22 Next stop NNIT

INTERFACENNIT EMPloyEE MAGAZINE I No. 18 I SEPTEMBER 2012

one new colleague each day. Meet our recruitment team

20

Next stop NNIT 22

Former dSB employees speak

Quality and customer satisfaction: Friendships strengthen quality | A SAN thriller | Evaluations raise satisfaction

Hard hitting26

Claus is a world champion in karate

INTERFACE I No. 18 I SEPTEMBER 2012

We are now working on the second theme in the communication of our strategic focus areas – namely ‘quality and customer satisfaction’.

This involves the core of our DNA. We are examining the essence of our values and where we would like to differentiate ourselves from our competitors. It was therefore extra painful when the most recent customer satisfaction survey revealed a fall from 3.7 to 3.4 on a scale of 1-5.

There are plenty of explanations, but it’s more important to find the right answers and solutions. The attitudes and actions that will help raise quality and thereby improve customer satisfaction – both at overall strategic and everyday levels.

Here at Interface we are focusing intensively on some of the initiatives. How will the major investments in a new SAN affect operational stability? How can evaluations help improve customer satisfaction? And how can friendships across NNIT strengthen quality?

While on the subject of quality and satisfaction, over the summer we asked for your views on Interface. Thank you for the many responses. Most were positive, and we are pleased that most people read and like the magazine (3.9 on a scale of 1-5). But we have also listened to the criticism and suggested improvements, such as the call for more critical angles on how we create more value for customers. This issue will attempt to explore both factors.

But please carry on suggesting improvements and ideas for new articles. The mail address is NNIT-Communications, telephone number +45 3079 8210, and the address is OEA.D3.P14.

Happy reading,

Lars Blume Schackinger (LASC)

Leader

EditorLars Blume Schackinger (LASC)

EditorsAnne Pia Bjerg Overbeck (APB)Kirsten Textor (TEXT)Svend Ravn (SVRV)Robert Neimanas (RBNM)

Circulation and issue2,100 I No. 18 I September 2012

AddressNNIT A/SOestmarken 3DK-2860 SoeborgTel.: +45 4442 [email protected]

Next editionDecember 2012

Design and productionvahle+nikolaisen

PhotographyJakob Boserup and others

Translation and proofreadingEye for Image

PaperMunken Polar 240 I 170 gram

The heart of the matter

I 3

INTERFACEQuAlITy AND CusTomER sATIsFACTIoNTHEmE

6 Evaluations – the cutting edge Thomas on the new EvalGO

8 No false comfortNovo Nordisk's experiences with EvalGo

10 Friendship strengthens qualityQuality and professionalism go hand-in-hand

12 A sAN thrillerThe story behind the breakdown

14 VoxpopFive employees on quality and customer

lync saves time 19CAB meetings more effective with Lync

The department focus 20One new colleague every day

New colleagues 22Former DSB employees about their new workplace

Ringing the bells 24What does the sales success mean for NNIT

Practice makes perfect 26Claus is a world champion in karate

Karsten's column 28'VHS strategy' will ensure high quality

International service Desk 30A BAT developer speaks out

Tombola 32A BAT developer speaks out

In brief 34Nice to know about NNIT


THEmET

I 5

Quality and customer satisfaction have always been key words at NNIT – and have always been fi ercely debated across the organisation. Our intense focus on these two words can sometimes feel like a tool for leveraging improvements and at other times like a burden during everyday work.

But one thing is sure: The right quality helps raise customer satisfaction with us and is vital for our growth and existence. And all things being equal, satisfi ed customers make our daily work a lot more fun.

Read more on the following pages.

