The SumUp story
Organisational vision
An enduring organisation that is people-positive and constantly innovates from within - an organism made up of small, autonomous, cross-functional teams pursuing a variety of missions, guided by one joint vision and a common set of values.
People positive
Being a people-positive organisation means making the development and happiness of our people a critical, continuing goal. It includes getting the best talent, giving them honest feedback, and empowering them to make decisions in pursuit of our mission and in line with our values. We want SumUp to be a place where people development is integral to our organisational vision, radical candour is practised regularly, “political” behaviour has no place, and everyone enjoys working together.
Innovation from within
Adaptability requires innovation, and to be scalable, innovation needs to happen spontaneously and systemically within the organisation. We owe much of SumUp’s success to cultivating a culture of innovation. We do that by setting the bar high and challenging ourselves to figure out how to clear it. Wild ideas and creative solutions are encouraged. We keep a constant stable of loonshots that we invest in, even where doing so goes against conventional “business sense”. If you have a great idea for how to help SumUp achieve its vision, we want to support you in going for it.
Small, autonomous and cross-functional teams
Agility is the essence of an enduring organisation, and we strive to create an organisation that fosters it. We are not into hierarchies and bureaucracy; we believe in giving SumUppers the autonomy to be creative, take risks, engage in thoughtful experimentation, and break unnecessary rules. If we fail, we want to fail fast and try something else. We want to bring a lean mentality to everything we do, regardless of how big we get. Our end goal is to build an anti-fragile, agile organisation that can excel in any environment.
To achieve that goal, SumUp’s organisation is built around small, autonomous, cross-functional teams. Each team owns a particular value stream, has the full set of necessary skills, and is given the freedom to deliver that value stream as they see fit. Rather than having teams specialised in one function, we try to build cross-functional teams that are self-sufficient, self-organised and self-motivated.
To balance autonomy, we have to embrace accountability equally. Autonomy is not simply giving people the freedom to do as they please. We have adopted a “context over control” approach to decision-making that emphasises the importance of cross-functional collaboration and communication so that decision-makers have what they need to make informed decisions on their own. People must then take ownership of their decisions and foster such accountability in their team so that we can learn from our successes and failures.
This fundamental shift from a hierarchical, top-down approach of control to a bottom-up approach of giving context ties in with our goal of being a continuously learning, continuously adapting organisation. We want to approach every task as a learning opportunity, empowering us to make smarter decisions tomorrow.
Our Mission and Values