Remote work isn’t the future of work – it’s the present. Since 2020, video calls are happening twice as often, and almost 70% of full-time workers are working remotely compared to before the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Today, employees not only embrace remote work, they expect it, with one in two US workers stating that they would not be prepared to return to a job that didn’t accommodate for some kind of remote working.

For many reasons, the sentiment towards remote work from an employee perspective is largely positive, with a surprisingly large number of surveyed individuals stating that they have been able to maintain or even improve their productivity during the pandemic.

That’s why, in a post-pandemic world, so many of the remote-first companies who had already established effective fully-remote teams are thriving.

In this article, I’ll examine some of the best remote-first teams you could be working for, with a focus on what to look for when considering if a company is truly fully-remote, and how the company culture can reflect a remote-first mentality.

Here’s a breakdown of the article:

• State of remote work in 2021
• Remote-first vs remote-friendly
• Questions to consider when looking at remote-first companies
• Best remote-first companies to work for in a post-pandemic world

Let’s start with the current state of remote work; what can we learn from recent reports & statistics?

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“Running a business and integrating two companies is like having two different jobs and both are equally important.” – Chris Barbin, CEO, Founder, Entrepreneur

Only one-third of mergers and acquisitions successfully create shareholder value. More often than not, this is down to failures during the post-merger integration (PMI) process. Cari Windt, who specializes in organizational design and change management, pins this on a lack of planning; CEO Christ Barbin claims it’s a lack of execution.

These two problems, however, are not mutually exclusive. Executing a poor plan can be more harmful than not executing a plan at all.

Being aware of the challenges of post-merger integrations and developing a thorough PMI process can both go a long way to ensuring yours runs smoothly. But how do you determine if total integration is right for your organization?

This Process Street post will look at the 4 main post-merger strategies and when you should use them:

• The shape of post-merger integration
• Consolidation post-merger strategy: Gain scale and cost synergy
• Transformation post-merger strategy: Reposition your identity
• Tuck-in post-merger strategy: Tech and talent acquisitions
• Bolt-on post-merger strategy: Increase your portfolio

Let’s dive in!
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According to Deloitte Insights, advances in technology are changing the business landscape and they are calling this a digital disruption. This is altering customer expectations and demands, presenting critical challenges for customer success teams globally.

To successfully ride this wave of change, Deloitte – and us here at Process Street – believe businesses should rethink how they are measuring value delivered to the customer. The aim is to ensure these measurements are customer-centric to refine CS activities and enhance the customer’s experience.

Think of it as a customer success evolution in response to digital disruption.

This CS transformation has the potential to bolster positive referrals by 83%, lower costs by 20%, and increase customer lifetime value by x1.6.

What have you got to lose?

In this article, you’ll learn how to apply a customer-centric means of measuring customer value generated for your organization. I’ve split the process down into three steps based on the Customer-Centric Digital Transformation report by Deloitte.

• From churn reduction to customer value generation (applying customer success 2.0)
• Measuring value in 3 steps: Determining customer and internal success
• Determining value generated – Step #1: Measure the outside-in value perception
• Determining value generated – Step #2: Measuring inside-out value perception
• Determining value generated – Step #3: Measuring internal success using business outcomes

With that said, let’s jump straight to it!
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David Campbell is a digital marketing specialist at Ramp Ventures. He helps manage the content marketing team at Right Inbox. When he’s not working, he enjoys traveling and trying to learn Spanish.

Co-marketing involves connecting with like-minded brands to achieve similar marketing goals. When you collaborate with another brand’s marketing team, you can reach more potential customers with your products, and create highly engaging creative campaigns, too.

Products are not the only things you can promote through co-marketing. You can promote your content, and by extension, your brand. One of the ways you can do this is by building strong co-marketing relations with other marketing teams with the goal of sourcing valuable content & backlinks that will strengthen the quality of your blog or content offering.

In this article for Process Street, we’ll look at how co-marketing can heavily increase your backlinking game.

• Co-marketing at a glance
• 3 reasons to adopt co-Marketing
• Successful co-marketing examples
• Co-marketing: the step-by-step guide
• Your business’s key to success

Let’s get to work!
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“The truth is mistakes happen. The accepted data says that most mergers and acquisitions don’t work out.” – Martin Sikora, professor of management and editor of Mergers & Acquisitions: The Dealmaker’s Journal

Mergers and acquisitions are complicated. Like, really complicated. A simple mistake at any point can delay the deal, derail the process, and potentially cost your company millions.

No matter how highly trained or experienced a person is with M&A procedures, human error happens. In fact, errors are more likely to occur in processes we’re overly familiar with. Once we’ve performed a task so many times that we “know” the steps, we tend to run on autopilot, which means routine actions can be overlooked or forgotten.

Making a mistake during a process with as much risk and expense as a merger or acquisition can ruin one or both companies. This makes having a thorough, well-documented process is an absolute must for any M&A executive.

