Stories

Our employees’ success in maintaining a high level of productivity and efficiency during the COVID-19 pandemic has fast-tracked efforts toward KBR becoming a more modern, agile company.

As a result, we are on a journey to reimagine how we deliver. We are successfully equipping our people with the tools they need to work more flexibly, productively and collaboratively, while also cutting costs, achieving our environmental sustainability goals, and reinforcing our inclusive and diverse work culture.

A key focus of our efforts is reimagining our work practices, which includes increasing the use of digital platforms and enhancing our virtual delivery and engagement.

As 90% of KBR employees successfully transitioned to work from home, we began to develop new and innovative ways to engage existing and future clients and customers.

Colleagues from our Technology business unit quickly planned and executed a successful and engaging series of external global and regional webinars. These webinars were designed to address key challenges in the refining, ammonia, olefins, chemicals and inorganic chemicals industries and covered technologies such as Green Ammonia, ROSE^®, K-SAAT™ and more. Webinar topics and presentations were peer reviewed by the respective technical teams to identify the current challenges and address them in the presentations so that it helps us to identify potential new business opportunities.

Regional sales teams followed up with the clients after each webinar. More touchpoints with the clients were created in the form of sending a compilation of answers to the questions raised during the webinar.

Over 1,500 clients and partners registered for these events, with regional variations delivered in English, Russian and Chinese. Detailed analysis of more than 650 questions raised throughout the events led to new business development engagement with clients. In many cases, these webinars led to further develop existing opportunities and secure meetings at senior levels.

“Our spring webinar series proved highly successful in allowing us to remain connected with our clients all over the world and identify new prospects” said Aman Ahmad, Senior Vice President, Technology. “We are proud of the efforts of our technology, sales, and marketing teams to organize these webinars during this period and we look forward to launching our fall series in September.”

Government Solutions (GS) colleagues in EMEA also adopted online engagement methods, delivering a successful series of informal virtual wine and cheese events with external stakeholders across key markets, including U.K. Defense, space, and policing and security. These included guest speakers from our broader, global KBR family, who offered an insightful view of our ever-increasing, innovative capabilities and solutions. Topics included our ongoing successes in the U.S. space sector and how learning can be transferred into other markets. Additional themes discussed included the immediate and ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the role the private sector will play during the global recovery.

Feedback for the different events has been hugely positive, with new contract opportunities directly attributed to the insight provided. A series of future Technology Solutions webinars is planned for later this year, beginning in September, and GS EMEA events will expand to cover other key market sectors and capabilities.

The challenges from COVID-19 have been difficult, but we are embracing the positive opportunities that exist to do things differently. We are reimagining our culture, work processes and workplaces, and are excited for our journey toward a more flexible, connected and collaborative future.