Hello CEO: Anna Kleine, Orango
Our 1,350 members range from small start-ups with few employees to large multinational companies with thousands of employees around the world. Under the banner "Hello CEO", we gather their views on the past year, their thoughts on the future, but also lessons and experiences from a time unlike any other. For the fourth installment, we present Anna Kleine, CEO of Orango.
How would you sum up the past year, largely marked by the coronavirus pandemic?
- The first thing that comes to mind when I think about the past year is creativity. How quickly everyone has switched to working completely digitally both in terms of internal leadership and collaboration as our external customer projects. We are used to a close and present relationship with our customers and did not think before the pandemic that it was possible to carry out a comprehensive implementation project of an ERP system completely digitally. But it was! Our consultants have quickly and creatively found new ways of working that work remotely and also helped our customers with adaptations that have facilitated their new digital everyday life. Everyone has made an effort and worked hard to make this work and I am enormously grateful for that.
What lessons have you learned and what will you take away?
- The past year is proof that we are a flexible and agile organization that can adapt more easily than we previously thought possible. In addition, we can clearly see that there are areas where we have become more efficient in our new digital everyday life. We also see that the pandemic year has not affected either leadership or team spirit, but rather it has gone up according to the measurements we continuously make.
- Our way of traveling is also a lesson we take with us forward. That in the future we will have a positive impact on the environment because we do not have to travel as much as we have done in the past, many meetings can be taken digitally even after corona.
- As things return to the 'new normal', I think it's important that we all remind ourselves that change was possible and that we can remain as flexible and agile in the future.
Looking ahead, how do you see the immediate future?
- We know that many of our employees enjoy working from home, but we also know that not everyone feels comfortable doing it all the time. Therefore, it is important that we as an employer do not have a "let go" mentality but find a way forward that supports our employees to find a balance that works for everyone. We have therefore initiated a project where we, with the help of our leadership council, will develop guidelines for the optimal way of working even after corona, which we hope will be able to support our employees.
- During the pandemic, we have successfully launched large critical customer projects. We have gone live in operations where our implementations can be compared to a heart and lung transplant. I.e. it has been extremely critical for our customers' operations. We have learned the hard way that this can be done completely digitally. We will take this with us into the future and through a way of working where we combine irl with digital, our projects will be even more successful and our customers will be even more successful.
Have you seen any tangible benefits from your membership of IT&Telecom during the crisis? If so, which ones?
- Our membership has meant that we have received a great deal of support on issues related to short-time work, which we have appreciated very much. We have also been able to utilize your resources as a sounding board on issues related to the work environment, which has been an important work for us over the past year. Thank you for all your help and support - those of you who are not members, please become members!