2015 was not the easiest of years for SA.inc.
Resource prices have plummeted (which has affected some of our clients) and the exchange rate has nose-dived (affecting many of our clients). Lima Bean has been largely shielded from this, as the marketing budgets locally shift more from "traditional" to "digital".
Thankfully those lines are becoming increasingly blurred and most conversations these days don't even mention foul words such as traditional, digital, above the line or below the line. What line? people rightly ask. Marketing these days should simply be about building relationships with your consumers, adding value to their lives and staying top of mind. But I digress.
2015 was largely a year of consolidation for Lima Bean. At the start of the year, we invested heavily in internal systems and gave many of our processes a good overhaul, documenting these along the way. The feeling amongst management was that our next growth spurt could only occur once we are operationally airtight. For those that are interested in the tech specifically, our company now largely runs on Jira, Beanstalkapp and Slack. Beautiful.
In 2015 we held on to all our key accounts and managed to win some overseas business. Next year, we hope to branch out even more to the north and east of our borders, as our currency heads south.
Next year is about "rocket like growth".
Our approach to this is to aim to be ten times more valuable to our clients than we are today.
This means advising and consulting at the highest possible strategic level, finding creative, valuable and meaningful ways to grow our client's businesses. We want to know the ins and outs of their operation, from bricks to clicks, and want to be held accountable for improving key metrics across the entire spectrum.
It's about ownership for us - and the ownership and responsibility of our client's success must lie with us as much as with them.
The team we have at Lima Bean is now stronger than it's ever been, full of heavyweights across the various disciplines. So while the short break will be very much welcomed, we are excited to start getting stuck into 2016!
Happy Holidays!