RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND SOFTWARE

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RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND SOFTWARE

Q&A with Richard Kirby, Product Director, cr360

In June 2015, leading sustainability software company cr360, formerly CRedit360, launches its new vision: ‘Responsibility beyond software’. Accompanied by a fresh, vibrant new brand, the company’s vision captures its collaborative approach to supporting customers on their sustainability journeys and its responsibility to both customers and employees. cr360 aims to help customers gain an ever deeper level of analysis, while integrating sharp, data-driven insights into core business decision-making and mainstream corporate culture.

Here, Richard Kirby, cr360’s Product Director, explains the thinking behind the vision and how cr360 will continue to partner with its customers in the face of future sustainability challenges.

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Responsibility Beyond Software

1. INTRODUCING ‘RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND SOFTWARE’

1.1 What is your vision for cr360’s future? How will this add value for customers?

cr360 is a recognised leader in both EHS and sustainability software. Some 200 of the world’s largest companies use our integrated system to monitor their progress on critical sustainability challenges. We have grown rapidly since our inception in 2002, and are recognised as one of the UK’s fastest growing technology companies. But we are more than just a technology company.

That’s why we are launching our ‘Responsibility beyond software’ vision – to clarify how we intend to add value for our customers and employees in the long term.

Let’s break this down.

‘Responsibility’ – Being responsible to our customers and our employees is one of our core values.

It’s what we believe in. We are reaffirming this commitment by making responsibility a fundamental part of our vision.

‘Beyond software’ – This is about taking a collaborative journey with our customers. We want to be

the human face of data management - we are approachable and responsive partners who understand our customers’ challenges. Yes, we can do the clever technical stuff, but we aspire to be a strategic partner for our customers on their sustainability journeys. And like our customers, we too are on a long-term journey.

1.2 What does this mean for cr360’s product development journey?

We are at a turning point in our product development journey. We spent our first ten years in business developing smart tools to help companies gather and manage sustainability data. Now, we’re

pioneering the next generation of analytics tools. Put simply, we will help customers access meaningful insights from the data they’re gathering - in a rapid and automated way.

This is vital when you consider that one of the biggest challenges for today’s companies is the ever-increasing volume of data available. Some businesses employ analysts to look for patterns, but often there is simply not enough time to do this. Companies need intelligent, automated insights at their fingertips.

What’s more, businesses are increasingly engraining sustainability into core business practices. We can play a critical role here. By developing intelligent analytics tools, we can help companies integrate sustainability into their everyday work, spot patterns quickly – and importantly, take action.

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1.3 Could you take us through the new brand?

We wanted to create a brand that better represented the breadth of what we do. The cr360 system is a modern, user-friendly product that helps to deliver a 360° outlook on customers’ sustainability challenges. In practice, this means businesses can manage vital data across the full spectrum of EHS, sustainability and supply chain challenges – using one single, integrated platform.

At the same time, we wanted it to reflect the dynamic, vibrant nature of the company and our

employees, and the new generation of young male and female sustainability and EHS professionals coming through the ranks.

We have chosen a warm colour palette of pink, purple and green to capture this vibrancy, echo the fresh look and feel of the product, and highlight that we are the human face of sustainability software. The array of different lights you see in the brand logo reflects the theme of insight.

1.4 What is unique about cr360?

We develop creative solutions that give our customers the clarity, visibility and insights they need to deliver increased efficiency, action on sustainability and ultimately, profitability. In particular, we are doing this through our smart analytics and reporting tools, as we move towards a deeper level of analysis.

We offer a smart, technical product coupled with a seamless, user-focused experience. Anyone can use the product, not just the technically-minded!

In addition, what sets us apart is how we do business – our implementation teams are approachable, knowledgeable people from the field with a deep understanding of sustainability issues.

1.5 What will the rebrand mean for current employees and prospective employees?

Part of being a growing company is that there’s real and constant need for recruitment. It’s a very important topic for us. We want dynamic, flexible people to be attracted to the brand and grow and stay with the company, to be proud to work here.

Importantly, we want our current employees to recognise our commitment to them and to feel proud of our achievements and where we’re headed as a business. It is our people who will help us to continue innovating in the marketplace and be a thoughtful partner to our clients. Our people remain crucial to our future success.

