BrazilSarah Busson on her intrapreneurial growth at Digital Power
Most consulting firms tout an entrepreneurial culture as one of their key differentiators – but Digital Power actually looks to deliver on that promise. Sarah Busson tells Consultancy.org how she has been supported in developing a new offering from scratch alongside her daily work as a consultant.
Headquartered in Amsterdam, Digital Power is a consulting firm specialised in technical web analytics, data analytics, data strategy, research, customer experience, data engineering & data strategy.
Since its founding in 2016, the firm’s multidisciplinary team (now roughly 130-strong) has helped its clients to become data driven – but they have also been encouraged to develop new business ideas whenever possible.
Sarah Busson joined the company just over a year ago and has wasted no time in adopting the company’s entrepreneurial culture. As a technical web analyst consultant at Vodafone, she has gained experience in developing data collection pipelines and improving the accuracy of information gathered by a system.
Intrapreneuring within Digital Power
That experience at Vodafone was soon put to use internally as well, where she was handed the opportunity to help think through the implementation of a new data collection method.
“I became part of an initiative from the Technical Web Analyst team,” Sarah recalls. “Together, we brainstormed to figure out what were the biggest challenges in our field that our clients might encounter and which topics were in need of development. Alongside data quality and identity management, server-side tracking was found to be one of the hottest topics.”
Tracking is the process of data collection by apps or websites. It is used by most apps and sites around to record user behaviour and events such as clicks, purchases, and pageviews. The data is collected and processed on the user’s device and the information is directly sent to external platforms, to improve the user experience and engage with the users through marketing campaigns, among others.
Server-side tracking has the same purpose, but has as a key difference that it sends the user data to a dedicated server first before transferring it to third-party platforms. “This approach offers greater reliability and control over data transmission compared to client-side tracking, and simultaneously can improve the customer experience on the website,” Sarah explains.
“Using server-side tracking, our clients can then have a better understanding of their activities and offer a better experience on their platforms. But we also see server-side tracking as a bridge to more opportunities,” she continued. “This can allow our client to connect all their data sources together, enrich their data and provide a real-time personalised experience for their users.”
From implementation to ownership
Since the concept to develop a new server-side tracking solution was hatched by Digital Power, Sarah has been a key part of the team developing it. She spent months working on the implementation, and having developed a strong interest in the field, it “felt natural” for her to ultimately take ownership of the development of the data solution.
She continues, “At first, it felt like jumping in at the deep end. We had the idea, some technical knowledge and nothing more. Because every implementation we previously did for clients were tailored to their needs, it seemed difficult to draw a general solution from it. But by gathering other colleagues experience and feedback, we’ve been able to identify a pattern and shape our solution.”
This “jumping in at the deep end” was also made less daunting as Digital Power’s team leads and business managers were “very helpful in bridging the gaps we had”, supporting the consultants to “connect all the pieces of the puzzle together”. This included help from colleagues at every step, and “valuable feedback” helping Sarah to further strengthen her own skills in the field.
Personal growth
Reflecting on how the project has helped her hone her abilities, Sarah notes that on server-side tracking first, it helped her to realise that it is not so much an end-goal, as “an open door to many possibilities when working with data systems”. This means that when the firm is in discussion with potential clients, Sarah and her colleagues appreciate how they can help them to identify new opportunities which a server-side tracking implementation can lead to.
On a personal note, Sarah also feels more empowered to think “outside of the technical box”. By being able to ultimately “trust the process”, and tackle challenges one step at a time, she has been able to open up her “creative side” when finding future solutions. Looking ahead, she hopes she can help new arrivals at the firm enjoy the same benefits she has had from her first year at Digital Power.
Sarah concludes, “With this solution bringing new projects, I am looking forward to mentoring junior colleagues on the matter and see server-side tracking becoming a new norm in our field. I hope this solution will lead to our team being able to develop new and innovative follow-up projects.”
