Wise is a technology company that is revolutionising the self-employment experience through innovation.
Dan Richards, Chief Commercial Officer at Wise, speaks to Warehouse & Logistics News.
Chief Commercial Officer
Explain what Wise does in one sentence?
Wise provides easy-to-use technology to companies that work with self-employed individuals, improving their entire experience from onboarding to payments.
What does your role involve on a day-to-day basis?
Overall, my job is to ensure we spread the good news that Wise is here to help a very underserviced industry with the very best tech. I lead the company’s commercial growth plan, manage the sales & marketing division, and support the wider team whenever required. As a board member, I help set the overall strategic direction for the business.
How would you explain the Wise Culture?
Vibrant, collaborative, tenacious, diverse, inclusive. We’re striving to be a place people really want to work. As a business, we’re in a continuous cycle of iteration to become a market-leading employer.
How does this culture assist your clients’ requirements?
The culture naturally lends itself to problem-solving. Technology companies go stale when the team becomes complacent, believing they have the answers, and they stop listening. We’re constantly listening and learning, which leads to improvements in technology and the Wise service in general.
How closely do you work with Wise’s clients?
I’m actively involved with our client base and I’m fortunate enough to regularly speak to many prospective Wise clients to best understand their challenges. We wouldn’t be where we are without our clients, they’ve been loyal to us, and many of them have helped us with feedback and analysis which has contributed towards becoming the company we are now. If any of our current clients read this – thank you from the whole team.
What makes Wise unique in your industry and what problems do you solve for clients?
What makes Wise unique is that we take a complete market view approach. Over the years, we’ve looked at the supply chain and created a solution that deals with issues at each level. We’ve invested heavily in tech and people, so our service levels have remained high whilst we’ve scaled. We’ll continue to invest and deliver on our ongoing mission to improve self-employment.
What is the reason behind Wise’s growth over the last two years?
The team, the clients, the timing. It goes without saying; we couldn’t have done it without the great team we have. The support of our clients has been invaluable. The market conditions have also been a big factor as the pandemic led to a rise in parcel volumes and our tech helps onboard drivers and get them on the road quickly, so timing, without a doubt, was a significant component.
How future-proof and flexible are your solutions?
We’re working in an ever-changing industry, so to say our tech is “future-proof” would be naive – I’d say the team and our ethos as a company enable us to be future-proof. We’re actively listening and trying to stay ahead of industry change within self-employment. On top of this, we’re highly flexible and the Wise system is fully configurable, whilst being supported by a team with experience across the board.
What new services/solutions are you offering in the coming year?
We’ll continue to improve our tech, adding new features to further help our clients, including automated driving license checks, new payments technology and the first version of a workforce scheduling tool. We’re keen to give something back to the self-employed driver community and so Wise app users will soon be able to access specially negotiated discounts and offers – free of charge!
What do you see as the biggest opportunities in the coming year for Wise?
Every problem is an opportunity. We’re problem solvers, and the technical and business roadmap is full of exciting avenues we can explore. The most significant opportunity is probably to keep underpinning the right conditions for self-employment to continue to be a thriving sector in the UK.
What are the biggest challenges facing Wise and your industry as a whole?
Recruiting and retaining talent is a challenge for all technology businesses and also an issue our logistics clients face. We’re taking steps on both fronts to boost our efforts and continue to support our clients when it comes to personnel.
Wise
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