Qualityand

Source: NNIT’s corporate strategy 2012-2014

+ Improve quality of deliveries. Reduce relative number of major incidents

+ use customer satisfaction and EvalGo surveys to improve quality in each project

+ develop proactive advisor mindset to be both a ‘technical problem solver’ and ‘proactive advisor’

+ Maintain perception and experience of NNIT strengths related to professionalism, stable operations and quality

iMPrOVe OVeraLL QUaLity aNd CUStOMer SatiSFaCtiON

QUALITY

Strategic focus area 3:


By Lars Blume Schackinger (LASC)

THEmET

Our customer evaluation EvalGO is by no means a new concept at NNIT. In fact, it has existed to all intents and purposes since our early days around the turn of the cen-tury. However, the underlying process has been radically changed. NNIT’s ‘Mr. EvalGO’, Thomas Thorsted (THOT), explains:

“Before, we only evaluated projects when they were over, and once a year in connection with our SLAs. The feed-back was therefore secondary, and we couldn’t correct er-rors along the way. So even though we slaved away think-ing we had delivered a terrifi c solution, our view of the quality didn’t always match the customers’,” says Thomas.

strengthening proactivityThomas is Business Support Director at Solutions and back in 2010 he took part in a pilot project in the former Life Sciences Division, where we began continuous evalu-ation in the project phase. Since then, the idea has spread through the whole of Solutions and IT Operation Services.

The idea is to make the whole evaluation process much more proactive. Now all customer projects and SLAs over DKK ½ million are evaluated at least four times a year:

“Now we have much better chances of nipping dissatisfac-tion in the bud early in the process and adjusting our work to suite. We are more proactive and often fi nd that even small adjustments can change the big picture,” explains Thomas.

At the same time, the questionnaire has been reduced from 48 questions to just fi ve, covering quality, deadlines, competencies, communication and cooperation, as well as the opportunity to add comments. All the questions are scored from 1-5, with a top score of 5.

This makes fi lling in the evaluation, which is now online, much easier for the customer. And it gives much more concrete responses that NNIT can translate into action much more easily.

– the cutting edge

I 7

FRoM REACTIvE FIRE-FIGhTING To PRoACTIvE PRoBlEM SolvING. IN A NuTShEll, ThAT’S how NNIT ChANGEd ITS ENTIRE APPRoACh To woRkING wITh CuSToMER EvAluATIoNS.

Problems on the boardIf a customer gives a question a score of 1 or 2, the rel-evant service delivery manager immediately contacts the customer to reveal the underlying reason and agree on future-oriented initiatives.

The EvalGO results are also used for local board meetings at NNIT:

“It gives the employees a good snapshot of projects when they can see the results up on the board. It also gives them very good scope to suggest improvements and thereby ac-tively contribute towards increasing customer satisfaction. And in any case, it’s more fun for us all to work on projects and SLAs when customers are happy,” explains Thomas.

one piece of the big pictureAs mentioned, the new evaluation form started in Solu-tions and the good experience has now been rolled out throughout the entire organisation, so EvalGO is being implemented in the same way across the organisation.

EvalGO is part of the Customer Feedback Programme (CFP), which also includes the annual customer satisfac-tion and helpdesk experience surveys (see fact box). The target group for the annual customer satisfaction survey is usually the customer’s top management, for EvalGO it is the manager or project manager, and for the helpdesk sur-vey it is the end user. That means all links in the customer’s chain are asked for their opinions.

Previously, the three forms of evaluation were inde-pendent, with separate questionnaires, which gave very different results and a confusing picture. They are now combined under Marketing, and as something new, all five questions are featured in all three evaluations*, so that data can be compared across organisational layers. This creates a far stronger basis for improving service for indi-vidual customers.

Room for improvementAlthough significant progress has been made with our customer evaluations, there is still room for improvement:

“Optimising our EvalGO scores is one thing, but customer expectations must also match the service level outlined in the contract. So we must always evaluate whether we are using the right resources for individual customers. And we

must be better at collecting the EvalGOs from both Solu-tions and ITOS and coordinating actions across the two divisions," says Thomas.

* NNIT’s survey of customers’ helpdesk experiences – the End User Survey – has a slightly different structure. First, customers are asked about satisfaction with the service. If the answer is 1-3, other questions are asked about subjects such as waiting time, communication and com-petencies. The survey is managed by the Helpdesk, and Marketing publishes the results in Business Reports.

infoThe purpose of NNIT’s Customer Feedback Programme (CSP) is to collect our feedback from customers in one place and strengthen the quality of our measurements of customer satisfaction and associated follow-up. The programme consists of three parts:

1) The Annual Customer Satisfaction Survey (CSS). The annual survey among our customers’ top manage-ment. In 2011 the score was 3.4.

