Ali Hamdan, Head of Professional Services, Vertiv Global Business Services
This year we will…be closer!
Looking back, 2020 was a unique year on a personal and professional level: it brought new experiences, challenges without a doubt but opportunities and learnings as well.
Distance was the main theme, in my perspective. For the first time, we were not being able to meet and connect as we did in the past, to be close to our loved ones and to the communities that we live in. Neither were things easier professionally: our businesses needed to adapt fast to the new normal from not being able to meet the customers face to face, we experienced logistical challenges especially in lockdown periods and we got familiar the new approach, having most of the organization working from home.
The answer to distance was more digitalization. The biggest challenge that I faced was to create the right communication channels, enabling us effectively connect with our teams on the right level. Sure enough, this requires a combination of channels and tools to keep employees aligned and engaged. There is still a lot to learn in this respect and I’m sure that 2021 will keep pushing my boundaries.
I’m grateful to our teams in Romania who showed a great example of ownership and collaboration, making sure that our services are at premium quality while supporting any affected area of the business. The solidarity and willingness to help is something that I’m really proud of in our center and across the company.
My plans for this year are to continue to pursue the highest quality of the service that we provide to our internal and external customers, bring even more efficient high-end services to our center, all while continuously working on innovation and flexibility which are key to create the right ecosystem for a best-in-class experience for our customers.
One of the positive aspects of last year was the fact that most organizations (private and public) realized the importance of flexibility and digitalization. This means that our industry is rapidly evolving and we expect that this will help attract top talent to bring more innovation to the market. Furthermore, it should be an eye opener for a lot of organizations to calibrate on how much WE can bring to the table to support their critical infrastructure needs from a complexity and scalability standpoint.
We as ABSL community need to be more connected on how to re-shape our industry and the way we operate, be more innovative and keep investing in the communities where we work. I believe that ABSL can and should play a key role in bringing us to work and innovate together so we unlock the different opportunities that our country has to offer.