Meet Partnerships Manager, Tim Hill 💛

So…apparently it’s already October? Whether you’re excited about darker evenings, Halloween sweets and pumpkin carving, or not, this means we are onto our next employee spotlight! This month, we chatted to our Partnership Manager, Tim, who works hard to nurture and grow business partnerships so Orca can flourish in the tech world 💛

A little bit of context: Meet Tim 💛

Name: Tim

Age: 55

Degree: Business Studies

Current role: Partnership Manager

Orca-Anniversary: February 2022

How do you start your day; are you a tea or coffee man?

Early morning tea, then coffee in the office.

Can you describe your current role as Partnership Manager at Orca Scan?

I help the team build and manage relationships with key customers and partners including hardware manufacturers and resellers, barcode administrative bodies like GS1, HIBCC, and ICCBBA, industry trade groups, innovation hubs, public sector procurement bodies, the NHS and a whole range of external stakeholders.

I also look for opportunities to collaborate with others who might benefit from working with Orca Scan, with the goal of improving our product and user experience, growing our revenue and extending our global reach and reputation.

Customers are at the heart of what we do so I take part in our customer review programme and meet with customers to understand how they are using the app, and to see if there are any features or improvements that could make their experience even better 💛

Last but not least, I manage some longer term projects, such as our Cyber Essentials Plus accreditation which we achieved in July, and wrote the office health and safety policy, I am also the office First Aider and Fire Officer🔥

What does a typical day look like for you?

06:45 My wife Sarah’s alarm goes off, she’s a primary school teacher, I make us a cup of tea.

06:55 Read the i newspaper on my iPad, check my emails and Slack.

07:30 Wake up my 11 year old son Barney.

07:35 Have a bowl of porridge and a chat with Barney, help him get ready and send him off to school on his bike.

08:15 Cycle into the office.

08:30 I start my working day by checking my Notion inbox and organising any tasks that I am tagged in by colleagues. These are priority as they will be sprint related tasks, so I don’t want to be a blocker!

09:00: Then I “Eat the frog” - which is to complete my most difficult, frustrating, or tedious tasks — aka the FROG — before starting the ones I’d rather do. This is something I learned in my very first job in 1991, it comes from motivational speaker Brian Tracy whose ‘audio tapes’ I listened to in my company car, (do I need to explain what audio tapes are?!🤣). Today my Frog was to send a load of follow-up emails.

10:00 - 17:00: On a typical day I juggle a mix of short, medium and long term projects all with the support of colleagues primarily in the marketing, design, customer success and strategy teams.

Sometimes, I get to attend conferences or industry shows, such as the Retail Tech Show, Construction Tech Show, Healthcare Technology Show, or a GS1 UK / Convenzis Healthcare Conference. These help us keep abreast of the latest innovations and customer needs, and spark ideas which I feedback to the team.

Yesterday, I had a customer review call with an awesome logistics company in Ohio who were very enthusiastic about using Orca Scan to help them streamline a laptop recycling service they offer to global financial services customers 🚀

How do you identify and approach potential partners?

As an innovative market leader we receive lots of inbound enquiries, and I look for opportunities within these that can help us extend the reach, and profile, of Orca Scan.

In terms of identifying and approaching partners, this is determined by our mission of making barcode tracking available to all regardless of budget or technical ability! I am constantly on the look-out for innovative, entrepreneurial partners who can help us improve our platform and in turn, the customers’ experience of Orca.

What defines a successful partnership to you?

A fair, open, equitable and collaborative partnership from which both parties, and our 360k users, will benefit.

I particularly enjoy partnerships that involve building teams (rather than egos!) where we all bring together ideas and skill sets that complement each other, and share the goal of helping customers solve a challenge. For example, this month we were invited to Datalogic’s Partner Day to demo our Recalled Healthcare Product solution for the NHS.

Myself, Raj and Maeve alongside Cris and Alex, Engineers at Datalogic, set up Orca Scan on a Datalogic Memor scanner which was used on the day to explain to visitors how a typical NHS Hospital has to deal with 20-50 product recalls a week, and how our scanning solution helps the NHS quickly and efficiently manage the problem.