2) EvalGO. A minimum of four annual measurements of all projects and all SLAs of over DKK ½ million. As of 1 September, 452 measurements had been made in 2012 with an average of 3.9.

3) The End User Survey (EUS). Randomly selected users are asked about their experience just after they have contacted the NNIT helpdesk. As of 1 September the average score is 4.2.

Our customer satisfaction is now also very visible. You can see the results of our customers’ feedback in our Business Reports. Write ‘BR’ in your browser.


EvalGOTHEmET

shouldn’t be a false

comfortmette Jensen from Novo Nordisk has been part of the process all along in terms of evaluating NNIT’s service. In this interview with Interface she explains about the marathon surveys of the past, the current focus on following up and future improvements.

Mette Jensen (MJSN) is a manager at Novo Nordisk IT System Management. She has worked with various IT systems and is therefore very experienced at evaluating NNIT’s deliverables.

Mette can easily remember the ‘old’ days when an EvalGO consisted of an annual meeting that seemed to be of questionable value:

“I had to remember what had happened over the past year. It’s not always easy when you’re busy at work. And we worked with several IT systems at once, each with its own EvalGO, which made it hard to keep the evaluations separate,” explains Mette.

As a result, discussions were very general and it was hard to see the operational solutions afterwards. Every-day work soon took priority again and another year passed with no real progress. To compound matters, Mette was never interviewed by the NNIT employee

responsible for the project. Discussions were therefore slightly distanced and it was easy to complain without any comeback.

Part of a pilot projectBack in 2010, Mette worked at novoDocs together with NNIT. While there she was invited to join a pilot project devised to change the EvalGO process at NNIT. She could easily see the benefits of continuous evaluations and was soon after invited to NNIT’s office on Buddingevej. And she was positively surprised:

“The walls were hung with posters listing our issues and specific action points. We called it the Wailing Wall for fun, but inviting a customer in to see how NNIT wanted to improve demonstrated great trust and showed that they wanted our involvement,” explains Mette.

Action points then became much more specific and Mette received regular reports on status and progress. It was a

By Lars Blume Schackinger (LASC)

PAGE 8 I 9

shouldn’t be a false

close dialogue, with issues being caught in time and adjusted. And on the whole there was far more action than just talk.

“For example at one point I gave a low score for ‘com-munication’ on one of my current systems when I felt I was not informed about what was happening in time. This was followed up immediately and I had a meeting with my service delivery manager (SDM) from NNIT and we worked out a solution. Now we meet once every two weeks and it works like clockwork,” says Mette.

No complaining for the sake of itNow EvalGO is always fresh in people’s minds, and that also requires something from Mette:

“As follow up is immediate, we must really stand by our criticism. There’s no scope for ‘complaining for the sake of it’ any more, so we also make our feedback more spe-cific,” says Mette.

No false comfortAlthough Mette is very satisfied with the new EvalGO, she still has a few good tips:

“Don’t let EvalGO become a false comfort and wait for our feedback. You must also be more proactive and anticipate our criticism. For example, we’ve noticed that previous problems tend to reappear, such as the high em-ployee turnover rates. And you could be better at sharing knowledge across your SDMs so the same problems don’t arise in several systems.”


By Anne Pia Bjerg Overbeck (APB)

Anders and Klaus discuss suggestions for improvement.

THEmET

It’s clear that Klaus and Anders had a wake-up call after meeting each other for the fi rst time on the Senior Spe-cialist Programme in the spring. The discussions have seriously opened their eyes to the business opportuni-ties within reach if our quality team at Quality & Security (Q&S) and our many highly skilled specialists in the com-pany talked even more together to boost the total ‘quality mindset’ throughout the entire organisation.

Klaus works in the Finance team at Application Services with projects for customers such as Pensam, Alka and PFA.

Anders works at Q&S, where he helps to further develop NNIT’s quality setup. And he gets called in as a problem solver on projects where challenges occasionally arise concerning delivery quality.

