WE

WORK

DIFFERENTLY

From our teams, to our processes, to our client interactions – the way we work is unique, enabling us to achieve better results, faster.

WE

WORK

DIFFERENTLY

From our teams, to our processes, to our client interactions – the way we work is unique, enabling us to achieve better results, faster.

WE

WE

A New Kind of Business Creative

The rate of change has never been faster.

New ways of doing work, new platforms, new technologies, new rules but the same
fundamental business requirements. Winning more of the right customers, who buy
your products more often at the best possible margin, with happy employees and
shareholders.

As a digital transformation practice we use broad teams with varied skills and
expertise to help businesses adapt and grow in rapidly changing environments.
Through Design Thinking and Service Design, we interrogate your business
challenges to get from usable digital ideas to in-market solutions that are actually used.

We are nerds, geeks, goofs, cynics, movie critics, believers, artists and quants, left-brain,
right-brain, ENTP – INTJ, designers, persuaders, teachers, coaches, coders, writers,
analysts and spreadsheet jockeys.

Based in Cape Town but spread around the world, our distributed teams support
forward-looking companies across Europe and Africa.

The rate of change has never been faster.

New ways of doing work, new platforms, new technologies, new rules but the same fundamental business requirements. Winning more of the right customers, who buy your products more often at the best possible margin, with happy employees and shareholders.

As a digital transformation practice we use broad teams with varied skills and expertise to help businesses adapt and grow in rapidly changing environments. Through Design Thinking and Service Design, we interrogate your business challenges to get from usable digital ideas to in-market solutions that are actually used.

We are nerds, geeks, goofs, cynics, movie critics, believers, artists and quants, left-brain, right-brain, ENTP – INTJ, designers, persuaders, teachers, coaches, coders, writers, analysts and spreadsheet jockeys.

Based in Cape Town but spread around the world, our distributed teams support forward-looking companies across Europe and Africa.

WORK

WORK

Our Clients

We have been privileged to work with forward looking
organisations in multiple industries.

We have been privileged to work with forward looking organisations in multiple industries.

Our Clients

We have been privileged to work with forward looking
organisations in multiple industries.

We have been privileged to work with forward looking organisations in multiple industries.

Product & Service Design

We set out to create a relationship between your customers and brands that is the result of a good service and useful products.

Our practice starts with research, not by looking for answers, but for the right questions that allow us to develop a deep understanding of your customer and their context. Regularly testing assumptions with field data and building rapid experiments to go from hypothesis to hyper-growth.

Culture & Future of Work

The future of work is not driven by technology, it is driven by how people use new technology. Whether it’s bots, Agile teams or lean process automation – the “how” of working impacts company culture significantly.

Using Service Design as a core, we work with our clients to identify new processes and behaviours that allow change to flourish, so that organisations can really work smarter and not just faster.

Content & Digital Sales Optimisation

We love the “boring” part of marketing, developing and automating sales funnels that increase conversion.

Our practice uses research and rapid experimentation to identify the most effective sales processes that yield the highest long term value. Integrating relevant data sources and powerful automation platforms that communicate across the digital eco-system, we develop lead scoring models that drive content and always-on communication strategies.

Through high frequency testing we seek to understand what channels, platforms, content and messages work best and how to constantly improve them, week on week.

Yes, we create world-class content but it’s born out of research and testing, not next year’s award entry.

Client Testimonials

We partnered with dY/dX to identify the focus areas for improvement within Vodacom's marketing department to adapt to the increased rate of change. This led to a large-scale change and digitisation programme. The dY/dX team made the journey an engaging experience, through a well planned and executed approach, facilitated by excellent people.

Lana StrydomExecutive Head of Online and Self Service at Vodacom

The dY/dX team are a smart group with a deep understanding of the digital world, commercials and data, and able to extract meaningful insights and turn them into creative solutions.

Justin SprattDirector of Business Development at Uber

dY/dX brought a valuable external perspective to assessing our market and how our guests experience our brand. The team questioned the status quo at every opportunity, and in doing so, assisted us to develop several quick wins and some long-term projects to further improve the brand and product.

Tim de RaedtManaging Director at SUN1 Hotels

We were blown away by the level of detail and research the team went into but also matching it with our high level strategic objectives for the project. We were so impressed we have not only gone from theory into trial with the initial project but have scoped a longer term relationship together as well.

Michael SmollanChief Growth & Innovation Officer at Smollan

I work with dY/dX because of their unique, modern approach to product innovation. Very agile, but very structured in leading projects, product development and marketing operations. Everyone in the team has a unique contribution and commitment to Susu that I would not find anywhere else.

Bola BardetCEO and founder of Susu Healthcare.

DIFFERENTLY

DIFFERENTLY

PEOPLE ARE NOT ASSETS

Companies used to be measured by how many employment contracts they hold over people. To show how much they valued their employees, they refer to them affectionately as their ‘most valued assets’.
We don’t own people, that’s called slavery and we should all be working hard to end it. We work with people based, on merit, and they continue to work with us for as long as they find value in the exchange. There are no promotions, no bonuses and no provident funds.
And yes, we have highly engaged teams and below average ‘staff turnover’.

DON'T COME TO WORK

Why sit in traffic to sit at a desk? The flexibility within our team and the way we work allows us to connect how, where and when we need to – to go to the office when we need to, face-to-face meetings, workshops or feel the need to bounce ideas off immersion walls or white boards.
This allows us manage our output, not hours.

ZERO DAYS LEAVE

As mature, self-managed individuals and teams, we work towards milestones, deadlines and deliverables. We also take time out to do life, if we’re not working, we’re not pretending to work. We measure the value not the days clocked in.

ADULT IS A VERB

We might play like children in our downtime but when we’re engaged in work, we expect people to adult. Being on time is respect for others, deliver what you promise, make sure you have the your own laptop, software, internet connection. We don’t like to baby people to keep them dependent on us.
Adults – of all ages – with mutual respect, we figure out how to be polite – not just British – and respectful with a healthy dose of honesty.

IS THAT THE BEST QUESTION?

Decades of collective experience have taught us as much about what we don’t know, as what we do. We’ve learnt enough to know what data and information we need to draw out the meaningful, powerful insights we need to design solutions that work.
Often the most important questions are the ones questioning what we already assume is true. Testing early, testing often and testing iteratively allow us to analyse, define and redefine, to ideate and more importantly, discard ideas we loved.

YES, AND

Is that it? Is that the best we can do? Are we giving 110%, exceeding our clients’ expectation, and our own. What other problems or solutions do our ideas touch on? Have we turned enough stones? Dived deep enough? Have we built on ideas, both high, and wide?

WE DISAGREE

Mostly with each other but often with our clients and partners. We believe that fighting for the best solution is more valuable than supporting ideas or designs that won’t. Not all ideas are good and not all good ideas are practical. Opinions are shared unapologetically and decisions are reached through debate, data and assumption testing.
If you need someone to backwards-engineer research to sell your idea, we can’t help you.

THIS IS NOT A CAREER

Our ladder is lying on the floor. We have no levels to climb, no waiting for another sad soul to leave before moving to the next rung. We prefer role descriptions to job titles – and these can change from one project to the next. As people learn new skills and gather more experience points, they take on new challenges.

NO SLOGANS

No slogans, no unnecessary buzzwords, no industry speak you don’t understand, and as few TLAs as possible. If you can’t say it in plain language, it’s probably not a good idea.