Q&A Session With Mobiteam Founder Marcel Sobieski: How Digital Agencies Are Responding to COVID-19 Crisis
Marcel Sobieski, the founder of the digital agency Mobiteam, answered our questions regarding digital transformation.
Below, he shared how Mobiteam had already been prepared for remote work as an agency, how much discount they offer to new clients to support them, and more.
Q1. Digital transformation for companies and brands has become almost mandatory in a very short time. As a digital agency, how are you handling this process? Can you please share some concrete examples elaborating your digital transformation process?
First of all, thanks for inviting me and Mobiteam for this interview.
Now about your question – we do that for many years. We are in the IT industry and everyone expects this transformation to come from companies like ours. All our tech assets are in the cloud – the design, the code, the logs, the backups. The team is in the office but the next hour we can all be working with the same efficiency from home.
The legend that we, in IT, can work from Bali or Peru is very relative. Being a freelancer – maybe. But as a team player, with daily sprints, calls and chat, that becomes a little more complicated. And I’m still not sure about the quality of this work. I heard some people manage it well, but not within teams and companies. I’m a fan of office work and in-person meetings.
We use the same very useful tools for our work: Asana, Slack, Zoom and the old phone.
With our help, our existing clients are transforming their operations as well and love it. It turns out that it is actually more efficient than before. But, you might get bored pretty easily, because of fewer interactions with others though.
Q2. Can you share some precautions you have taken to continue business as usual during the COVID-19 outbreak?
The first things we did – immediate isolation and work from home. Mandatory for everyone. I am one of those who consider temporary isolation better than no isolation and letter regret when things get out of hand.
The same with our clients. At Mobiteam we are doing now absolutely all the meetings on Zoom, emails or phone. I think after 2-3 months now, everyone is used and is feeling OK with this.
Q3. What industries are your clients mainly focused on? How has COVID-19 affected these industries?
Of course. We have some big and dead clients who are suffering from the outbreak. For instance the Ministry of Tourism oh the Philippines. We developed for them their touristic platform for the German and French-speaking countries. You can imagine – everyone is stopped for them. But for us, Mobiteam as a web design and development company, things are OK, we continue working on the project.
Another important client who suffered is coming as well from the tourism industry. It is a leading Berlin Guide Tour, who is obviously on the side for several months.
Nonetheless, we adjusted our offers and are offering to all our new clients a 25% discount. To help them pass these times. At the end of the day, it is a win-win situation. We are also happy with having continuous work in progress.
Q4. What are your insights into digital transformation within different industries? How do you think they will evolve?
Most of the companies will adapt and improvise. We live in a changing world and open source information. We see good examples and bad examples within minutes from all over the world. Of course, they will inspire other managers, leaders and employees to adapt and survive.
For some specific industries and businesses, this could be the end.
But I think this end was imminent because they did not transform when they had to. Just like Nokia, if you know what I mean.
Now the keyword is digital transformation.
Q5. Companies are now investing more on various digital channels. Based on your know-how in digital marketing, which sectors should focus on investing in which digital channels?
Every business is specific. What works for one, does not for the other. Probably we should be more specific with separate cases and companies.
On the other hand, investing more in a digital channel doesn’t mean that it will bring you the clients. The client maybe wants to start and is eager to do that, but he can’t because the chain is broken. His suppliers or executors aren’t operational.
These cases need particular attention and investigation. It is important to mention that my answers are written on May 29th 2020, which is why they might be obsolete and obvious later in time.
Q6. After the COVID-19 crisis, it is expected that the need for digital agencies will increase. Companies will invest in digital more than ever. In this case, why do you think they should partner with your digital agency?
We have the same assumption and hope. But again, there is a chain, if things are going well for one, it should go well for the next one too. Otherwise, there will be many bottlenecks and companies will have the desire to move forward, but incapable because of their industries or government regulations.
As I mentioned above, we are aware that given COVID-19, many people are currently under enormous pressure regarding the future of their organizations. We would like to support our current and future clients and therefore apply a 25% reduction from the regular price.
Why you should hire us is straightforward and clear. Mobiteam is a Web Design and Development agency from Berlin. We are specialized in designing aesthetically beautiful and high-quality websites for corporate, personal and eCommerce. Our clients get websites that sell, attract and obtain market and customer’s respect.
Mobiteam creates custom web projects since 2012 and has a team of 12. Besides custom design and development for our clients, we do also startups by ourselves. We launched 3 startups and made 2 exits to US and UK companies so far.
Q7. Are there any practices that you have adjusted during COVID-19 that you would like to continue after this crisis ends? (e.g. remote working)
To tell you the truth, our work was very efficient and smooth all this time. For us, things did not change at all. I am talking about the operations, communication within the team and the clients. The methodologies we use, everything is the same.
With the pandemic, we just realised how important it is to be prepared and always adapt your operations in such a way, to be as independent as possible.
For the future, we will continue doing so and make things even better.
Q8. How does being a DAN member contribute to your agency’s success?
We are glad and grateful that you are part of this together with us and many others. Mobiteam appreciates your efforts to help the industry and many people involved in it. In response, we hope to return everything with what we can.
We look forward to our further cooperation and why not, having a good beer here in Berlin at a terrace full of people. 🙂
About Mobiteam
Mobiteam does custom Web Design and Development. Since 2013, it is specialized in creating aesthetically beautiful, user-friendly and high-quality websites.
