CXO INSIGHT and become more efficient ?’. Those are the typical things you hear from small business owners .

During COVID-19 all those problems became much more important , especially liquidity and being able to stay in business , or the need to pivot very quickly in having your revenue shut down , having to change your business model , going online or moving employees to remote locations .

Those are the key things we hear and typically we use them to change our servicing model to inform product developments , ensuring we ' re offering things that are going to be useful to customers in the various circumstances and issues that they ' re facing .

How do you tailor your approach to each client , regardless of whether they ’ re an SME or an enterprise ?

We tailor the approaches in several ways . Number one : we ’ ll manage by segment . One thing that we pay special attention to is subsegmenting : by geography , industry type , the growth trajectory and the financial position of the company . We can then start to put the management of these companies into portfolios , where the people managing them have a specificity of understanding , not only of what our products and services can do but the relevance of what they might mean to a specific company . For example , a trucking company in Manitoba , versus an e-commerce company in Quebec . That second level of detail helps make these conversations that we ' re having with our customers that much more relevant .

Then , as you go upstream , with the large and global companies you start seeing a requirement around centrally managing a large business programme in multiple markets . For example , there is a financial services company in Toronto that wants to manage everything with a single person . We can structure that to make sure they have a uniformity of how they manage a programme . As you start to move up into the global realm , that ' s something that we can offer , to be able to run your business and run your programme in a seamless manner .

Can you tell us about the revamp of the Business Gold Rewards Card and what prompted this ?

It was something that we ' ve been wanting to do for a few years and the impetus was looking at what small business owners needed . It was designed with that entrepreneurial spirit and the business owner in mind .

In terms of building from the ground up , flexibility was key . We wanted to offer enhanced rewards but make them flexible . We made sure the Business Gold Rewards Card was offering an ability to have a quarterly recognition of your spending , so you want to earn incremental rewards . We allow people to do that quarterly . Spend 20,000 , get an incremental 10,000 points on top of what you ' re earning . But , more importantly , it was considering what small business owners were telling us in terms of how we can help them manage their business .

Then , finally , there was a digital component in terms of servicing tools , enabling them to understand and manage the programme , or insurances and fraud protection . A lot of people are managing their business from home now on their mobile phone . More and more people are relying on that as their one piece of equipment .

WITH ALL THESE DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES COMING ONLINE , IT IS IMPORTANT TO BRING THAT TOGETHER INTO AN ECOSYSTEM AND MAKE THEM RELEVANT AND EASY TO USE FOR CUSTOMERS .

All in , I ' d say the Business Gold Rewards Card is very much an entrepreneur needs-driven product enhancement to help entrepreneurs manage their business and be go-getters .

How have client requirements changed over the last year and how has that shaped your strategy ?

We ’ re starting to see the flex in needs , one is flexibility in and of itself . How are you going to be www . intelligentcxo . com

45