struggled. 

The leader’s investment in an IT managed services platform known as ZMS allowed them to virtually manage their customer’s IT and network environments; improve efficiency and productivity of their own internal resources; proactively service their customers and minimise their downtime.  

Effective digitisation has the benefit of allowing a company to be flexible and pivot according to challenges, big or small, that they may face. During a crisis situation like the pandemic, a solid digital infrastructure allows for remote working when needed, providing everything that the employee needs - internet, access to business systems, telephony and so on - so they can work productively. 

Any good business strategy should focus on implementing the systems and controls necessary for the company to scale and provide the flexibility to react quickly. In Zinia’s case, their combination of systems and entrepreneurial flair allowed their team to quickly investigate the implications and opportunities within the crises when international rumours of a lockdown first began. 

This resulted in the company being ready for lockdown with remote working solutions that included hosted VoIP (Voice over IP) PBX and custom productivity tools that could be delivered virtually. These solutions answered a very real business need in the market: How to manage employee’s remote activities and identify operational inefficiencies, productivity trends and prevent any IT security risks of remote working.  

Embracing a digital way of interacting includes benefits such as increased sales activity and output of work, reduced travelling costs, reduced time spent travelling, reduced printing costs and so on. 

Using these business strategies above can combat downturns in the economy, provide consistent feedback on business health and help clients trust organisations that deliver value in today’s world. Creativity and innovation are key to running any business, but especially in rapidly changing climates, they can make or break your success. 

Businesses with strong growth strategies, forward-thinking decision-makers and positive workplace culture are emerging from the pandemic stronger than ever. Whilst many will agree that a fully work from home approach is not sustainable, with the correct strategy and investment in infrastructure we can effectively marry in office and work from home scenarios and create more resilient companies, with leaner operating models and more positive culture that recognise and support the human element of successful businesses.  

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About Zinia

Founded in 2009, Zinia is a forward-thinking company focused on providing Internet, Voice and IT solutions that underpin business success. Zinia’s goal is to provide decision makers with solutions they can depend on, taking away the headache of managing technology and enabling them to focus on the business. In its twelve year history, Zinia has grown into a formidable force, from humble beginnings as a wireless ISP to today’s position as a leading Telecoms and ICT company with over 80 staff, a national footprint and a service culture that customers rave about.

Warren Bonheim, Zinia Co-founder and Managing Director 

Warren is the quintessential self-made entrepreneur with the drive and humour of Richard Branson and the wisdom of Jack Welch. Despite multiple challenges over the years, his resilience and passion for constant improvement has led him to become the impressive leader he is today. 

At 40 years of age Warren is the MD of Zinia, a highly profitable multi-million rand business that continues to grow year-on-year since its inception in 2009. Zinia is focused on delivering the best IT, Internet and voice solutions for business with an unparalleled service experience - a positioning which has resonated with the market, fueling the company’s growth even during tough market conditions.

When he started Zinia at the age of 29, his experiences as a twenty-something entrepreneur had matured and shaped his business acumen. Zinia from the outset was run like a big business with tight controls, a strong management team, statistics to inform decision-making and a process methodology that revolves around simplicity and innovation.

With a strong leadership team in place, Warren enjoys the freedom he has to develop and execute growth strategies for Zinia, which is a role that matches his energy and drive 100%. With a passion for seeking “what’s next” and constantly improving, Warren is the perfect leader to drive the future of Zinia.

Warren’s early story is a compelling one. Starting out at 19 he navigated the ups and downs of being a rookie in sales, working for various companies including Kirby, Health & Raquet Club, Red Devil Energy drink and Nashua. Working at a small telecoms company was a turning point for Warren, where he was taken under a sales manager’s wing and taught an effective sales methodology which saw him go from zero to hero in a matter of months.

After achieving great success where he broke company sales records, his passion for entrepreneurship had grown and at the age of 22 he started a PABX and Premicell business in the telecoms industry where he made his first Million in one year. With no support other than his and a business partners’ own money, in the early days he talks about how they scraped through the day eating very little, were on the road five to six hours a day and worked from a dingy office above a curry manufacturing business.  While this time of his life was challenging, it became a driving force fueling him forward – he never again wants to sit on a pavement sharing a cheese roll and juice box between two people or smell curry at 6am in the morning!

In the next seven years he grew his business to a staff compliment of 50, billing a couple of million per month. He learnt a lot about running a business in those years and cites the following as his biggest learnings, “you can never assume tomorrow will be great, never lose sight of who you are and what got you there, and always keep your fingers on the pulse of the numbers.” These were the reasons he threw it all away at a young age and had to start again with not so much as a rand in his pocket or a business card.

The idea had formed in his mind to create a Wireless Internet and Voice provider with a difference. He made the business a reality and Zinia was born. This time Warren’s drive and vision was backed up with almost a decade of ICT knowledge and 7 years business management experience. With the understanding that you need to sacrifice in the beginning to build a profitable business, Warren and the team he brought in initially sacrificed salaries and heavy expenses to focus on creating a smart, innovation-driven business that would be sustainable, well-run, efficient and profitable. Zinia has since grown into a leading ICT and Telecoms company offering IT, internet and voice telecoms solutions company that underpin business success. In its twelve-year history Warren has grown the company into a formidable force, from humble beginnings as a wireless ISP to today’s position as a leading Telecoms and ICT company with over 80 staff, a national footprint and a service culture that customers rave about. There is no doubt that Warren will lead Zinia to further heights in the telecommunications space.

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