UniServices wanted to create an identity that captured everything it does, simply and effectively for all. They knew there was a common purpose and people spoke to similar reasons for what they do but it wasn’t clearly articulated and over the years parts of the business had fostered identities away from UniServices. UniServices wanted their internal vision and purpose to come from the people who lived and breathed the organisation and wanted this to form the basis of their external proposition to also resonate with its diverse clients.
CEO Andy Shenk realised that for the organisation to reach its full commercial potential (for its parent the University of Auckland), it needed to reunite its people and present a stronger and more consistent brand to the world.
We recommended UniServices create a stronger identity through clearly-defining its culture, brand proposition and story.
UniServices is a diverse organisation, spread over multiple sites across Auckland. We interviewed senior leaders, commercial clients, and we brought its people together to workshop what UniServices stood for. We ran a number of Values Sessions using the Ocean Values Deck to help the organisation articulate what was important to it.
We learnt that UniServices has a deeply held purpose that comes from its unique mix of academic, and commercial drivers. UniServices through partnership with the best minds in academia and business is able to apply intelligent thinking to ideas that have the potential to change the world. When it does this it creates enormous value for its stakeholders.
We realised that if we engaged the 500+ staff of UniServices around this idea we would enable a renewed sense of pride and belonging from them. We knew we must keep it simple enough for people at every level of UniServices to be able to engage with their purpose, vision and values. To engage people and influence behaviour we needed to achieve high-levels of ongoing participation. You cannot ‘tell’ people what they need to do.
Work continues in the organisation to ensure the programme remains alive and relevant to UniServices vision and strategic objectives.
“The team at Ocean created an internal and external identity we can live and breathe. It resonated immediately with our C suite and employees and it also rings true for our complex range of stakeholders. We can proudly and simply say who we are and what we stand for - Ideas to life.”
Dr. Andy Shenk (CE)
