Thierry Blain, Chief Operating Officer of Societe Generale Global Solution Centre
- What was the most challenging thing your company, people, and you, personally, had to face in 2020?
In an unpredictable scenario, the COVID-19 pandemic had had a significant impact across global economies. Needless to say, the pandemic and its implications on the business environment was the biggest challenge we all had to face last year. For us, Societe Generale Global Solution Centre, it was also an opportunity to adapt fast and remain the same trusted partner for Societe Generale Group.
Above all, our primary concern was to keep our employees safe – ensuring proper working conditions for all in terms of Health & Safety. The key success factor in overcoming this crisis was the communication we had across the organization on all levels: transparent and frequent. It was also important to put in place a business continuity plan in the given context – a challenge we have overcome thanks to our teams and technologies.
As for myself, keeping a work-life balance in 2020 was harder than ever – especially because I am also a parent.
- What pleasantly surprised you last year? / What are you grateful for?
I am grateful for the strong commitment and solidarity our teams across the organization have shown in these tough times. Everyone was ready to help, take things forward and even go the extra mile. It was the best possible outcome, and it confirmed to me what I already knew: we are a united team, a team where everyone would work to uplift each other and work together even in a challenging situation.
- What are your plans and expectations for 2021?
We are very positive when looking at 2021, and we expect (hopefully) a COVID-19 crisis that will slowly decrease in the second half of the year. We will continue to deliver ‘best in class’ production quality and transform processes, thus strengthening our position as a trusted partner for all Societe Generale Group entities. Moreover, we intend to implement our ‘new normal’ plan, which is defined for both work-from-the-office and work-from-home scenarios.
Our company is celebrating this year its 10th anniversary since its establishment in Bucharest. This important milestone in our journey has taken us one step closer to our goals. We are now a global solution centre and a partner of choice. All of this has happened by leveraging our employees’ skills and expertise and setting up strategic priorities, embracing opportunities and challenges alike.
- What do you foresee it will be different this year and what impact it will have on our industry/Romania/your company/your people?
Across the business environment, the level of digitalization and digital transformation started to grow really fast in 2020 because we all needed technology to ensure business continuity. It is more customer-centric, and it empowers and enables employees. All industries had to reinvent themselves, and Romania has a key advantage in progressing in this area and positioning itself in the global economy accordingly.
Now that we all acknowledge the benefits of digital transformation, it will be an increasing trend in 2021 as well. Maybe it will peak its highest rate ever in our country and, of course, in our BPO & Services industry, impacting our operations for the better. The shared service centres play a key role in (re)shaping the business environment. We have a great responsibility to deliver quality production and value-added services. And Societe Generale Global Solution Centre is taking this responsibility further.
- What is your message for the ABSL community?
Be positive. We still need to be strong as leaders and individuals, to lead our teams beyond 2020 and its implications. We already have everything we need to overcome whatever challenges may come.
Alexandru Grigoreanu, Head of KYC Utility @ Societe Generale Global Solution Centre
- What was the most challenging thing your company, people, and you, personally, had to face in 2020?
Looking back at 2020, I think the biggest challenge was to shift from a ‘work from office’ model to a 100% remote work environment (almost) over night. Even though we already had a ‘work from home’ program for most functions across our company, it was not the case for everyone as some roles required specific office tasks. Besides, we, as human beings, are in constant need for social interaction, which became possible only through digital means.
Another important challenge was to take all possible measures to ensure the health & safety of our colleagues – while keeping also a resilient delivery towards our business partners.
- What pleasantly surprised you last year? / What are you grateful for?
I am grateful for the strong mobilizations of our teams and their commitment to deliver very good results in a highly challenging environment. I was pleasantly surprised by the team spirit demonstrated by all our colleagues and their will to achieve their goals, as if we were in a business as usual setup.
- What are your plans and expectations for 2021?
For 2021 I expect to slowly return to a ‘normal’ context, leaving the pandemics behind and focusing on what the future holds. Of course, this ‘normal’ will mean something new for all of us, as the global pandemics is changing the way we relate to the professional environment and beyond. I feel that most of us are impatient to retrieve some old habits and things that we liked to do – like face-to-face meetings or travel, but at the same time we will also want to do things differently. It is obvious that the current context means a step forward in terms of digitalization and digital transformation, and we need to embrace the ‘new normal’ and make the most out of it.
- What do you foresee it will be different this year and what impact it will have on our industry/Romania/your company/your people?
