Social Strategic Analysis of Klick Health

Introduction: About Klick Health

There cannot be a better company than Klick health to be analysed through the different networking frames as it is one company I have found which really leverages its people to curate an ecosystem which drives the growth of the company. The company efficiently uses the key networking principles to build and nourish its internal as well as external network of people to grow and innovate in the industry.

Klick Health is a digital marketing agency headquartered in Toronto, Ontario with teams across the United States. The company offers marketing, operational, and learning services, such as custom web application development, consulting, content and creative development, web analytics, e-Learning course development and learning management systems, website design and web usability consultation to the healthcare industry.

Klick was founded in 1997 by Peter Cordy, Aaron Goldstein, and Leerom Segal. As of Fall 2015, the company employed over 450 people, up from 330 just two years earlier. In 2007, Klick had 103 employees.

Klick Health, the Toronto think tank/marketing shop, seems to have a critical number—three. Almost every important stat about the firm is either a multiple of three, or at least has a three in it somewhere.  CEO Leerom Segal pegs the company's organic growth at between 30% and 60% for the year, for example. In terms of staff, the company has just over 600 people by 2016 and is looking to fill an additional 60 spaces. And as far as client accounts are concerned, there are currently 34 on the Klick roster. Three is also the number of months, the new employees have to prove their mettle and ambition, and 3% is the company's attrition rate.

Such synchronicity is not unexpected for a company that has made its name by infusing every step of the client process with data. The CEO notes that key is that data “lets you orchestrate everything… lets you understand what's working and what's not.” Summing up the agency's competencies as “digital” would be accurate, but that's only part of Klick's story. The agency excels at “having the discipline within the organization to really, on behalf of clients, read the digital body language of their patients and healthcare professionals… to really personalize the information which is served and render for them.”

For Klick, this translates into attracting business. The 34 accounts that the company is currently juggling represents a pace that is new normal for the firm.

The self-described health communications firm offers its clients a range of services that includes strategy, analytics, creative and platforms, such as its iConnect iPad tool which doubles as a sales platform reps can bring on calls and use for CRM. It can also be deployed as a training tool, to help reps make their customized presentations effective ones.

Klick’s list of company highlights is a long one, and the element that unites them all is the ability to anticipate client needs and then just go for it along with the strategic network which has been built with the clients to successfully identify and crack the problem. A prime example of that is the Dynamic ISI tool that emerged from innovation group Klick Labs and went live in 2013. This program works like a master find-and-replace, so clients have to update safety information in one location. The updated safety information is then immediately applied to all the digital material associated with that file, keeping things current and in line with medical legal requirements. Using digital technology, the company communicates with the clients and frequency of communication is increased because of this.

How is Klick different from other firms?

Klick is a new kind of agency specifically designed for today’s business challenges. Its independence eliminates the “Multinational network” shenanigans and really innovates in this space to create a new approach of its own. It never uses mergers or acquisition to grow which basically strengthens its internal network of people as there is really low disruption in company culture. Another key aspect of innovation is the spend on R&D, which is five times more than their competitors. Klick only hires experts in the industry and only targets people with high amount of experience, which not only leverages their hard skills but also leverages their own personal networks by giving them entrepreneurial environment to build their own teams and contribute to the company growth. Klick knows how to carry a bag and really hit the nail where its most needed, by building on its key strength of data analytics. Another unique aspect of Klick has been its clean slate approach, which makes its lawyers happy and bored. Klick is really big on digital which is the biggest disruption in any industry right now which is what adds to the tremendous growth of the company. But most of all, it’s the company’s leadership approach and always providing something extra to the clients which makes it possible for the company to thrive and make the clients stay longer with the company.

Klick through the lens of:

Principle of similarity (support network) and Principle of Closure (Collaboration network)

Klick Health founders Leerom Segal and Aaron Goldstein, along with technology strategists Jay Goldman and Rahaf Harfoush—have envisioned the ideal company through “decoding,” in other words embracing, Big Data to better understand one's own employees first rather than the customers, by unraveling the real story embedded in the data trail to follow the people within the organization. They are of the view that the more democratic an organization is, the better equipped it is to serve its customers. They propose organizations move away from hierarchy and bureaucracy to become more flat, where rank should neither confer privilege nor assign power but should impose responsibilities.

The company bases its internal network as well as collaboration on these three principles which drive the similarity as well as collaboration network inside and outside the company.

Engineering Ecosystem:

Klick’s company culture is much more than casual Fridays, catered lunches, and hammocks in the breakroom. Good culture can make or break the company. Companies with toxic cultures don’t survive. They lose best people, make unnecessary mistakes, and eventually implode in on themselves. Sadly, so many leaders are unaware of the importance of this issue. The need to create a shared set of values combined with a shared vision is critical to success.

Klick’s Engineered Ecosystem takes the guesswork out of building cultures. It provides quantitative feedback about the behaviors, beliefs, attitudes, and values that currently exist in the company, letting the employees and stakeholders know which things they want to nurture and amplify and what they need to get rid of.

But, engineering this type of ecosystem requires deliberate intent. You’re engineering real behaviors, not blindly throwing everything at the wall to see what sticks. The foundation of any engineering project is data. Mechanical engineers apply the principles of physics and materials science to the analysis, design, manufacture, and maintenance of mechanical systems — an exercise firmly rooted in data. Civil engineers are likewise focused on the design, construction, and maintenance of the physical environment, also heavily reliant on data. Similarly, Klick believes that there’s a role for a new ecosystem engineer, someone who focuses on the analysis, design, implementation, and maintenance of highly experimental corporate cultures that are firmly based on the practices of data-driven management which is exactly what is implemented at the company. The company believes in its internal hiring as very data driven and ecosystem driven.