The heavyweights guarantee qualityAnders has learned a lot from the course:

“The course has opened my eyes to the fact that by combining NNIT’s network of professional heavyweights with an increased focus on quality, we can make a lot of headway as a business. Because the best quality is implemented through professional pride. No one with any self-respect wants to deliver anything less – especially not a team of specialists like us.”

And Klaus continues:

“There are too many urban myths about QMIT not being good enough. But the system doesn’t ensure good quality

– we do! We talked about that a lot and Anders had some really good examples. That’s why I invited him to talk to my own team about quality, so that we all can have the same ‘aha’ moment and gradually begin to change the attitude that some may have about quality being a very diffi cult thing.”

According to the two gentlemen, quality is mainly a ques-tion of common sense. If you consider the benefi ts aff ord-ed by good quality, there is no reason to try to cut corners. High quality means fewer costs due to major incidents and changes. It also means we stand a little taller and custom-ers are more satisfi ed with our services. Only then will we deserve the role we want as the customer’s trusted advisor.

In other words, quality must be felt – and real. If the custom-er meets a trusted advisor from NNIT, he should feel calm and in good competent hands. That creates satisfaction.

less talk, more action!Anders and Klaus agree that if we are to survive as a com-pany, we must stop discussing quality. It must be a natural part of everything we do.

This is the core of our quality mindset – quality is not a whip or a supervisory body, but an implicit element of our actions.

but how can we strengthen our quality mindset? According to Klaus, we achieve that by working with quality in a business-driven manner. We achieve it, for example, by considering quality as a two-way process in

I 11

Quality and professional pride are two sides

of the same coin

Senior Operation Specialist Klaus Mygind (KMYG) and Q&S Subject Matter Expert Anders Vidstrup (AVID) are two of NNIT’s top-performing specialists. They met each other on one of this year’s courses for senior specialists. And this resulted in an interest-ing discussion on quality – how does quality and the role of the specialist come together, and where do the benefits for the customer enter the equation.

our organisation. Q&S must be able to understand the business to sup-port it with the necessary tools and projects. However, the business must also be able to understand quality as a unit (Q&S) and stop question-ing central, vital initiatives such as our IT Code of Conduct, which was launched in June this year.

More physical meetings are also required – as is now the case in Klaus’ team when Anders drops in for a chat. Anders will present a number of examples of what can happen when the quality mindset is substandard - but also examples of the opposite. In other words, how incredibly far you can get when the quality mindset is second nature:

“Let’s say that our quality manage-ment system doesn’t move quite as fast as the business. Let’s say we don’t update it quite well enough. And let’s say that our quality mind-set saturates the entire business and is deeply rooted in the many highly skilled specialists (some of whom are actually among the best in the world in their field). Well then we will come a long way. Simply by focusing on

professionalism combined with un-derstanding some very basic quality processes. We can navigate our way around in QMIT even though it is not state-of-the-art because we know precisely what is required to deliver the best product. Anyone working with IT knows, after all, that we need to run tests. Any specialist knows the location of risk elements in his own field. It’s common sense. It must be second nature.”

But it also requires a good network within the company. It’s good to know who to contact if a risk arises. And that leads us back to the value of the specialist course. The gentle-men have sparred with each other during and after the course, and they now know who to ask for good advice, or a helping hand. So the quality discussion continues.

infosenior specialist ProgrammeThe course is for NNIT’s top-performing specialists and role models. The par-ticipants are nominated and approved by NNITMAN through the Organisational Review Process.

While on the course, the specialists work on their strengths and personal develop-ment and elements of business develop-ment, strategy, communication and negotiation are involved. That means you move out of your professional comfort zone and become involved in close dialogue with the other specialists, with a view to subsequently sparring and exchanging experiences.


THEmET

sAN thriller with a happy ending The whiteboard is quickly cov-ered in small boxes with arrows in between and bullets alongside a list of technical terms and explanations when Interface meets Kim Skibsdal Lohse (KLSE), manager of the Stor-age team at IT Operation Services (ITOS). Kim explains the sequence of events in April, when many systems were down for up to three days – though luckily over a weekend.

