In today’s episode, we talk about how companies and individuals are trying to be more competitive not only in a changing business climate but also a changing social climate,
Welcome Dean Sonderegger to the Entelechy Leadership Stories podcast.
Dean is Senior Vice President at Wolters Kluwer (public company) – an information services company that provides legal, software, and business solutions.
They have 19,200 employees, and in 2020, the company brought in over €4.6 billion in annual revenue and has thousands of clients – including 93% of the Fortune 500 companies.
Dean says, "After spending 7 wonderful years at Wolters Kluwer in the legal markets, I've transitioned back to the tax world and am happy to share that I’m starting a new position as SVP & General Manager Canada and R&L at Wolters Kluwer!"
Dean is also a highly-desired speaker in business leadership with a focus on the rapid development of advanced digital products and services to enhance efficiencies and workflow in any organization.
Some things Dean speaks about on the podcast:
- How smaller businesses and organizations can compete with giants like Wolters Kluwer.
- Innovative business practices for staying ahead of the competition.
- Scaling the company, coming up with a clear strategy and the future of business.
- Business transformation, building up remote teams, and the future of work.
Dean's passion is cemented by the fact that he is an engineer. Engineers have a problem-solving mentality. For him, his purpose is to be able to solve the problem elegantly and then to bring, be able to bring a group of people along with him to do it.
Some 20 years ago, the company focused on legal professionals and provided books and loose periodicals around the law. A lot of our patterns and what the company does has changed in addition how they measure value in our lives has also changed.
With technology, the market is now more focused on how do you get the job done effectively, and especially for businesses and leaders, businesses have to help their organization shift to meet that new definition of value for both customers and staff.
The solution is to put the customer at the focus of things, an overlay of that, along with the strong set of respect for the folks that are working the business gives you to a point from a team standpoint, where there is the ability to achieve substantial and significant things. In the absence of that, you don't get that loyalty, you don't get that drive inside the company. It's unbalanced.
How does a company like Wolters Kluwer, adapt to the digital technology-driven markets today. And how do they stay relevant being a historically larger company? For Wolters Kluwer, a few methods they have used to remedy this is having people that are out actively in the marketplace to understand what's going on by talking to customers, talking to partners, looking at some innovative startups, and therefore getting people visibility into the market, starting to reset the conversation with input directly from the market
When it comes to providing value to teams, as a leader you're focusing on the development of employees. That should be a two-way conversation. They should be talking to you about what they want, and then you should be able to give them some feedback on the same.
While for purpose-driven companies, what should new leaders focus on? Leaders to make sure that they are providing an environment where people see purpose in the work that they do, they see opportunities for advancement, while making work more meaningful.
In summary, What does Dean see on the horizon when we talk about transformation? The concept of diversity and the importance of diversity in business; Ethical supply chain sourcing-do we know who it is that's working in our factories that are providing these in the different countries, are the people treated in a humane fashion, or are the suppliers wreaking havoc on the environment?
You can find Dean on:
Company Website:Wolters Kluwer
LinkedIn: Dean Sonderegger
Above the Law: Articles by Dean Sonderegger