Warning the following blog may contain cricket!
I wrote this blog at the beginning of August having digested the excitement of the cricket World Cup. My esteemed marketing colleagues at everyLIFE saw it had a cricket flavour and consigned it to the LBW (Let the Blog Wait) tray which maybe worth revisiting on a slow news day; something has changed!
This is what I wrote:
Why are Ben Stokes, Sir Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Sir Gary Sobers, Betty Wilson, Jacques Kallis, Imran Khan or Keith Miller so revered and respected as Test Match cricketers? Simply because they are once-in-a-generation cricketers who are genuine international class all-rounders.
What is a genuine all-rounder? Again, a simple definition. He, or she, would be chosen for their national team either for their batting or bowling, and they therefore have to be brilliant at both of these aspects. They have managed to split their focus and concentration between two very distinct disciplines to become masters at both. In Test Match cricket, genuine all- rounders have been a rare commodity and in the course of more than 140 years of men’s Test Match cricket and almost 3,000 internationally capped male players there have been fewer than 20 players who might be confirmed as genuine all-rounders i.e. less than 1% are acknowledged as world class at 2 disciplines which is true testament to their uniqueness.
However, what is also true is that none of these great players features in both lists of the top 10 Test Match bowlers or batsmen. In comparison with their peers there are therefore others who excel at either batting or bowling, and who you would bet on to deliver both in a tight situation and on a day to day basis. All due respect to Jacques Kallis who is the 3rd most prolific batsman in Test Match cricket, but not at that level for his bowling. Indeed, the strain to remain competitive at both disciplines meant he bowled very little later in his career but became an even better batsman.
At everyLIFE we think the same challenges of excelling in a discipline also apply to providing software to the social care sector. We are therefore confirmed advocates of focusing on the one thing that we want to become excellent at; Digital Care Planning. This is where we believe we can add real value to social care providers; at the point of care delivery.
We recognise that our customers need a fully skilled team of batters and bowlers and we therefore partner and integrate with the experts at rostering. Why would we diversify into something that they do every day for a vast array of customers providing security guards, construction workers, carers and of course stewards at Test Matches? They know the ins and outs of organising work rotas and rosters which is so different from our expertise in the complexities of care planning, medication and risk management and quality care delivery. Whilst it would be nice to be a genuine all-rounder, we will always strive to become our customers’ strike bowler for care planning and leave the batting to those in the software team who are the experts in rostering.
What else can I tell you about great all-rounders? Well Ben Stokes, Ian Botham, Kapil Dev, Gary Sobers, Betty Wilson, Jack Kallis, Imran Khan and Keith Mille between them have also taken 596 catches, many of them in key fielding positions in the slips which might be seen as another confirmation of their rarity and their unique abilities but then every member of a cricket team should be able to field well!
Post Script (27 August 2019):
None of the above applies to Ben Stokes who, as we now know, is superman in cricketer form, completely brilliant and likely to show that for an all rounder to be truly unique their destiny is written in the stars.
By Bruce Hiscock, CEO
