Interview with Florian Tosello, CEO of FirstPoint

FirstPoint is a digital agency based in Lausanne providing web development solutions (website creation, online shops) and digital marketing & analytics services for its customers. We asked Florian Tosello, CEO of FirstPoint, how his company fared in 2020 and what challenges it faces as a digital provider during the COVID-19 crisis.

Florian, 2020 was an extraordinary year. How was it for you personally?

It started off quite well until we realized that we’d also be hit by the virus. Then we went into the first lockdown, which I didn’t find too bad as I was able to use the time I’d spend travelling for sports activities. I’m fortunate enough to live in Lavaux. It’s a lovely place where you can shut yourself off, go jogging and enjoy magnificent views over Lake Geneva and the Alps. Things became challenging during the second lockdown as our workload almost doubled and we had to deal with all the issues this entailed. The pandemic has been catastrophic but it’s incredible how an entire society can adapt to huge changes in such a short space of time.

The balance sheets of the leading Swiss digital commerce companies were published in early 2021, often showing remarkable growth in online sales of 30% to 40% in 2020 compared with 2019. What’s the mood amongst your customers? Are they feeling greater pressure from the big players?

Few of our customers are in direct competition with the leading Swiss e-commerce retailers, which tend to be generalists. Most of our customers are rather specialized, which means they don’t necessarily feel the pressure from the big players. The pandemic also reminded us just how important small companies are, and lots of Swiss consumers opted to buy online from smaller companies where possible.

Generally speaking, were they well prepared and equipped to focus on online sales during lockdown?

Some of our customers were purely digital players – with all of their business online – prior to the health crisis and they fared best last year because they were already geared up and did not have to compensate for the loss of high-street business. For others, digital business supplemented their normal activities, but they already had the tools and platforms in place. Online then became their primary sales channel, particularly during the lockdown. For companies which had not digitized their activities at all or only to a small extent, the situation was much more complex for various reasons. Firstly, because they did not know – and still don’t – how long this extraordinary period would last, and it was difficult to decide whether or not to focus all their investment on digitization when a rapid recovery seemed possible. Setting up e-commerce cannot be achieved overnight. A strategy has to be defined and a budget worked out – which is difficult if sales figures are falling sharply – the right partners found, logistical and technical challenges met and internal structures modified. It’s much easier for small companies. But transforming a company with several hundred employees is a huge challenge that has to be overcome in a few weeks, whereas it would normally take months or even years.

What were the most frequent requests from your customers? Did you create or upgrade more online shops than usual?

We had lots of requests for new online shops, but took very few new projects on. Our existing customers wanted to rapidly strengthen their online presence, and that involved a great amount of work. We decided to give priority to our existing customers and to only take on new projects where possible, when the conditions were right and deadlines could be met. The greatest demand was for functions concerning crisis-related restrictions: the implementation of click & collect solutions, the optimization and automation of logistics for the management of spikes in orders and the migration of inventories from high-street businesses to e-commerce.

Were there any changes in digital marketing – such as an increase or decrease in demand for particular services? Or perhaps which had a different impact due to lockdown?

For e-commerce customers, there were no major changes in the strategy itself, but rather budget adjustment issues to respond to the growth in search engine requests. Customers in the services sector or traditional companies have significantly cut back or even completely stopped some of their online marketing campaigns because they were unable to provide services that met the health regulations. Others proposed new services for which new strategies had to be defined. We also noticed a significant increase in demand from real estate agents, irrespective of the size of the company or the services they provide.

What challenges did FirstPoint face as an agency during 2020? Did you have to adapt the approach you follow in normal times?

Firstly, we have to recognize how fortunate we are to have been able to continue working, so it’s difficult to complain. Surprisingly for our sector, the agency didn’t work from home much before. We’re very familiar with the digital world and the tools it provides, which meant switching to a model of working entirely from home was relatively straightforward. We had a few issues, mainly concerning productivity, organization and communication. But we were pleasantly surprised by how naturally everything came together. The real challenge for my colleagues was not just the sharp rise in workload, but also the pressure of deadlines and customers who wanted their requirements met quickly to make up for declining revenues in other channels. They’ve done an incredible job and we’re really grateful for their efforts.

Finally, how do you think online retail will develop in Switzerland after the COVID-19 crisis? What advice would you give to SMEs about the challenges of digitization?

Digital and e-commerce have been growing constantly for years – that’s nothing new. But there’s clearly a before and after the COVID-19 crisis: some customers who hesitated or took too long to provide budgets for digitization have completely redefined their strategy. I think that’ll continue. We shouldn’t discard high-street shops, which provide good advice and play an important role in society, but e-commerce has the advantage of reducing fixed overheads (mainly rent), which have caused business owners so many headaches during this period. I’d say the key thing is anticipation – in times of crisis, like those we’re going through now, demand for digitization is skyrocketing and providers (agencies, freelancers) are highly sought after. High-quality partners are overstretched and are finding it difficult to take on new customers. There’s the risk that customers will turn to unprofessional (and not always cheaper) providers and that projects do not succeed or do not meet expectations. Every week we receive several requests to redevelop unstable or poorly designed websites. That’s a great shame because it tarnishes the image of our industry and worst of all customers are badly hit – budgets and deadlines often double, or even treble.