A throwback on 2021 at TRIMM

Working from home – back to the office – back to working at home – back to the office again, and once again working from home. This year sure was unpredictable, how did you, from your role at TRIMM, experience this year as a whole?

I think that for everyone this year was one with a U-turn, but thanks to our flexibility we can deal with that well at TRIMM. I worked virtually a lot and well together with people,  both with our clients as well as our business partners, such as Skybox and GRiDD.

A lot of people have experienced the strength of digital/virtual for a longer period. I expect that this will also give a push to the concept of The Metaverse where the various big FAMG and BAT companies are working intensively at.

You’re Consultant / Product Owner for a few of our largest projects. Did you experience any difference in the co-operation with customers, now that communication went primarily digitally?

The great thing is that virtual has many possibilities, I even worked together with customers and partners I never met physically yet this year. The speed of the execution of our projects didn’t get influenced by this, I did however notice that there was a need for more communication and documentation to let co-operation run smooth.

Which tips can you give around co-operating via online platforms?

Make sure you have consistent moments of alignment via one chosen channel, like a weekly update or even a daily check-in with your team. Microsoft Teams or Zoom are perfect for this. Don’t be afraid to use other channels for spontaneous contact moments. I noticed that it works well to ask short questions via Whatsapp.

Because of the virtual elements meetings can get very rational and only aimed at deliverables, giving less space for social and interpersonal interaction. The importance of these elements can’t be underestimated. That’s why it’s important to take time for the personal element as well, look after the people in your time and show some interest towards them. This can also be applied to outside the organization you co-operate with.

Can you name some highlights of TRIMM this year regarding our projects?

This year we executed many great projects for our clients once again. My biggest project was the new website for Mitsubishi Chemical Advanced Materials: MCAM.com. But of course, we did more than just develop websites and web portals. We’ve developed complete digital strategies for customers such as Teijin Smart Safety and Trespa (for whom we also developed their new websites). We also supported Grolsch in building modules for a give-away retail campaign and we’ve developed a data strategy for De Jong & Laan.

Online and hybrid events were also very important for TRIMM this year. We’ve hosted events for clients such as SPAR, ICOM, and DSM. And of course, we can’t forget the FBK Games. We are not only a proud sponsor of the event, but this year we also gave fans a stadion experience (despite COVID) in their own living rooms by hosting the Second Screen Event. Our biggest online event this year was Nexperia Power Live: a 3-day event with 13 live sessions, 17 on-demand demo videos, and 36 speakers in total.

All together we didn’t only do great projects in the things we were already good at, we also played in on trends and developments in the market. By doing this we’ve done many projects that put TRIMM on the map as completely new areas of expertise.

You’re very involved with innovation in digital. Can you name some developments and trends that TRIMM was involved in?

We can’t forget an obvious one: the online and hybrid events we organized for our clients. Our video team was occupied with this the whole year, and with great results! We’ve hosted awesome events, our video team grew and has a new area of expertise because of this.

Also, many clients started doing more data analysis and Marketing Automation. We’ve developed data strategies, dashboards, and more than ever we used Marketing Automation in the complete marketing strategy for our clients. We’ve seen the growing interest in data inside and outside of TRIMM.

Read our predictions for Trends in 2022 here

What achievement of TRIMM in the past year are you most proud of?

More than anything I’m proud of our company, and all of my colleagues. We have been able to achieve great things in this challenging time. We’ve shown our clients that we can help them be more successful in their businesses no matter the circumstances.