Strategy check 2024 at the campsite

Our strategy check 2024 grounded us Secovians in the literal sense for three days. Instead of a comfortable hotel, a large tent camp served as the basis for our annual review with the entire secova team this time. The main topics this year were internal communication and new or adapted team structures.

Why? We at secova have grown considerably in recent years. Many new people have joined us, and internally we have been able to further strengthen our teams, adapt them and partially reorganize them completely. Our goal remains: We make day-to-day business easier for our customers! This year, the “we” was therefore the focus of our strategy check. The key to our success and the core of Team secova are our shared values. It’s not just what we do, but above all how we do it, work together, plan and implement together – that’s what secova is all about. Simply a little (quite) different from others! To achieve this, it was important to us that our internal teams get to know each other even better.

So the various departments got together in advance and compiled the most important information on their personal “mood board” – for example with content on “What are we responsible for at secova?” or “What have we always wanted to tell you?”. We then set up eight stations on the campsite, at each of which the team leader introduced their team. All the other Secovians were divided into ten groups, which now went from station to station. After the presentation of the mood board, the respective team withdrew and worked out feedback together, which they then presented to the team leader. This not only brought all Secovians up to date, but also provided the respective departments with complex and valuable feedback. Among other things, this now provides us with important information on how we can further optimize our collaboration. By the way, we took the mood boards with us to the office in Rheine. They now remain open for all to see, making our daily work even more transparent internally.

The secova strategy check – since the company was founded in 2008, we have carried it out regularly once a year with the entire team if possible. Because every opinion counts for us, without hierarchy and on an equal footing from the CEO to the trainees. We have been taking three days to do this for some time now. The workshop format has proven to be an ideal way of reflecting on our goals, values, content and direction and then jointly defining guidelines. Our “external” strategy expert Sandra Weber has led and moderated this annual review from the very beginning – she has long since become an integral part of the secova family.

The idea of swapping the comfort zone of a hotel room for an air mattress and sleeping bag had been around for some time. Instead of working digitally with a laptop and overhead projector (unusual for a software company), we worked in the old-fashioned analog way with pens and paper and communicated directly with each other in conversations. Learning from nature – adapting to your environment, but also being able to stand out from the crowd in order to be successful – that has long been our credo. Being able to carry out the annual review in the great outdoors this time brought us even closer together as a team, not just literally.

The supporting program was correspondingly appropriate: almost all meals were taken in a communal tent, and we were even able to enjoy the barbecue evening at a barn restaurant in the open air (thanks to the weather). And even for the journey to and from the event, many of us chose to travel by bike. Admittedly, not every Secovian was equally enthusiastic after the announcement that they would be swapping their comfortable hotel room for an air mattress in a tent at this year’s strategy check.

But here we had thought of something special: Every Secovian who goes along and sleeps in the tent can individually choose a project to support. We will now donate the hotel and catering costs he/she has saved (compared to the previous year) to a good cause. A total of 24,550 euros is now available for this – a nice and meaningful reward for sacrificing a little comfort!
…and we are now asking our Secovians which projects we can support with it…