Five questions with... Nick Richardson, Head of Strategy

We've been catching up with some of the CTI Digital team, asking them to explain what they do and why they do it.

This week, it's the turn of our Head of Strategy, Nick Richardson.

CTI: Hi Nick! Tell us what's great about your job and what's not so great?

Nick Richardson: I really enjoy getting to work across a lot of different challenges, talking to lots of different clients and across different fields and industries.

I think one of the challenges maybe is - sometimes we have to take customers on a little bit of a journey to become more consultative. We're not just an agency that does one particular thing or just sells service lines; we're much more about unlocking the value proposition for customers and prospects.

What makes a good strategist?

NR: Strategy in itself, as a title, is quite amorphous. The strategy department at CTI extends to brand strategy, UX, product strategy and then CRO. The common theme across all those different crafts is a keen sense of curiosity, interest and being able to talk to people.

What makes a good strategy client?

NR: I think an ideal client for a strategist is someone who's able to trust a digital partner, to start to tell us the unvarnished truth about maybe some of the things that they're struggling with, or where they want to be in a couple of years time. As opposed to just asking for a service line and never really letting us see behind the curtain.

Getting that wider context at the start, and with total alignment on value and goals, it really helps in reaching a successful outcome from a strategy perspective.

The big AI question: how has it impacted the work of, and also the appreciation of a strategist?

NR: I think AI is the biggest, most transformational technology of my life. However, I do think the fact that AI can make building things faster, means that projects can get further along (and more expensive) before they ultimately fail.

So, in effect, the worst thing about AI is that you can run with a bad idea just as fast as you can run with a great idea. Sometimes slowing down that process or understanding how to fail fast, to back out of bad ideas quicker, is more important than ever.

From a strategy perspective, it's made some of the job quite a lot easier and a lot more accessible (across data and trends), which is great because the more people that understand the strategic plan and thinking the better.

But that really human edge - understanding sentiment, looking at the sum of all the parts and recognising what makes competitors really resonate with users and prospects - that's still the key difference.

I also think that perhaps you get a few more eye rolls than you used to when you mention strategic planning. The people that are already initiated (with indiscriminate use of AI) can often assume that you've simply been pumping questions into a model.

How has your job changed over the past 10 years and what might the next 10 years hold?

NR: It sounds pretty uninspiring but I think AI notation and transcription has been amazingly transformational - more than I would love to admit - just because it's so much easier now to focus on the meeting and have everyone in the room truly present. Rather than having to, in the older days, have a more junior member of staff purely writing notes they don't really ever see again, in a meeting that they don't really understand. That always seemed to me like an insane process. Or you'd have to write and make the notes at the same time, which means that you're, at best, half in and half out.

I wish I could say something a bit more transformational there. But I suppose I always think of AI as a great solution looking for the right problem - there are, of course, a lot more use cases now than there were, and use cases where it fits really well. And over the next 10 years, the possibilities for value are essentially endless.

There are also obviously much bigger ramifications of an agent going rogue with access to all of your data, all of your customer data than with any other technology ever. So, I think it's a bit of a double edge sword - but you know, I'm hoping for a digital twin future where maybe there's only added-value meetings and those ones that could have been an email could be 'twin to twin'.

Bonus question: We heard you're a foodie. What's your favorite sandwich filling?

NR: I'm a big time Reuben guy!

Get in touchto talk to Nick and his strategy team.