We have Tanya Drerup, the CPO for creative technology company Mash on Tech Tools. In this section, we share how some of the amazing entrepreneurs, business leaders and trailblazers manage their work and day with the help of the many technology tools out there.
Tanya is an accomplished technology leader with over 12 years of experience and has delivered a plethora of business transformation solutions for the finance, technology, government and energy sectors. Prior to joining creative technology company, Mash, she held senior product positions at FrankieOne, MYOB and carsales.com.au.
Muneer Mohammed, Founder of Stroztech uses these tools to manage his business
With a deep understanding of customer-centricity, she fervently believes in the power of aligning business systems with the needs and aspirations of customers. She is currently working directly with the founders to spearhead Mash’s technology transformation; harnessing AI and data to build Mash into a global virtual studio and project management platform.
Founded in 2018, Mash is the preferred creative partner for innovative brands seeking to make a significant impact in APAC markets. Mash’s curated teams draw on global experts and local specialists, supported by world-class infrastructure to integrate seamlessly into any business and drive transformational business outcomes. Mash’s global talent pool is made up of over 200 Mashers across more than 31 countries that have produced outstanding creative work for titans of industries, NFPs and promising startups, scaleups and everything in between.
Zapier helps with workflow automation (Paid)
As a business grows and you look to reduce the amount of swivel chair processes within your business, Zapier is a powerful automation tool that allows you connect workflows without having to know how to code.
It is another user friendly tool assist in enhancing productivity, and reducing data entry points so you can focus on getting on with the work.
One of my favourite things about the platform is its ‘set and forget’ functionality. In a creative technology business, where time is always a scarcity, it helps to have automation in place that can carry some of the mental load for you.
Visualise and plan your work with Miro (Free)
Miro is definitely a product to look out for if you’re in product management. I first discovered it years ago and relied on it heavily during lockdown because it was so easy to run workshops on the platform; which was particularly useful with decentralised teams.
Teams need the ability to brainstorm, ideate, plan and visualise their work. I love using MIRO as an online white-boarding platform as it is powerful for design collaboration, building workflows and can also integrate with other tools such as Slack and Google to round out internal workflow management. Their templates are a great time saver as well, as it saves you from having to build out something like a customer journey map from scratch.
Jira helps with project management (Paid)
I have used a few tools for project management over the course of my career, but one I keep coming back to for technology teams is JIRA.
It is particularly well-suited for supporting agile ways of working and software development teams as has features that are customised to issue tracking and bug reporting. I also like that teams can choose whether they want to adopt Scrum or Kanban frameworks and it easily integrates with tools such as Bitbucket, Jenkins and service desk tools to integrate workflow for software teams.
If I had one suggestion for improvement, it would adding in a function for easy collaboration on the platform.
Integrate your customer relationships with Hubspot (Paid)
Another simple to use and cost effective tool for startups looking to have an all-in-one, integrated Customer Relationship Management(CRM) platform is Hubspot.
It is very much the old faithful of tech tools, and it’s easy to understand why. It’s quick to implement and can scale with a business as their processes become more complex.
At a time where customer experience and feedback is paramount, it is a critical tool that can help an organisation delve into those insights and align business systems with the needs and aspirations of customers.
Mixpanel to manage data insights (Paid)
Technology startups that need to quickly and deeply understand how users are engaging with their platform and utilise those data insights to inform the evolution of their product should be looking at Mixpanel.
It allows for AB testing, cohort analysis, event tracking and funnel analysis- all core features to inform adoption and retention decisions.
A standout feature of Mixpanel is its ability to show you the holistic picture of each user’s journey which means you compare users who came to you via social media as opposed to paid ads. This gives the platform a distinct advantage over Google Analytics.