At Prime Data we make a conscious effort to build strong values into our culture. For the people who work here this effort is important. Let’s face it, coming to work is a lot more pleasant when you are respected as a person and not just seen as another cog in the machine.

Our people are important. And they know it.

Why should you care? It’s a good question. I don’t think I’ve ever seen “values” listed as a requirement on an RFP. Cost, timelines and technology? Yep. But values never seem to make the cut.

However, I believe that values have a very direct and meaningful impact on value delivered. That’s because a strong set of corporate values creates a culture of purpose that all employees can believe in. They aren’t simply clocking in for a paycheque — they’re invested in client outcomes and results.

What is the real value of values?

We’ve become industry leaders in the last few years, not because we made it into a super-elite postal club known as Canada Post Expert Partners or because we win big international prizes for print innovation. We’re leaders because our corporate values are more than a random jumble of platitudes framed in the foyer.

Our goal is to be the kind of company you’ll be proud to work with. We invest in our people as much as our tech. And what that creates is a level of employee commitment and a culture of innovation that you won’t find in many other organizations.  

What’s it like to work with Prime Data?

International awards and performance scores are a way for us to measure our success amongst our peers. But for our clients, the numbers that matter most revolve around their campaigns. And our people show their commitment everyday, as we constantly work to track and improve our error rates:

That commitment by our staff is also a big part of how we were able to improve on-time delivery by an astonishing 10% over what was already a solid score. And, while I’ve never heard that our competition measures this, I’m guessing we’re a leader in this metric.  

But it’s still not good enough.

Our values compel us to improve every day. We just launched our November Storm campaign to track on-time jobs each week and measure against very aggressive targets. And when we meet those targets (and I know we will) we’ll celebrate with group awards ranging from food, gift cards and holiday turkeys!

In addition to fun campaigns like November Storm, we recently launched a new internal learning program for employees, called the Prime Data Institute, to ensure constant improvement through education.

If your organization is looking for a marketing technology partner for your upcoming campaigns, get in touch and let me show you how Prime Data can become the long-term partner you’re looking for.

Steve

Postscript: My wife is researching for her MBA and showed me the work of Richard Barrett of the Barrett Values Centre in the UK.  There are many parallels to what I’ve said above. I like his term to describe our cohort, “Firms of Endearment”, who, he says show 9 times better returns to investors, and I’d argue, much higher returns to customers too. We all win, staff, suppliers, customers and investors.

Here’s the link to “The Importance of Values in Building a High Performance Culture” by Richard Barrett. https://www.valuescentre.com/sites/default/files/uploads/2010-07-06/The%20Importance%20of%20Values.pdf