Brainstorming Core Values of Agilis

What do you get when you bring together a team of young, fun, creative,   talented and animated professionals and ask them to spend three hours   brainstorming ideas on how to frame your company’s future vision? Brilliance?   Chaos? Eye-opening revelations? Or a tedious afternoon of playing mundane   games of corporate “group-think”? Honestly, I didn’t know the answer to this   question until we got together last month, although one thing I could bet on –   that it was going to be anything but boring!

  And so, on an early December afternoon, the core Agilis team got together to   try and generate fresh ideas on how to define (and refine) Agilis’ core   values, vision, and mission going forward.

  When we first founded Agilis, the main idea behind it was simple: to provide a   service that nobody else was offering to businesses along the entire chemical   value chain. We knew that producers, buyers and distributors wanted (and   needed!) to establish their online presence, but didn’t have the right   in-house tools, or a suitable commercial solution that could easily and   cost-effectively get them there. That initial vision was clear enough to   understand, it resonated well with our early customers.

  Fast-forward three years, and Agilis has matured from an early-stage startup   to a fast-growing technology company with a rapidly expanding customer base.   And while we still believe that our principal goal is to enable e-commerce   technology adoption among chemical producers, buyers and intermediaries, we   thought it would be a worthwhile exercise to revisit some of the basics:

 
• What are our core values?
 
• What type of company culture do we want to build?
 
• Which companies and brands do we want to resemble?
 
• What ideas we want to diverge from?
 
•     How do we want to be seen by our customers/prospects, and even competitors?  
 
• What kind of brand experience do we want to offer our customers?
 
• What does it mean to us to be “customer-centric”?
 
• Why we do what we do, and what drives us to do it?

  And with a team as young and creative as the current Agilis crew, we knew that   after a few hours of hard-core thinking, we were bound to come up with   something good.

  A set of focused exercises, expertly moderated by our creative design genius   Wendy, helped get everyone in the right mindset. Do we want to be more like an   established brand (dependable, reputable, but generally unexciting), or an   innovative, disruptive enterprise that’s challenging the status quo? Which   brands are closest to Agilis in attitude, their feelings toward customers, and   their personalities? GM or Tesla? Red Bull or Coke? Salesforce or Microsoft?   Jennifer Lawrence, Kim Kardashian, or Lizzo? (OK, this last one may have   little to do with a corporate vision but actually revealed how well-versed our   team members are in the current celebrity culture!)

  Of course, what came out of the session was not a complete and polished set of   press-ready statements, yet, it was immensely encouraging. We immersed   ourselves into discussing what’s important to us as a team and as a company,   and I think we now have a clearer idea of the direction we need to go. Here   are some highlights:

 
•     Credibility is our #1 asset. Our solutions are built by veteran industry     professionals with decades of experience in buying and selling chemicals. We     are a technology company with an industry background.  
 
•     We are all about teamwork. We are here for each other, supporting one     another to get the job done right.  
 
•     The key ingredient in Agilis is AGILITY. Our solutions are fast, efficient,     and elegant. They can adapt to our customers’ changing needs and shifting     business priorities. Our job is to make our customers’ job easier, not     complicate them with another layer of complexity.  
 
•     We are customer centric. Focusing on the customer is our top priority. Our     solutions were created to specifically support the buyers and sellers of     chemicals, and we will continue to focus on their unique needs and build     products that would augment and support, not destroy and disrupt their     business models.  
 
•     We have a vision for the long term and won’t take shortcuts. Easy fixes may     be, well, easy, but Agilis’ goal is to reframe how the chemical industry     uses e-commerce tools, and we are prepared to go the distance to do it right.  
 
•     We value loyalty and integrity. We are loyal to our customers and work     on building solid relationships, so that they are loyal to us. We strive for     honesty, taking ownership, having accountability, and building trust.  
 
•     Innovation is in our blood. We are creative, smart and playful. We have a     vision for the future and work hard to bring this vision into fruition.  

  I left the session smiling – what started as an idea in my head is now a   successful company with a solid vision for the future, complete with a   fantastic crew of enthusiastic, like-minded people.

  Soon enough you will see a refined and perfectly wordsmithed version of our   "vision and mission" on our new website. But in the meantime, I wanted to share   with you this communal experience that our team had a few weeks ago. We will   do it again soon – it's good to get the creative energy flowing. Who knows   what we will come up next!