November Five spinoff Spencer solves the challenge of too many workplace technologies

Tool-overload causes frustrations at work

The market for enterprise tools is oversaturated. Companies are responding to the digital transformation revolution in the business world by implementing a dedicated technology fix for every small task: Book a holiday? Use this tool. Find a phone number on the go? Use that solution. Approve a PO? Pull up that program. The result is a complex and fragmented web of tools, websites, and applications that employees must navigate to complete daily tasks.

This fragmented network is made worse by bad user experiences. Digital native users have high expectations for the navigability of applications, which are not being met. Companies implement enterprise applications with little consideration to the user experience, which creates low adoption amongst employees and causes frustration. Moreover it is a real productivity killer – a 2016 report by Forrester found that 62% of employees delay completing tasks that require logging into multiple systems.

A Connected solution at the core of digital transformation

From this pain point, Spencer was born. Spencer makes employees’ lives easier by centralizing and synchronizing information from different enterprise tools into a single digital interface; this saves times and increases productivity by eliminating the need to switch between applications.

Moreover, the tool is fully mobile. This is in line with Gartner Predictions recent forecast that “70% of all enterprise software interactions will occur on mobile devices by the year 2021.” The Spencer team has taken this to heart, making the solution’s mobile interface a development priority for what is becoming the new way of working.

“Millennials are a core part of the modern workforce and they have high expectations when it comes to digital interactions. Employees expect the same user experience from their workplace applications as they do from the most cutting edge tech in their private life. Many enterprise tools are frustratingly complicated today, a problem we set out to solve with Spencer,” shares Spencer founder Tom Vroemans. “We think of Spencer like Google Now for large companies – it connects you with the tools and data you need whenever you need it.”

“Spencer is the starting point for employee-centric digital transformation in large enterprises. We deeply believe in two guiding principles that will help us expand the product and engage the workforce: creating an open ecosystem to maximize interoperability with enterprise tools and becoming a proactive and intelligent personal assistant to every single employee,” shares Spencer CEO Maarten Raemdonck. “It’s a solution for any and all companies: by taking a modular approach, any enterprise application can be plugged into Spencer environment, creating a more comprehensive and easy-to-use toolkit.”

A Partner to large enterprises

Spencer has partnered with Telenet to begin implementing the solution across the company’s 3,200 employees. Teams at BASE Company participated in a pilot project prior to the company’s acquisition by Telenet. Spencer was greeted with enthusiasm as a way to simplify complicated HR processes.

"Spencer helps us combine our critical applications into a single, easy-to-use, mobile interface. The result: a more intuitive way-of-working, increased productivity and happier employees,” shares Claudia Poels, Senior VP Human Resources at Telenet

A Growing tech company

With the support of November Five, Spencer has gone from an idea to a fully-fledged company. The current team of 8 brings 60 years of combined experience to product development and relationship management.

Spencer is eager to grow – the company is hiring and looking for dynamic team members to continue building Spencer’s innovative product.

^{About Spencer}

^{Spencer is a spinoff company of November Five, the digital innovation agency based in Antwerp, Belgium. The company is dedicated to making workplace technology easy, saving people time and increasing productivity.}

^{Spencer’s flagship product is an enterprise tool of the same name that is built to make employees’ lives easier and more mobile. The application takes a mobile-first approach, connecting all workplace applications, programs, and services in one place. From managing holidays to booking a meeting room, Spencer can help.}

^{Spencer already has the support of numerous companies in Belgium, including Telenet, Proximus, and DEME.}