There is no simple technical explana-tion for how the problem occurred. Expanding the data centre storage capacity on Friday morning was the last straw – though it was a standard operation. One of the two Storage Area Networks (SAN) – which allow the servers to store and recover stored data – was hit. As a result, many customers’ systems began running slower or crashed complete-ly. It was very serious because the IT systems are vital for customers’ operations and business, and it was an extremely nerve-racking time for Kim, his team and the rest of NNIT,

who constantly work to safeguard customers’ stable operations.

Intense weekendWithin two hours of the fi rst prob-lems occurring on Friday morning, a wide range of NNIT employees were already involved in fi nding a solution. NNIT’s process for major incidents was activated and technical special-ists, managers, account managers, external specialists and many more besides immediately started to map and solve the problems in order of priority, and ensure communication in-house and with customers.

As soon as it was clear on Friday that the task would stretch through the night, duty rosters were com-piled, employees called friends and family to cancel weekend plans, and the battle plan for the night was drawn up. The corridors buzzed with muted but intense concentration as everyone focused solely on the task in hand.

Over the weekend, team after team of specialists worked on closing the case. Experts were fl own in from abroad. Slowly a light began to ap-pear at the end of the tunnel and on Sunday at 6 pm, the customers’ systems were up and running again.

Will it happen again?When a large-scale breakdown is over, and customers’ systems are once again up and running as usual, the questions begin. Lots of people wanted to know why the problem occurred, and even more were ask-ing if it could happen again.

We put Kim on the spot: “No one can honestly give a 100 percent guaran-tee against a breakdown occurring, even though we’d really like to. But I can guarantee that we have pulled out all the stops to prevent a repeat performance,” emphasises Kim.

The most important initiatives for ensuring quality and stability are

recruiting more top specialists and detailed fi ne-tuning of the processes for storage, servers and SAN. “It was an expensive lesson – but we are now more alert and in control. We are building up an entirely new SAN with extremely high standardisation specifi cations and strict control – so customers can feel secure about en-joying the stability and predictability expected of modern infrastructure,” says Kim.

A list of about 70 prioritised im-provements has been implemented. All the changes must be approved by the relevant suppliers and as-sessed by an expert team. And in ad-dition, Kim’s team has been almost doubled to 11 people, and NNIT has employed top specialists with very deep insight in the technology that’s used in SAN.

A crack teamKim doesn’t hide the fact that this period required very hard work and an extraordinary eff ort from his team. It therefore bothers him that some colleagues made thoughtless comments that might usually be funny, but after months of hard work hit home a little hard. Luckily most people recognise how hard the team has worked and the results they have achieved.

Kim is proud of his team, which has got the SAN back on track. “The only reason we have been able to cope is that the guys guard their honour with pride and are ready to do whatever it takes when the chips are down,” says Kim. “Many of us lost sleep after the breakdown and have fought extremely hard for the stabil-ity we are experiencing today.”

The combination of a crack team, an ambitious plan for upgrading the SAN and stricter processes are NNIT’s answer to an unusually challenging situation. A nice happy ending to an extremely hair-raising thriller.

Storage Area Networks (SANs) make sure servers can store and recover data on the storage units. If a SAN doesn’t work, the IT systems on the server fail.

servers

sAN

storage

Friday the 13thIS NoRMAlly ASSoCIATEd wITh ACCIdENTS ANd ThRIllERS – ANd oN FRIdAy 13 APRIl 2012 AN INCIdENT ARoSE ThAT wAS BoTh uNluCky ANd SCARy FoR A TEAM ANd A CoMPANy whERE quAlITy ANd STABlE oPERATIoNS ARE ToP PRIoRITy. BuT lIkE All Good FIlMS, IT hAd A hAPPy ENdING.

