This article was first published in the September 2021 issue of Australian Printer
A recent national survey commissioned by Vista found more than 1.1 million Australian small business owners have made significant sacrifices in the past year to keep their business afloat.
The survey delved into the reality of life on the hustle during the tough pandemic year, and shows that while the majority of small business champions have been doing it tough, most (71 per cent) said they believe the personal sacrifices made have been worth it or will pay off in the long run.
According to the research, around two in five (38 per cent) of small business owners who have made significant sacrifices have taken on additional work, while one in five (18 per cent) borrowed a significant amount of money from a friend or family member.
A third (32 per cent) of respondents highlighted marketing as one of their biggest challenges in the past year, while a third (33 per cent) noted financial support as a main struggle. One in 10 (10 per cent) called out design as their key pain point.
Having been the CEO of Vista Australia for more than 1.5 years, Marcus Marchant himself took on the reins of the business just as the COVID pandemic hit. We spoke to Marchant about how he led Vista Australia through times of change and what holds for the business in the future ahead.
Q: What is your background in and how did you end up at Vista Australia?
Marcus Marchant (MM): I feel like I’ve lived a couple of lives before I joined Vista. I started as a marketing and acquisitions lawyer, but I wanted a change and more of a commercial role, so joined Citibank in a few roles. From there, I moved on to be the director of digital and onboarding at Optus and then the group chief digital and innovation officer at QBE.
I was drawn to Vista after meeting the executive team, including founder Robert Keane and seeing the enormous opportunity. Vista is a $2 billion start-up which, after 25 years, continues to innovate and change the game by providing marketing solutions to small businesses.
Q: You took on the CEO role at Vista Australia just around when the pandemic hit. What were your initial reactions?
MM: Yes, it wasn’t quite a fun start! I was in the role for a week and had just enough time to visit our Boston headquarters. When I returned home, we immediately went into lockdown.
My initial reaction was that of concern, but once we got through the uncertainty of those first few months, the team really found its groove. We pulled together, pivoted where it mattered and started building our roadmap for growth. We were lucky that FY21 was a very strong year for us thanks to our strategy and the products we brought to market.
Q: How did you navigate change within the business at that time, especially as a new CEO?
MM: There were definitely some tough periods – we had to do stand-downs and ask our team to reduce their workdays. Plus, our Melbourne production facility went through lockdowns a couple of times.
Our leadership team focused on completely transparency, constant communication and listening to our teams. We weren’t eligible for any of the government assistance packages, but paid those amounts anyway to impacted employees.
Q: What were some trends that you noticed emerge during COVID?
MM: We saw fantastic growth in people starting businesses from home and utilising our products – from business cards to stickers and packaging – to get set-up. We saw some categories grow more exponentially (like canvases, mugs and photo products), while demand in some other categories (like invitations, understandably) fell.
Internally, like a lot of workplaces, we learnt new ways to communicate and engage with our team members. We tried and tested everything from daily stand-ups to coffee shop team meetings – and landed on a mix of that was fun and worked for our team.
We also dramatically improved our onboarding experience (a lot of our new starters had to onboard from home) and implemented additional payments to fund new home office set-ups.
Q: How did Vista Australia navigate change and adapt to take advantage of these trends?
MM: On a product level, we introduced some great new offerings – custom face masks being one. We saw a gap in the market for super high-quality masks with filters that were completely customisable.
We were very lucky in Australia and at Vista that COVID-19 didn’t impact our financials in a major way. We spent the year investing in our five-year strategy development, hiring amazing people and implementing changes to our website to bring us onto a world-class platform.
Q: How much did the business have to pivot in terms of direction?
MM: We pivoted our sales and go-to-market plans and really listened to what our customers needed at the time. We created design templates for new regulations and uses – like floor decals – showing people where to stand and social distancing signs.
At a high level, we were lucky enough to not have to change our tactical direction too much. We kept on with our strategy and refined our operation model as planned.
Q: Using your experience as an entrepreneur, how did you lead this change?
MM: I helped the team get as close as possible to our customers and invested heavily in personalisation. We spent lots of time looking at what people were doing with our products and created designs to make things easier for them.
Q: How did your prior work experience lend itself to you leading change in the business?
MM: In my previous roles, I led teams of human-centred designers who were highly integrated into our product development lifecycle. Vista has a long history of listening to customers and understanding their needs, and I think in the last 12 months, some of that human-centred design approach has really developed as a critical skill in the company.
My previous roles in strategy also obviously helped – having a clear north star and a team engaged around that single vision is key. I’m proud that over the last 12 months, our leadership team has set that vision for the Australian business and that everyone clearly understands how they contribute to making it happen.
Q: What is your short- to medium-term vision for Vista’s future?
MM: We have strong growth aspirations for Vista in Australia and have developed a great plan to deliver on that in the next few years. From dramatically increasing the number of products on offer with the help of our production facility in Melbourne and third party fulfillers, to launching a new Vista Corporate Solutions team to focus on supporting small to medium enterprises with large customisation needs – we’re really excited for what the future holds.
Q: How will the company support its customers going forward?
MM: Well, product expansion is the key. But we see ourselves as the marketing partner for small businesses, and another crucial element of that partnership is making great design easy and accessible.
We’re investing heavily in making the Vista design experience as easy as possible, whether you are doing it yourself or with our help. With our recent investment in 99designs, you’ll also see new ways to design and customise products coming to market.
Q: What will be your direction in leading this charge?
MM: It’s all about our people and our customers. We’ll continue to hire and develop amazing people and listen to what our customers need.
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