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2. DISRUPTING THE SUSTAINABILITY SOFTWARE MARKET

2.1 What are the key trends shaping the sustainability software market?

1. As sustainability becomes ever more deep-rooted and active in day-to-day business decision-making, companies are increasingly move towards using a single, integrated platform to manage EHS, sustainability and supply chain data. This is a major theme.

2. There’s also an interesting dynamic taking place between Europe and the US. We’re seeing European businesses learning from the more practical, compliance-driven approach to EHS seen in the States, and US businesses learning from the standards-based approach to sustainability traditionally found in Europe. Here, we have an advantage in being a UK and US-based supplier.

3. Supply chain monitoring is growing rapidly as companies seek to gain increased visibility of their suppliers’ performance. This is evident in the apparel industry and increasingly in the food industry.

4. We’re seeing companies tackling energy management in a more granular way, and favouring automation and smart meters, coupled with scenario planning.

2.2 Where does cr360 sit within the spectrum of companies in the market and why?

We have been named as a leader by the independent analyst firm Verdantix in both the sustainability and EHS software markets. We are part of a new generation of software vendors bringing a disruptive force to the space, with a greater focus on user experience and reporting analytics.

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3. EXPERIENCING RAPID GROWTH BY RESPONDING TO

SUSTAINABILITY CHALLENGES

3.1 Could you take us on a brief tour of cr360’s history and explain why you have

developed so rapidly?

We formed the company in 2002 to help businesses capture the data they needed for annual

sustainability and corporate responsibility reports. Since then we have grown rapidly by understanding our customers’ needs, developing smart products to fulfil those needs and building strong

relationships. We are one of the fastest growing companies in the space.

We opened our Cambridge headquarters in 2007 and established a US office in Chicago in 2010. By this time, we had already gained 100 clients. The following year, in 2011, we became a

gold-accredited CDP partner (we are one of just four globally). We have since formed partnerships with many respected sustainability and EHS experts, strengthening our offering to customers. We are also a GRI-accredited software provider.

By 2014, we had grown from 60 to more than 100 employees in just 12 months. In the same year, we won the Sunday Times Hiscox Tech Track 100 award for being one of the fastest growing technology companies in the UK, having tripled our sales in three years. Most recently, we are proud to have won the Queen’s Award for Enterprise and been named Top Product of the Year by the Environmental Leader Product & Project Awards.

3.2 How has the product evolved over the years? What trends have shaped the

product direction?

From our starting point of helping companies collect data for annual reports, we have consistently looked more deeply into the issues that customers are facing and developed the product accordingly. This has meant helping businesses to gather a greater breadth and depth of data in a coherent, automated and centralised way, and drilling down to understand and address specific challenges. The evolution of our product reflects the changing attitudes and needs of sustainability professionals. Whereas initially people collected data on an annual basis, we gradually saw a trend towards people wanting to collect information regularly across a broader spectrum of issues. Now, we’re seeing a move towards customers using our system to manage issues on a daily basis.

As sustainability becomes integrated into core business practices, customers want to have real, meaningful insights at their fingertips and be able to spot trends developing ahead of time, identify issues and predict future scenarios.

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3.3 How do you incorporate customer feedback in developing your product and

service?

We have just improved the service we offer to customers. Instead of one dedicated account manager, they now have two people available to help them. There is a customer service contact for day-to-day issues and an account manager to support customers with longer term, strategic issues.

Additionally, we collaborate with customers at our User Forums – events where we explore the sustainability challenges they’re facing, share best practice and discuss how they would like the product to evolve to meet their needs.

3.4 How will corporate sustainability evolve in the future?

cr360 is helping CR teams to make sustainability ‘business as usual’. We will see this change take shape in the same way that health and safety cultures have formed, with sustainability gradually becoming part of everyday thinking. Eventually, this will be second nature. The challenge is keeping it there in people’s minds. This is how businesses will achieve a greater positive impact in the long term. We intend to accompany them on that journey and provide the tools and insights they need to

RESPONSIBILITY BEYOND SOFTWARE