PAGE 12 I 13

By S

vend R

avn (SVR

V)


VoxpopTHEmET

All roads lead to Rome

quAlITy ANd CuSToMER SATIS-

FACTIoN ARE ESSENTIAl FoCAl PoINTS IN All JoBS ANd FuNCTIoNS AT NNIT, BuT ARE CARRIEd ouT IN MANy dIFFERENT wAyS dEPENdING oN ThE JoB AREA ANd ThE CuSToMER. wE ASkEd A NuMBER oF EMPloyEES FRoM vARIouS PARTS oF

ThE oRGANISATIoN how ThEy woRk

wITh quAlITy ANd CuSToMER

SATISFACTIoN IN ThEIR

TEAMS.

I 15

JACob CoRTNum (JbCm) Application Manager, AO Regulatory IMS

Investment in both hard and soft factorsWhat goals have we reached? From Q2 2011 to Q2 2012, the department moved from a customer satisfaction score of 3.3 to an all-time high of 4.7. Our global sourcing ratio on application support (AS) is 65 percent and on application development (AD) 34 percent. We exceeded our profit margins on AS by 20.5 percent and 30.6 percent on AD.

How did we do this? We did this by actively focusing on the EvalGO scores as an indication of our ability to deliver the right quality. At our board meetings we monitor, control and discuss our processes and our daily operation in order to find optimisation and improvement initiatives. We make an effort to listen to the customer’s feedback on the EvalGO scores and to identify the right improvement actions, act on them and follow up.

At the same time, we also focused on investment in build-ing team culture, trust and a professional mindset in our

international team (CN and DK). The LEAP project that we conducted last year played a significant role in terms of laying the grounds for a solid team culture, but we have worked on sustaining and developing the relation-ship even further.

What worries the customer?Even though we have reached a satisfactory level for our customers, we still have opportunities for improvement. Some of our weak points, besides the focus on competi-tiveness on price and quality, are the lack of critical mass on our applications and business knowledge and the oral English level of our Global Service Desk function. In future we will therefore launch several new initiatives to strengthen, mature and optimise our setup.

From the customers’ perspectiveCustomer satisfaction is vital in our team, as we know a happy customer will buy more, and it can help to build trust between us. Here is how we approach customer relation-ships in our team:

services and communicationWe treat our customers’ requests as if they were our own, we respond quickly to our customers’ requests, and we follow up in a timely manner. We think solutions from the customers’ perspective and explain these to our customers as clearly and as patiently as possible. We listen to the cus-tomers’ feedback to our service and analyse what to keep and what to improve and how to do better next time. We are honest with our customers and tell them the truth instead of trying to hide the problem. We take a professional approach and are always learning, both in our technical solutions and our presentations, as it makes our customers feel confident with our service.

Challenges Of course, we’ve also met some challenges. For example, different customers have different quality standards. We may not meet their expectations if we keep doing things the same way we used to.

In this case, we have to adjust the method in order to meet our customers’ expectations. Also, sometimes we have dif-ferent opinions than our customers. In this case, we have to analyse what is the best way to do things instead of just following what the customers say in order to make them happy. The reason is that we are thinking more on behalf of our customers, as we want to provide better service to help them spend their money in the best and smartest way, and make them happy as the final result.

In the 24x7 team, we have a clear focus on quality, which has resulted in a lot of work on continuous improvements based on the LEAN principle. Using the weekly improvement board meetings and an employee-driven daily focus on optimising our processes and work-ing procedures, the team has its documenta-tion under control and can now deliver high and uniform quality to customers. The system has meant that in next to no time 27 improve-ments have been made that will benefit both NNIT and our customers. At the improvement board meetings, attended by the whole team, we discuss the incoming suggestions and assess their impact on the customer or em-ployee satisfaction – as well as assessing our

The right kind of challenges

mERyl ZHI mINg DoNg (ZmD) Advanced Consultant, NNIT China RIMS


Voxpop

I 17

Aligning expectations helps safe-guard quality

ability to implement the suggestion in terms of finances, timing and competencies. The suggestions are implement-ed in order of priority, based on the final ‘score’.

Naturally, the challenge lies in the large influx of new cus-tomers who require us to juggle day-to-day operations, as well as prepare new associated procedures – while maintaining our focus on continuously improving existing factors. Fortunately, these are the right kind of challenges. The kind that help keep us at the cutting edge and make our jobs dynamic and exciting.

