Denis Hoctor, Chief Technology Officer at Pet Circle, has been using Slack for around ten years across three different organisations.
“It’s clear to me that Slack is a tool that lands, grows and creates value for an organisation,” says Hoctor.
“I’m like a gardener. To ensure the tool is adopted, you need to let it seed and grow organically — as a leader, my role is to prune it in the right way.”
As Pet Circle CTO, Hoctor’s role is to make sure that Australia’s largest e-commerce pet supplies company maintains its excellent digital experience. He is also focused on ensuring the platform is as secure as possible. “I’m responsible for security as well as the productivity and effectiveness of technology. With Slack, I have confidence that our data is held with integrity and on-shore. Slack takes the stress out of security for us.”
“With Slack, I have confidence that our data is held with integrity and on-shore. Slack takes the stress out of security for us.”
Untangling incident management processes
When Hoctor joined Pet Circle in 2019, its tech team was already using Slack. However, its other functions were relying on email and face-to-face interactions.
“I had the opportunity and privilege to roll Slack out across all of Pet Circle’s functions. A week after the rollout, our CMO told me that Slack was a total game changer for his team,” he says.
In fact, with Slack in place, Pet Circle saw a 50% drop in emails, practically overnight.
“Almost immediately, our cross-functional team projects were tighter, as we were able to communicate in real time and gather context faster.”
One huge benefit Hoctor has seen since Slack was rolled out organisation-wide is faster incident management. Before Slack, incident resolution was messy, with most issues raised via email or phone calls. The team was struggling to coordinate the next-level investigation and understanding via email, and invariably too many people got involved.
“Now we’re able to triage and involve the right people at the right time. Without Slack, that just wouldn't have been possible—we would have either had more people involved or a slower turnaround.”
Achieving faster time to resolution
Once the company streamlined incident management using Slack channels—the ability to bring the right people and information together in a shared space—it saw an immediate improvement.
“Now we’re able to triage and involve the right people at the right time. Without Slack, that just wouldn’t have been possible—we would have either had more people involved or a slower turnaround,” says Hoctor.
In fact, Pet Circle halved the number of people involved and improved issue visibility from hours down to minutes, resulting in a much quicker time to a solution.
“Once we streamlined our incident management processes, there was a massive reduction of noise and we were able to provide unparalleled service much faster.”
Scaling Slack and improving efficiency
During his time at Pet Circle, Hoctor has watched Slack grow from a collaboration tool used by one team into a productivity centre for the entire organisation.
“First, Slack helped us break down communication silos between functions. Then, it went on to do the same with the other businesses we work with, so we can deliver value for pet parents,” says Hoctor.
“Without Slack at Pet Circle, we’d be working five times slower.”