After analyzing the main reasons mergers fail, I’ve used that knowledge to build several Process Street workflow templates for essential M&A processes. Feel free to jump ahead if you’re looking for a particular template, or continue reading for a walkthrough of all the features these workflows use:

• M&A processes: Plan to plan – and plan again
• M&A Target Search Process
• M&A Strategy Checklist
• M&A Due Diligence Checklist
• M&A Acquisition Checklist
• Post-Merger Integration Checklist
• Process optimization & Automations with Process Street

Ready to acquire some new workflows?
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A recent Deloitte study found a mere 30% of respondents stated customer success was a strategic priority by the board of directors. Only 26% reported official business communications to regularly mention customer success.

At Process Street, we find this concerning. Technological advancements and the rise of Industry 4.0 are altering the business landscape. Businesses are facing new pressures, with changing customer demands and expectations as the biggest catalyst altering how business is done. To respond, organizations need to focus on customer success (CS).

Businesses need to lead a successful customer success transformation, one that means they’re more customer-centric. In this Process Street article, I explain how organizations should do this in three simple steps.

• Why we need to think differently about customer success
• The companies leading in customer success are making a customer-centric transition
• 3 steps to manage your customer-centric transition

With that said, let’s jump straight to it!
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This is a guest post by Andriy Zapisotskyi. Andriy is a Growth Manager at Mailtrap. He has over 5 years of experience in the field of marketing & loves to network with new people.

Jeff Gardner (Director of Customer Support & Success at Intercom in the early days) on customer communications:

“It’s got to be easy. Don’t make customers jump through hoops to use your product.

It’s got to be effective. Know everything about your product, including its limitations.

It’s got to be authentic. Make sure everyone’s aligned on your fundamental cultural values.”

As a Customer Success Manager, you represent the customer’s interest and your goal is to help them get value from your product. In many ways, they are the link between the user and the company, and that link grows stronger the more acquainted with the product the customer becomes.

CSMs are kind of like a combination of product manager and technical support; one of their chief duties is leading the Customer Success team in handling all communication from the customer about the product, be it questions about service, onboarding, or resolving technical difficulties.

It goes without saying that communication is important. The tone, content, and delivery of any kind of messaging should be refined and optimized to deliver the best possible customer experience. You should consider how to tailor different messages for different purposes, mediums, and customer profiles. A one-size-fits-all approach is unlikely to get you very far, and a keen understanding of etiquette around customer success communications is essential.

This means the CSM needs to be able to take into account the nuances of written communication with individual customers and be able to adjust their approach to each specific situation.

In this Process Street post, I’ll detail the core principles vital for a CSM to lead their team to successful communications with all customers.

• CSM communications etiquette: Ground rules
• CSM communications etiquette: Provide a solution
• CSM communications etiquette: Closing a query

Let’s dive in!
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Research shows that a 5% increase in customer retention rates can boost profits by 55%.

With this in mind, when it comes to customer success, it’s important you play your cards right to retain your customers.

In this Process Street article, we draw from McKinsey & Company’s post, Introducing customer success 2.0: The new growth engine. What’s more, thinking about customer success, we ask, how can you ensure you’re implementing customer success 2.0 strategies?

To help you get started, I’ve put together your essential software stack to execute customer success 2.0. Using this list, you can easily execute the five critical elements that’ll instill a customer success philosophy in your organization. But before all, let’s quickly recap the basics, and define the difference between customer success 1.0 and 2.0.

Click on the relevant subheader to jump to your section of choice, alternatively scroll down to read all we have to say.

• Customer success 2.0 vs. customer success 1.0
• Customer success 2.0 software stack to execute the McKinsey Model
• Comparing customer success 1.0 with customer success 2.0 in practice

Let’s jump right to it
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Brad Smith is the CEO at Wordable and the founder of Codeless (a content production agency). His content has been highlighted by The New York Times, Business Insider, The Next Web, and thousands more.

So, you’re ready to scale your marketing efforts, eh?

You’re not the only one: 70% of marketers are taking content marketing seriously — and sooner or later, they start scaling up, increasing competition in the process.

With all the marketing noise out there, it can be difficult to position yourself as an industry leader. But don’t worry, we’re here to help.

In this Process Street post, we’ll cover:

• How to prepare a scalable content marketing system
• 9 Actionable steps to effectively scale

Let’s jump right in!
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“In the midst of every crisis lies great opportunity.” – A. Einstein

I’ll refrain from attempting to mask something as devastating as the coronavirus with a silver lining. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that while the world goes bust there is one industry that continues to boom: Tech.

Since the first half of 2020, health and fitness app downloads have soared, growing by a whopping 46% worldwide.

What has been the pandemic’s influence on the femtech and wellness app industries? In this Process Street post, I feature an interview with Hélène Guillaume, founder of a femtech platform (Wild.AI), and Reeva Misra, the founder of a wellness app (Walking on Earth).

Wild.AI is a fitness platform that empowers female athletes by providing AI-powered personal trainers that adapt to the user’s needs. Walking on Earth is a wellness app and platform that offers every user access to personalized coaches and treatment plans.

• How it all comes together: The pandemic, wellness apps, & femtech
• Introducing the founders: Reeva Misra & Hélène Guillaume
• Developing a wellness app
• Developing a femtech platform
• Attracting investor attention as a wellness app
• Attracting investor attention as a femtech platform
• Finding product-market fit during a pandemic

Let’s get started.
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