Taclit Ema Mihaela, Credit and Collection Analyst
a. What exactly are you doing in your current role (and how did you start)?
I had a great opportunity to be part of the C&C team and have the chance to test my limits and get the best results. Since December, I’m strategic marketing on our Employee Engagement Team (EET), where I have the opportunity to expose also my creative side. As credit and collection analyst, I have different responsibilities Such as : interacting with different stakeholders to identify the best solution to each issue encountered, Analyzing details and information to solve each case, creating reports to verify the results, and helping my team to achieve outstanding achievements. As a Strategic Marketing on EET, I’m adding value to the visual parts and doing my best to attract my colleagues to participate in the amazing activities that EET is supporting.
b. What are the activities that bring you great joy?
All my day to day responsibilities bring me joy, as I am a passionate and dedicated person who gets the satisfaction from getting things done.
c. What challenges have you faced so far?
For me was a hard challenge to work from home for such a long period as I am a sociable person and I really miss having my colleagues around.
d. Tell us about the most unique experience/project implemented in your current position.
An unique experience was the Working from home project, and even if I miss the face to face interaction, I did my best to ensure the professional relationships are still maintained accordingly in order to have the best results and to keep the same vibe and implication. Being part of the MF Avengers project, meant to provide to each employee the comfort and the coziness of WFH during this unique period, was one of the steps that I’ve made to help me and my team.
e. When you explain to your parents/family what you do at work, how would you do it?
I would tell to everyone that my current role is giving me the opportunity to interact with great people with different professional experiences and also being part of an amazing team from whom I have the chance to learn new things and develop my skills, to become the best version of myself.
f. What do you consider to be trends in your domain? Please list 3.
1. Having a great relationship with your customers.
2. Customer satisfaction
3. Maintain face 2 face (video calls) interaction with all our stakeholders, to keep everyone engaged.
g. What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop in the pioneering work?
I take ownership of all the projects where I can express and share my knowledge and my skills to help also my colleagues to remain involved and dedicated in order to continually grow and get the best results. I am actively participating in all the training and projects offered by the company.
Roxana Tudor, Communications Business Partner
I am Roxana Tudor, Communications Business Partner for Micro Focus and a member of the SHINE community (Sisters Helping to Inspire and Nurture Excellence), where I am representing and coordinating activities for Bucharest hub.
Since I noticed that there are many working mothers in the site, myself being one of them, I considered that would be nice to branch out this community and actually deliver some activities specifically to mothers.
I called it the “Surviving Motherhood” event series. Together with the Shine local team we led 2 workshops: one on work life balance and another one on WFHWK (Working from home with kids) during lockdown period.
In context of pioneering jobs, this fall I am actually stepping into a new role which is Go-To-Market Executive Communications. It is different and perhaps uncommon since it approaches leadership communication from a more meaningful and value add perspective. We are changing and shaping the communication of Level 2 leaders, adding a more strategic and employee oriented flavor.
When talking about important behind the scenes activities, I am a strong believer that employee engagement programs are at the core of any thriving company. In other words, happy employees are the foundation of a profitable business. Any activity that offer the employee an opportunity to feel safe, grow, develop, progress or enhance their skills, adds actually a plus in the efficiency and motivation for that person.
Specifically, programs like: coaching, training, counseling, self-help, possibility to experiment, speak up or test abilities & skills are very counseling beneficial and sometimes even more important than technical or business specific topics.
Adrian Todea, EMEA Upfront Quoting Operations Team Supervisor
a. What exactly are you doing in your current role (and how did you start)?
I’ve started working for the company back in the days when we were a part of the HP Software division, 6 years ago as CPQ specialist for the EMEA region. After 1 and a half year I’ve been promoted to the Team Leader position for the same team. It took me two years to secure my team as WW SMEs and make them self-sufficient, which was the achievement that has brought me to my current role of EMEA Upfront Quote Operations Supervisor.
b. What are the activities that bring you great joy?
People & Personal development; People Management & Leadership.
c. What challenges have you faced so far?
There were many and diverse challenges I had to face during my period with the company. Starting with getting to the SME role myself, then couch, mentor and help grow my team after getting promoted to the TL role. During this period, we were going thru the HPE separation, then the two transformational projects (FAST and Stack C) which also led to attrition while adapting to new platforms and processes. Of course, today there’s the new Covid-19 situation that I have to manage for my group.
d. Tell us about the most unique experience/project implemented in your current position.
Project: “Credit and Collection 120+days”
Scope: WW initiative to support the C&C team with collection activities
Role: Team Manager
Responsibilities: Leading/coordinating 12 team members from all 3 regions (APJ, EMEA & AMS)
Top achievement: Getting in house 2M $ from the 120+days overdue accounts within 3months
e. When you explain to your parents/family what you do at work, how would you do it?
Whenever I have to do this, and it is not that often, I usually say I’m the conductor of a very strong and capable group of individuals.
f. What do you consider to be trends in your domain? Please list 3.
IT transformation to a leaner and faster way of doing business: new infrastructure/tools, new processes & new roles.
g. What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop in the pioneering work?
I guess what everybody is doing, using my curiosity to stay in touch with the current environment by reading books and newspapers in the domain, attending online trainings & workshops.
Alexandra Smarandoiu, Entry Finance delivery/ Revenue Operations
My name is Alexandra Smarandoiu and currently I am working on Revenue Operations and SME for Professional Services EMEA.
a. What exactly are you doing in your current role (and how did you start)?
I have a finance delivery role, working with the New Business & Renewals Order team. I am finance approver for Professional Services projects, aligning order entries to ensure applicable business rules and corporate policies are followed. I’m also testing the new infrastructure that the company will implement in FY21 as I’ m expert on the tools and process I’m currently using.
b. What are the activities that bring you great joy?
In my personal life my hobbies like MAKEUP, sport, coffee in the morning, spending time with my soul people are the main activities that bring me a lot of joy. In my professional life I’m highly inspired by the kindness of people. It is amazing when you join forces with the colleagues that you work with to solve all the issue even if these are not related to your task/role and they show appreciation when you do not expect to receive it. I believe everyone need appreciation and a simple “thank you for helping me” makes you move forward and do your job even better. It’s like someone tell you: “I know it is hard, but you can do it, I’m here and I will support you. “
c. What challenges have you faced so far?
Working with people is challenging, working with people coming from all over the world is even more challenging. As your contact is just video or via photos become challenging to express yourself in crisis situations by email or call. Another challenge would be the transition of the company: the process changes, new tools, new colleagues- you must adapt and improve your skills. It feels like changing your job to another company.
d. Tell us about the most unique experience/project implemented in your current position.
I believe that the great experience here in Microfocus was when I changed the role. Together with one colleague we managed to improve and deliver the activity that has been done in the past by a team of 9. They left the company and we had no one to ask if we are on the correct way and we handled everything with only 10 days of training. We had to adapt, become creative, work tightly with other departments, and think how logical it would be to apply your common sense.
e. When you explain to your parents/family what you do at work, how would you do it?
I work 8 hours a day with a big family, with people I don’t know but you end up loving them, in the financial field, checking documents, invoicing details, analysing and providing approvals for special contracts.
f. What do you consider to be trends in your domain? Please list 3.
-using e-signature for legal contracts/documents
-approval process moved from manual one to automatic one
-reporting goes on-demand: Finance transformations and technological advances are increasingly enabling internal stakeholders to gain real-time access to self-service data, complemented by advanced analytics.
g. What are you doing to ensure you continue to grow and develop in the pioneering work?
Depth knowledge adds value and for each daily task doing the best to find optimal solutions for the company and suitable for the customers as well.