"If you say 'fold in the cheese' one more time..." If you've watched Schitt's Creek, you'll remember the scene. David is following a recipe. It tells him to "fold in the cheese." His response? "What does that mean? How do you fold it?" Moira assumes(?) everyone already knows. This classic scene from Schitt’s Creek perfectly captures what I see happening with AI in organisations today. AI can write you procedures. It can produce training guides, project plans and implementatio

Artificial Intelligence has quickly become the boardroom topic of the decade.​ Executives are under pressure to identify AI opportunities, improve productivity, reduce costs and modernise operations. Software vendors are promising transformational outcomes. Internal teams are racing to identify use cases. Competitors are announcing AI initiatives.​ In the rush to embrace AI, many organisations are making a familiar mistake.​ They are going shopping while they're hungry.​ Most

In many organisations, I have noticed that process mapping has developed an image problem. Executives often associate it with lengthy workshops, walls covered in sticky notes, large documents that are rarely revisited once the project is complete or a cottage industry using up valuable time and talent to tell you want you think you already know. Teams can sometimes view it as an administrative exercise rather than a valuable business tool. As a result, organisations frequentl

What a way to close out the 2026 SMAART Recruitment Contact Centre Best Practice Roadshow. The energy in Melbourne was something else: nearly 500 people in the room, and the conversations matched it. 🙌 The roadshow reinforced what we heard right across Australia: the opportunity in customer experience is enormous. In productivity, in growth, in retention – and in the people delivering it every single day. Customer experience is one of the most powerful commercial levers a le

Sara Elmstrom Chief Executive Officer Sara is a Partner at The Bridge International and CEO of CXO2, The Bridge’s customer experience specialist practice. An experienced executive, Sara spent two decades, working for iconic international brands leading multi-disciplinary teams across strategy, customer experience design, contact centres, and digital transformation. Now, she helps organisations achieve sustainable transformation by combining design thinking, system insight and

The trend towards remote work did not stop with the end of the pandemic. It is ongoing and presents challenges to address.

Digitisation & automation have become more important to businesses and offer great opportunities to enhance customer experiences.

For your customer, digital and operations’ strategy, delivering ”brilliant basics” is as important as the “magic moments".