How the founder of Arcturious walks the talk and is helping purposeful business leaders transform the world.

Is it possible to marry purpose with commerce? One Founder seems to think so

Spend enough time looking at the state of the world, and you’ll realise that all is not well.

Many of us come to a realisation that we’d like to fix something about the community we live in, and some are lucky enough to have an impact that echoes across the globe.

Whilst many of us choose one thing we’d like to focus on, such as being more sustainable or influencing human rights, Michael Diamond decided his purpose was to support as many change-makers as he could - thereby massively increasing his own reach in transforming the world.

Using Focus to Accelerate Growth

“I try and see it as a holistic view. My focus is to see where I can add value and help organisations that do have that singular goal. I want to help them to continue to do better in that particular goal and then collectively make the world a better place.”

Michael is a fan of the Festival of Dangerous Ideas (FODI), Australia’s original disruptive festival. FODI holds uncomfortable ideas up to the light and challenges thinking on some of the most persevering and difficult issues of our time, questioning our deepest held beliefs and desires.

“These are the people with whom I value a conversation as they are challenging the status quo, and pushing for a better, progressive path or solution” says Michael.

“I want to be the dinner party guest that spices up the conversation and creates discourse because that is where ideas come from”.

Michael also shares his view that many consultants talk a good game when it comes to sustainability or transformation, yet the proof can be thin on the ground. Not necessarily because they don’t have good intentions, but because the data and impact measurements are not available.

In 2022, Michael and the Arcturious team were awarded the 2022 Salesforce Global Partner Innovations Award in the Connected Ecosystem Category.

A key reason why they won this award, is that they have been able to interrogate the data from the ecosystem of software they’ve built and actually measure the sustainable impact they’ve helped their client achieve.

A Big Hairy Client Gets a Trim

The ‘client’ we reference here is Sustainable Salons which has a big hairy mission to cut salon waste for good. The collection of data by Sustainable Salons has also now yielded detailed and powerful proof of a real and measurable circular economy.

Sustainable salons can see the journey of a donated pigtail to a wig for a teenager with Alopecia. They can measure the journey of the P2 plastics recycled from a L’Oréal Shampoo bottle into a pair of high-end fashion glasses from Dresden and then offer those same glasses back to customers on their rewards site.

According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the use of plastic continues to grow around the world, and very little of it is recycled.

Waste management and recycling are falling short as our use continues to grow, with the world producing twice as much plastic waste as two decades ago. An OECD estimate shows only 9% is successfully recycled, with 22% of all plastic waste being mismanaged.

The results from this single company show the potential for circular economy solutions when you can track materials right through the usage chain and for whole life cycles.

‘When I think about Sustainable Salons, I think about them, as a resource recovery organisation that acts like a consumer goods organisation.’

Michael discussed this chosen method of helping change-makers with us.

“I like to help them articulate their strategy and inspire curiosity by asking lots of questions”.

Michael laughs when he adds that “the curiosity piece is our licence to be a pain in the ass.”

Leveraging Salesforce to Maximize Impact

Michael’s strategic approach shows that there can be a much broader utility of platforms like Salesforce, which some organisations narrowly use for pure customer relationship management purposes.

“It is important we consider the human impact with empathy and underpin the business with an effective technology tool.”

When you speak to Michael, you come to understand that he thinks more deeply and with a broader viewpoint than many others, and he directs his team’s efforts to mould and craft this technology to provide a powerful whole-of-business platform.

The result is that it monitors business activities and can also yield incredible data about the overall impact of your business on multiple areas including your carbon footprint, and the effectiveness and efficiency of any sustainability measures you put in place.

Arcturious was born during the COVID Pandemic, and they describe themselves as resilient, adaptable and virtual first! Arcturious helps clients deliver projects that allow them to unlock their full potential while staying nimble and mitigating risk. They are committed to challenging the status quo and giving back and adding value to society.

The human-centred approach of Arcturious to strategy development delivers technology programs that are intrinsically connected to both strategic objectives and the people they enable.

Changing gears for a moment, Michael also values real diversity and inclusion in his business and looks to help bring that into his own organisation.

One way he encourages this is by working with Generation Australia (GA). This organisation helps adults of all ages - whether they are unemployed, underemployed or just need to develop new skills. Michael has recently brought on new staff through this program including one who is retraining from accounting to tech and a mum who has been out of the workforce for ten years looking after her children.

Michael also has an eye on the future when he discusses the impacts of the work he does on the organisations themselves.

“We’re asking the question - how do we make organisations more efficient through the use of technology and artificial intelligence.”

“That unfortunately has a downstream effect on people in that some people will lose their jobs. Technology gets put in place to make sure you can do more with less, which is good for keeping businesses in the economy ticking. At Arcturious we are thinking about how we can re-skill and repurpose these individuals into higher value tasks.”

The #1 CRM in the World Meets the #1 Customer Commerce Solution for Small/Medium Business

Arcturious and Sustainable Salons initially selected Salesforce as they knew it could deliver as a CRM, and they added StoreConnect in this situation to provide an effective Customer Commerce solution for both cash and rewards purchases. Together these two elements deliver a powerful single source of truth that helps Sustainable Salons achieve its business vision. Now all stakeholders know that the truth tells a story far more powerful than anyone might have realised when they first set out.

The team at StoreConnect are delighted to partner with Arcturious and we have a strong feeling that Michael and his team are on a star-high trajectory to supporting more profit-for-purpose change makers who are measurably changing the world.