Case study:

Winmark Global C-Suite Platform by Winmark

How Winmark built a global online C-Suite

community to deliver value during uncertain
times

Winmark is a world-leader in CSuite The need to bring a community online

networks, enabling business leaders to
Winmark’s significant portfolio of
improve the governance, performance and
in-person CSuite communities needed
sustainability of their organizations. Their
to shift quickly onto an online space, to
professional member networks provide a
give the network greater resilience and
space for CSuite leaders to meet, share
agility in the wake of COVID19.
knowledge, network, and promote best
practices. Winmark’s executive education
This space needed to reflect the
academies develop and empower executives
company’s event and service offering,
across industries and functions.
while remaining exclusive to its CSuite
audience.
The network had always wanted to shift to
digital, but the coronavirus pandemic and
associated global shutdown accelerated this
need. Winmark required an online space
where its members could continue to meet,
where it could host events and
masterclasses, and that gave the network
greater resilience against future continuity
threats.

Winmark, therefore, turned to Zapnito to

move its CSuite community onto a new
digital space.

“We've made a shift in direction based on what technology has

enabled us to do.”
John Jeffcock, Winmark CEO and Founder
There was a significant amount of content on
“We used to run 150200
offer, and in the past, this was delivered
ad-hoc. Winmark was looking for a consistent events a year in the UK,
way to deliver valuable content to its members,
to help them achieve their goals and respond
we've flipped those all to
to the post-COVID challenges on the horizon. digital. This meant we could
However, there was no central hub where
members could easily access this and engage
expand overnight, which has
with the content, by giving their feedback and been a game changer.”
perspectives. Due to this, a lot of high-quality
research content wasn’t receiving the visibility
it deserved. Winmark needed to elevate the John Jeffcock
value of this and also assess its contribution to Winmark CEO and Founder
the community.

A digital space would provide huge
advantages, notably in including members who
are geographically disparate and
time-constrained. There was also appetite to
bring the renowned masterclasses online,
including the One Day MBA and Board
Excellence, allowing a broader audience to
benefit.
Historically, it had used a membership platform
but it struggled to keep up-to-date with the
latest developments and technology. Above all,
Winmark required a platform that was
easy-to-use, accessible for its members and
kept updated with state-of-the-art technology.
The fact that Zapnito had a lot of internal
training and processes pre-mapped was
hugely beneficial.
The Winmark online community needed to be
as intuitive as possible, with content surfaced
as soon as members login. It needed to foster
communication between the different CSuite
groups. Winmark wanted to emulate a
roundtable event in which members could
share ideas, challenges, best practices - and
where content could be cross-fertilized
across groups.

How Zapnito helped

The timing of the community build and launch
(during the pandemic) added complexity to the
process. There was significant time pressure, to
launch the community as quickly as possible to
meet the immediate needs of Winmark’s
members. The Zapnito and Winmark team
worked closely to define the goals of the online
community and the features needed.
The thoughts and perspectives of other senior It also creates a more accessible way of
decision-makers in the network are highly connecting members, without geographical or
valuable to other members. time restrictions.

Therefore Winmark needed a way to Instead of traveling to a live in-person meeting,

encourage collaboration and contributions, as members can simply log in at a time that suits
well as offering the ability to connect members their busy lifestyles.
one-on-one. Finally, Winmark wanted to give
visibility to its partners and provide value in a This also helps with Winmark’s global growth
digital sphere. ambitions. Rather than placing people
on-the-ground, which can be time and
resource-intensive, the online community can
The community now
be used for outreach in key markets such as
When members join the Winmark community, Amsterdam, Dubai and Singapore.
the onboarding process collects information on
the new member’s role, department, and
industry to filter content and rooms that are
tailored to each individual.

Rooms that are relevant to each CSuite

function are placed front and center, to optimize
the user journey and help members quickly find
valuable information. There are 22 rooms in
total, enabling peers to collaborate and connect
in a closed, peer-to-peer space. Members can
also see other rooms and choose to enter and
connect with peers in those rooms if desired.

Channels are used for broad topics that relate

to every CSuite function (culture, innovation,
“The rooms feature] adds
and people, for example). Masterclasses are exponentially more value and
now online, as another value-add for members.
Each class can lead to further certification,
also makes our offering
helping to monetize the platform for Winmark. exponentially more sticky, so
that's a double win.”
The Winmark online community provides a
digital, secure space for its members, at a time
when physical meetings aren’t possible.
2 7
each2c-suite
Private rooms for Channels of topics
affecting business
function leaders
Future plans

There are many plans for the Winmark

community over the coming months and
years. The company has transformed from
an events-based business into a
tech-driven one.

With the return of in-person events still in

question, Winmark is planning to host
events on the online platform, using a blend
of virtual and in-person events once safety
measures allow. “Zapnito did a fantastic job of
getting up to speed and it was
This transformation has also shifted its
strategy, whereas before it wanted to be also clear to us that Zapnito
the global CSuite network, now its vision is had the whole process
to be the leading global CSuite platform.
Technology is enabling it to move from its pre-mapped. In that way,
membership offering, to more value-added they'd already done the hard
services.
work for us.”
There are plans to integrate the community
with Salesforce and Pardot, to give a more
joined-up member experience and to “The great thing about going
deliver timely content recommendations.
digital is that it's been much
Winmark anticipates that the community more inclusive and from that
will experience rapid growth over the next perspective, it's been a
year. Most importantly, this growth and the
development of the platform will be 100% fantastic change.”
led by the people that matter most: the
members.
John Jeffcock
Winmark CEO and Founder

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