What has been your favourite partnership since working at Orca?

We’ve just started a very exciting collaboration with the Centre for Computing History in Cambridge. The Centre tells the inspirational story of the information age and Cambridge’s important role in that, and holds one of the most impressive computing collections in the world, including an Altair 8800, the first home computer.

We were asked to build an exhibition to celebrate the 50th Anniversary of the first barcode scan - a key moment in computing history and tell the story of how barcodes have revolutionised how computer systems track physical objects.

The whole team was involved in building the exhibition, from Veronica’s design to words from Abby and Maeve and, of course, insights from our CEO John, and support from Datalogic, our external partners whose scanner was used to scan the very first barcode… a packet of Juicy Fruit Gum 👏

We also took expert technical advice from Ben Clarke, Head of Standards and Education at GS1 UK, and Phil Archer, resident Web geek at GS1 Global Office.

We launched the exhibition as part of Cambridge Tech Week and had a huge amount of interest in Cambridge and beyond. The content, like all that in the Centre, is written to inspire children and all ages so it’s been a hugely rewarding and inclusive partnership.

Can you name some of the biggest challenges you face in your role?

My initial challenges were mainly around a lack of confidence as I hadn’t worked with a Cambridge tech company before. It was a mixture of imposter syndrome and a genuine lack of knowledge of how a SaaS business works. The team have been really supportive and I have learned absolutely loads in the time I have been here. Thanks to the patience of my colleagues, in particular Sasha and Josh, I can now even work a MacBook Pro and remember some of my passwords.

Other challenges have been around focusing on the right projects and not letting myself get sucked into shiny new projects that are not going to immediately help our customers or deliver revenue.

We heard you previously worked in marketing, can you tell us a bit about the roles and experiences that led you to this position?

Yes, I’m a marketer with two Postgraduate Diplomas - one in Marketing one in and Public Relations. I’ve been head of Marketing for an ice cream manufacturer, two law firms and an executive education institute.

All of the organisations I have worked with have been innovative and outward facing, so my marketing roles have been a balance of customer care and desk-based work, and included a decent chunk of corporate relations, and business development responsibilities as well as more traditional Marcomms. These experiences have proved very useful in my role at Orca.

You use the office most days for work, but how do you feel about remote working? Is this something you enjoy or do you prefer to be in the office with others?

I am spoilt because our office is in the Allia Future Business Centre - a vibrant entrepreneurial hub, right in the middle of Cambridge - so I enjoy the buzz of that, the food stalls on the market and the banter with colleagues and other people in the Centre.

And, on a selfish level, I get to subliminally improve my customer and product knowledge by listening to CSMs on customer calls when in the office.

However, I enjoy working at home some days as I can hyper-focus, and also get a few loads of washing and a bit of tidying done - happy wife = happy life.

Could you name a few of your favourite things about working at Orca Scan?

I enjoy that we are a small (but growing), ambitious team and all get on well. In spite of being ‘remote’ we talk daily and work on projects across teams.

My colleagues are all very bright and action-focused which means that we get things done rather than procrastinate, and we don’t get bogged down in office politics.

Our shared sense of urgency and support for each other means we ship features and solve problems for customers quickly and I find that very motivating. I enjoy being part of a team that works in fortnightly sprints and watching how conversations at Sprint Planning and Strategy meetings morph into projects that move us forward and grow the business.

I enjoy the social side of our fortnightly online games sessions, spontaneous nights out in Cambridge and team away trips with the rest of the team.

As Orca Scan has grown with the support of the University of Cambridge’s Judge Business School Accelerate Programme, I get to attend relevant sessions that are focused on helping entrepreneurial businesses like Orca accelerate their growth. It’s a fantastic learning experience and inspiring community.

Thanks Tim! We’re excited to see the partnerships that you create and grow at Orca! If you want to see more of our great team, and the fun we get up to behind the scenes, check out our socials - LinkedIn, X & Instagram.