The studies and reports that Randstad constantly makes to take the global and local market pulse show encouraging data for 2021. On the employers’ side, we expect companies to invest more in their employer brand and social responsibility programs, to be more open to the voice of their people. Winning companies are investing in the tech, data, processes, and people to enable speed through better decisions and faster course corrections based on what they learn. On the talents side, we expect to identify more easily valuable people which are open to undertake new job offers.
- What is your message for the ABSL community?
Once again, the ABSL community did a great job in 2020 by bringing people together to share information, best practices and business challenges that we encountered in a very peculiar and unexpected context. The interactions were highly valuable and enabled all of us to find solutions and move forward. There was a highly visible commitment from ABSL to engage all its members in a difficult time and this should continue also in 2021.
The sense of belonging to a strong community can only be positive and shows that the business services industry in Romania remains strong and it’s well represented.
Cătălina Magui, Head of HRCO @ Societe Generale Global Solution Centre
- What was the most challenging thing your company, people, and you, personally, had to face in 2020?
2020 was definitely a challenging year for everyone. On the business side obviously, the biggest challenge at the beginning of the COVID-19 crisis was the abrupt transformation of our way of working, by moving to 100% remote working with all our teams (before the crisis we used to work from home but never 5 days in a row). Thanks to the fantastic support of Societe Generale’ management, we were able to overcome all the obstacles (and there were quite a few) and adjust our business model so that we were able to keep all our employees safe and ensure business continuity.
Another challenge was to adapt to virtual meetings and remote management – shifting from face to face meetings and interactions. And this will remain a challenge as long as we are constrained to interact (only) virtually.
On the personal side, finding the right balance between working time at home and supporting my children with the all new concept of home schooling was one of my biggest challenges.
- What pleasantly surprised you last year? / What are you grateful for?
I was surprised by people’s capacity to adapt to all the challenges 2020 threw at us. I saw an amazing mobilization to find new ways of working together in a completely new setup. I saw people sincerely caring for each other across geographies and cultures. If that is not impressing, then I don’t know what is.
If I am looking at my team, I am thankful for their outstanding performance in such difficult times. Not only they were able to successfully meet all the objectives and deadlines (as per the initial roadmap), but they also picked up new projects as well.
Personally, I am grateful for having all of them safe and sound, alongside all our colleagues. The whole context made us more united than before, although we had to keep our social distance.
- What are your plans and expectations for 2021?
2021 starts with an important step forward for our company: we are shifting from an ‘European’ organization to a ‘Global’ one and we are changing our name into Societe Generale Global Solution Centre. We are moving to a more integrated organization together with our colleagues in India, leveraging on the strengths of both teams. This is a strong statement of our joint efforts, for our partners, and employees alike. Regardless of the geographical borders or cultural differences, we are expanding our impact as one team towards a common goal: to create an undeniable positive global impact to the Societe Generale Group.
In 2021 we will continue to optimize the existing operating model and develop our business with new activities and ambitious projects. Our aim is to further adopt new and sustainable ways of working.
- What do you foresee it will be different this year and what impact it will have on our industry/Romania/your company/your people?
The sanitary crisis is not over yet, and we cannot estimate when it will end for sure. This uncertainty will continue to have an impact on the business environment and will ‘force’ us to be efficient and agile, to adapt, rethink and to make decisions fast. We will focus more on short and medium-term planning (with regular reviews) and less on long-term strategies. And maybe we will be willing to invest more resources in projects that have an immediate return.
- What is your message for the ABSL community?
I am happy that Societe Generale Global Solution Centre is part of the ABSL community because we do benefit from sharing best practices and insights with other companies and have access to different market intelligence. There is no doubt, together, as a community, we are stronger. And we must remain united.
- What could we do to grow stronger as a community?
Promoting more the community and its initiatives within our industry should help us grow even stronger. Organizing several events per year with open audience for the market to show the benefits that ABSL community may bring to support the development of the industry and facilitate the dialogue among business leaders and the dialogue with the public authorities – could be a great opportunity.
- A message for ABSL or a suggestion.
The sanitary crisis showed that our businesses are resilient and that we can manage very well the operations and projects completely remote. We all should be proud of this. Still, there are a lot of digital transformation and optimization opportunities to pursue. Here I see the need for support from ABSL to push forward to the public authorities the change of the labor legislative framework to allow the complete digitalization of the labor contract relationship management.