We were awarded β with the title “Austria’s Top Digital Re-Start“. The top-class jury around Harald Mahrer (President of the Austrian Federal Economic Chamber) considered our performance over the last two years to be worthy of winning this award. In this short article, I would like to tell you the passionate story of our digital re-start. Because these last two years have certainly been the most emotional, exciting, beautiful, but also the hardest and most exhausting of my life.
Before the Corona Crisis
Innovation is nothing new at teamazing. Even before the Corona crisis, we developed our own team building games. Additionally, the value of “seeking the extraordinary” is deeply instilled in our DNA since the company’s founding. However, before the Corona crisis, teamazing was still an entirely analog team building supplier with around seven full-time equivalent employees.
Doomsday mood with a happy ending
As you can imagine, the Corona crisis seemed like the end of the world to us β especially at the beginning. From one day to the next, all events were canceled or postponed β the consequence: zero revenue! And all of this in a seasonal phase, where we traditionally come back from winter with many team building events in spring. Instead, there was short-time work, layoffs and the cutting of all our investments. When I think back to this time, to the personal fears and the lack of perspectives of every employee, I still have goosebumps. The award we have won yesterday gives every teamazie the feeling that this period of suffering was merely a chapter in a beautiful story.
Home office creates challenges
We weren’t the only ones who had major problems. Many other companies were also majorly challenged with home office and the new remote work model. Communication, trust, motivation and team spirit were particularly deteriorated with every home office day. The combination of our deep understanding of these issues and our IT skills, resulted in the launch of our first digital products less than 14 days after the pandemic outbreak. When asked why we were doing this in the face of the biggest crisis of the post-war era, the answer is simple: we wanted to make a difference, help our customers, and do something meaningful to pass the time.
Besides online team building, we also offer virtual offices
The teamazing Christmas miracle
Our breakthrough came with our very own Christmas miracle. When the second Corona wave hit in the fall of 2020, many companies and their CEOs didn’t want to cancel their annual Christmas party. So we developed Christmas games suitable for online team building events and promoted the program as “Virtual Christmas Party“.
With great success: the participants loved it! In our online team building, we bring fun and analog games into the virtual world. People sit in front of their laptops in their living rooms and are so excited that they don’t even realize that they’re actually sitting in an online meeting. We were the Christmas party rescuers. We were on TV, on the radio and in the newspaper. All in all, we celebrated Christmas 140 times and passed a demanding stress test regarding the scalability of online team building. And without being aware of it in the moment, we launched Austria’s Top Digital Re-Start!
teamazing after the Corona crisis
Since then, everything has changed fundamentally for us. We tripled our team and generated over one million euros in revenue for the first time – two-thirds of it with online team building. In total, we inspired more than 30,000 participants online and were able to win great companies as our customers. And by the way, our digital innovations have made us an absolute pioneer in the remote work movement.
THANK YOU FOR LETTING US
ENTHUSE YOUR TEAMS
Remote Work as potential
Our Christmas miracle was no one-hit wonder, as our customers continue to book. Because home offices, virtual teams and remote work have come to stay. Many employees felt that the pandemic was a wake-up call. Younger generations want a 30-hour week, and they want to work wherever the sun is shining. The market for online team building first gained relevance during the Corona crisis. However, the pandemic acts as a catalyst and not as a reason for the digitalization, globalization and new work trend. Futurologists agree that the trend towards remote work will continue during the coming decades. As enthusiasts for the benefits of virtual work, we see great potential in this development for our customers and our company.
We look forward to receiving your contact if you want to know with which methods and solutions we can help you to improve digital collaboration.
Photo: Krisztian Juhasz
