Each business, no matter how small or big, grows alongside the talent working within. This rule expands to all sectors, including gambling itself. But what happens when we hire the wrong people?
Martin Collins
Results slow down and morale plummets across the board, according to a panel of experts hosted at SBC Summit Lisbon by Martin Collins, Chief Development Officer with Soft2Bet.
The good news is that businesses can actually plan ahead strategically to syphon out any potential mismatches in their corporate hierarchy and prematurely defuse the ticking time bomb that a bad hire is.
As a gambling company, the first step will be to make the decision whether you want to set up the fishing rod for a new hire in your own pond, or try your luck and venture into other sectors for an ‘unorthodox skill set’ that will diversify your team.
In Optimove’s case for example, Moshe Demri, Revenue SVP, says that the company is often inclined to sway towards a candidate’s capacity to learn more than the type of experience they have when hiring.
Moshe Demri
But that this is also only done when there’s no danger of tipping the scale over, and when Optimove has enough gambling experts at hand to balance it out with their countless business connections and extensive industry in-and-out-know-how.
“Over the years we learned that it should be a mixture of things,” Demri said. “We make sure that we hire some people from the industry…but at the same time we also want to get a different perspective of other sectors like ecommerce and retail. It’s usually a mix of the two.”
There was a similar sentiment shared by Game Lounge and its Chief Operating Officer, Rosi Bremec, who herself comes from outside the industry with a background in strategic data. She confirmed that her venture into gambling has allowed her to carry over a different perspective, granting Game Lounge a 30% YoY growth so far in 2024.
Rosi Bremec
“It’s a different perspective, it’s thinking outside the box,” she commented. “I come from a strategic data background so we’re embracing data more and focusing more on what matters.
“Once you’ve got a certain amount of experience it’s basically a business model, you understand the strategy and what you need to do to make the most of that.”
The discussions went on to form the tech departments as a vertical where an individual with less industry knowledge can be comfortably hired for their stronger tech expertise, but most importantly for their willingness to adapt.
Cristina Turbatu
Cristina Turbatu, Chief Technology Officer at Casumo, said that she prefers to see a “good attitude” in candidates that can be easily integrated into Casumo’s talent growing paths, rather than be on the constant lookout for that one “perfect superstar” with all of their gaming knowledge.
This however is only limited to specific areas of Turbatu’s department, with the Chief of Technology adding that for some roles like product architecture, previous experience with the gambling industry will come as an advantage when designing solutions.
Looking at the topic at hand from another perspective, Collins raised his guests the question of hiring generalists in comparison to sworn-in experts.
Turbatu responded that the sweet spot is usually achieved by having both on board, with specialists bringing the added value of understanding how Casumo’s solutions are impacting clients, and generalists trained to work on a multitude of areas being the saving grace in cases of emergencies happening across various verticals.
Mickael Shahinyan
Mickael Shahinyan, Founder of Oddsgate, agreed by adding that companies at any stage of their business development need to have access to a mix of talent so that they can set goals for the whole team rather than individuals alone – with each staff resource sharing a level of responsibility.
Demri from Optimove then chimed in to reflect on how things have changed for the last 12 years in which he’s been with the company, gradually moving from a “jack of all trades” approach to building different specialised departments, but also maintaining people with “swiss army knife set of expertise” in certain cases like tackling a new regulated market.
But good talent – regardless of the level of expertise – isn’t always readily available. When this occurs, companies are presented with the option to make a compromise with the quality in the face of scarcity. Is this the right thing to do however?
“Absolutely not,” according to Desiree Dickerson, CEO and Co-Founder of thndr. “Having someone who isn’t as effective or as high quality as the rest of the team slows you down much more than not having a person in that role at all. A high performance team is a lot more effective than a larger team.”
Desiree Dickerson
Turbatu echoed Dickerson’s statement by saying that making compromises can create “rotten areas” in your business and cost you a lot in the long run.
Regardless of the quality of the talent and their area of expertise, managing a team today involves juggling multiple generations in the office more often than not. What is the best way to lead a group of people who have highly diverse motivations? To find out, you can watch the rest of this panel session here.