2021 Rewind
I was once told that successful leaders are victims of their own success. It’s been my guideline ever since to be humble and not to trust that what worked once will always work. At the end of the year, it’s always good to look back and learn what to do better next year.
2021 was the year when we learned that working remotely was not going to be a short-term anomaly. At Avalon CX, we adapted to new ways to work and like virtual meetings, using Oculus. Andre wrote about our experience on VR on his blog earlier this month.
This year has also been a year of growth for us. We have hired multiple new employees and started to work on new interesting projects. We have been keeping our eyes open for new ways of collaborating with our customers and also building the team and culture without meeting in person.
Our client projects
In line with our strategy, we have grown our design and software development practices. Microsoft is one of our larger customers we can mention by name. We did, for example, help expand Surface Duo on other large/dual-screen device awareness. This work culminated in the Design. Code. Launch event organized by Avalon CX in collaboration with Microsoft.
We have also conducted market research and interviews both online and face-to-face. We have arranged innovation and co-creation workshops with several clients, helping build new products, experiences, and online presence. Our deep understanding of consumer products, including both software and hardware, has helped several companies this year.
On the development side, we have been involved in interesting projects. On the backend, we have been working on security and compliance-framed back-end development. There have been elements of cloud integration as well as isolated, local systems. We have created mobile apps and other front-end experiences on the front end.
Everything we do is guided by a crystal clear focus and deep appreciation of customer experience.
Our team
“Take Care Of Your Employees, And They’ll Take Care Of Your Business”, said Richard Branson, and he nailed it. Lately, we have grown at a rate of over one new employee per month. Achieving this requires two things:
- We built machinery that scales. With machinery, we don’t mean something impersonal. Rather, an operation that is automated and planned ahead to avoid the chaotic nature of some start-ups entering. When the system works, we can dedicate our time to the human touch, operating in line with the culture we want to have.
- We put a lot of effort into finding people that fit in with the team. During 2021 we evaluated over 250 people and interviewed many more. All skilled people and excellent candidates, but they were not necessarily a perfect match for what we were looking for. It takes a lot of time and effort to find the right people, but in the long run, it pays off.
We’re lucky to have a team that’s highly skilled and energetic. We’d like to thank all our employees and our partners for being part of the extended team!
Our results
In summary, we are proud of our achievements in 2021. In the middle of the pandemic, we have built a company that feels good to be part of. We’re working on exciting client projects, and we’re surrounded by great colleagues. We’re getting great feedback from our clients and are thankful for their continued trust in us. Avalon CX is a profitable and growing company rooted in a healthy culture and an exciting company to work with.
We’d like to thank our employees, partners, and clients for an exciting 2021. We look forward to an even better 2022! You can read about our predictions for 2022 here.
