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Newsletter nr. 20 - november 2009 |
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COOL FRIENDS - Interview Bogdan Tudor |
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I had the pleasure of meeting Bogdan in one of our training sessions. Throughout the program I discovered his intense preoccupation with understanding the impact leadership processes have and how he could change the way he was leading his managers. There are only a handful of entrepreneurs that take such things into consideration! I was pleasantly surprised when, during one of our sessions, he talked about the way he had practiced the lessons we taught - it will however remain our secret!
1. In 2001 you decided to start your own company. As an entrepreneur what were the main challenges you faced when you decided to take this step? What were the solutions you discovered and which of them do you think would suit others that decide to become entrepreneurs?
From the very beginning I was confronted with a couple of interesting situations. When I first started my company in 2001 I faced two major challenges. The first one was the fact that I was already an employee of a company and I realized that I didn't have the time to handle two major responsibilities at the same time. The second one, somehow linked to the first one, was the fact that I didn't have too much sales experience – I was mostly working in the technical field and because of this the
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company wasn't developing. Back then, our sales effort meant sending faxes and waiting for clients to call. Due to the fact that they weren't calling we checked our phone number, because we thought the problem was of a technical nature…
Therefore I decided to take a step back, keep the business afloat and start fresh at the beginning of 2005. Meanwhile I decided to learn all that I could about managing a business and I took various courses on business as well as an EMBA.
When I came back to my business, in 2005, the main problem was the lack of awareness in the market referring to outsourcing services. Hire ads for the IT sector were everywhere, even for companies with 10-15 PC stations. I decided then that instead of promoting ourselves, we should position our company as a promoter of IT outsourcing services. I think it worked and it works, we started off as pioneers and we are currently the leaders in the segment of small and medium size companies.
2. How did the IT outsourcing services market react to the challenges of the global economic crisis? Can we consider this type of activity as being immune to the crisis or codependent on the way the market fluctuates?
When the economy goes down you cannot be immune. First of all you see that some of your customers are closing their business or reducing their activity, which involves cost cutting in all areas. On the other hand, the need to be efficient led to an assessment of outsourcing (no matter the type) and more and more companies are now taking this route. We experienced a growth in income of about 50% from new clients which decided to outsource in 2009, this compensated a decrease of about 20% in income from older customers, and therefore we ended up with a 30% increase.
3. There are still a lot of companies which are very reserved when it comes to IT outsourcing. What are the steps that need to be taken in order to change this attitude?
Every year this sort of attitude has gone down considerably. Looking back you can't even compare what's going on now with what was happening when I first started this business.
From my experience, there are three major elements that form the base of this certain type of attitude depending on the size of the company as well. The first one is the lack of awareness when it comes to the need for professional management of your IT assets as well as ensuring yourself against any sort of risks, avoiding loss of data or receiving IT support for your employees – the kind of attitude best described by the idea that "it's ok the way it is or they'll figure it out somehow". The second element is represented by small companies that "ruined it" for all of us, firms that used to offer - and still do - low quality services that generate low satisfaction and the prejudice that "we've contracted this sort of company before and it wasn't good". The third one is the lack of information regarding IT outsourcing as being a more efficient solution or better said the habit of doing things the same because you are afraid of change.
Solutions for changing the current state are still based on the need to educate the market, to promote the benefits which can be obtained as well as having companies that act as examples that this sort of decision works. We have around 150 such examples.
4. What would be the right moment for a company to decide whether to outsource their IT assets? What are the criteria they should take into consideration when looking for a supplier?
As I like to say the decision to outsource isn't based on if but on when. Let's take an example based on business experience. When I decide to improve employee performance I won't hire a trainer, what I will do is look for a company that is specialized in this area. This happens because I am aware that I don't have such skills present in the company and at the same time it isn't efficient for my business to have such competencies. This example is also true for IT. How could I attract the best people that can manage my IT assets efficiently? Is it worth it? The answer is definitely no.
It is important however that the decision you make is backed up by clear specifications that refer to the performance that is delivered. Outsourcing should take into consideration the technical abilities of the company, referrals from other clients and your own needs. All these must be specified in a contract or an addendum, so that they are tract and measured all the time.
5. What are the investments in personnel required by an IT outsourcing services company? Are we talking about just having technical expertise or are other abilities taken into consideration such as communication, leadership or team functionality?
When you work with people that have a technical background it's very important to help them develop communication abilities as well as soft skills aimed at improving customer experience. This is especially true in companies that offer services, because the best way to promote yourself is through the people that you send to your clients.
Plus, depending on the size of the company, you need a management team that can take you to the next level, beyond 10-15 employees and thus you have to invest in developing this team in order to help them manage others, because at this point in your development you can't bring in people from the outside. For Class IT this means a constant investment in this sort of a team, an investment which we've allotted to Human Invest. Such activities are mandatory if you want to move to the next level and we want this.
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