The right kind of challenges

KENNETH FINNERuP (KHFI) Frontline Consultant, 24X7 Service Desk

For me, quality is an expression of the agreement between what is expected and the actual service.

In Finance, we consider the whole of NNIT as our customer. There are many customers and many daily deliveries. We therefore try to develop and raise our delivery quality both through rationalis-ing processes, and providing greater accessibility for our stakeholders, for example. We also define measurable indicators that help us make good quality a tangible quantity that we can address and work with.

Of course, no one is perfect. We therefore also look at ourselves and remain aware of the dif-ferent expectations concerning our deliverables. What one person considers good quality may not necessarily be good quality for someone else. So raising the quality of our daily work is not enough if quality is not also expressed in our customers’ expectations and experiences. That’s why we con-stantly work on aligning expectations to ensure the greatest possible satisfaction for all parties.

JENs bINgER (Jblb) Controller, Finance Planning & Controlling

THEmE E

*NNIT International growth strategy linked with our ABOS model: based on penetrating accounts with consultant agreements (1 - Advise) and then moving to projects (10s – Build) and further developing those into SLA contracts (100s – Operate and Support).

A fantastic journeyIn the Sales Team at the NNIT Zurich office, we have a very clear focus on customer satisfaction and we are well aware of how it links with quality. Closely monitoring satisfaction and agreeing on constant remediation actions and mitigation activities is part of our weekly board meetings.

We are building an international brand in a highly competitive market where growth is dependent on the opinion customers’ share amongst themselves about our company. This demands that we focus on customer satisfaction and on the quality of our work.

We have, so far, achieved above NNIT average customer satisfaction by bringing some of the best NNIT people to work as consultants with our customers. Our custom-ers’ satisfaction has proven important to our success in executing the 1/10/100 strategy* where we have executed outstandingly from a sales and delivery perspective. We have the best people in winning teams.

The challenge we face today and in the years to come is to conquer the 10 and the 100s and maintain or increase this level of satisfaction. This will demand a high level of effort in a short amount of time from our local sales team and we will only be successful with the help and sup-port of the service teams in Denmark and the growth of

our local project management and service management capabilities. We are going through this journey, and what a fantastic one!

Customers want global reach and local touch and it’s up to us to show them we are delivering high quality to build the NNIT brand in the life sciences market. To do this we must show we can apply our ‘state-of-the-art’ tools and top quality processes to the service and benefit of our customers.

I am confident we have the right values as a company to achieve these objectives and I am looking forward to eve-ryone’s support to continue to develop our international business.


THEmET

FREDERICo bRAgA (FNFb), Senior Key Account Manager, Life Sciences Sales

Voxpop

Lync

Lync saves timeIn the ITos department, Change managers now con-duct CAb meetings with Novo Nordisk via lync. In the case of technicians, this means that their physical presence has been replaced by virtual meet-ings. The result: A minimum of eight wasted hours each week has been eliminated.

An end to double time and extra briefings Service Manager Brian Stonor Werner (BSWN) and his colleagues meet Novo Nordisk’s CAB members every week (CAB stands for Change Advisory Board). The agenda covers suggested infrastructure changes for everything from printers to mail and networks. In order to implement the change requests, a change manager, a serv-ice delivery manager, an operational architect and 4 to 8 technicians must be present.

The meeting lasts an hour. Each techni-cian contributes specific knowledge on the various change requests, which usually means that each one must be present for 5 to 10 minutes of the meeting. The rest of the time they are on stand by.

The meetings take place at Novo Nor-disk in Bagsvaerd. And after we moved to NNIT’s new headquarters in Soeborg this has meant extra transport time for the technicians. Each of them spent two hours at a weekly meeting when

their presence was only required for 5 to 10 minutes:

“Anyone can work out that this was not an ideal situation. When Lync was implemented at NNIT and Novo Nordisk, we could hold meetings in a smarter, virtual way that didn’t waste the technicians’ time. At the same time we could invite our Chinese technicians to join the meetings and we no longer had to take twice the time briefing colleagues in China after every meet-ing. And we seized that opportunity,” explains Brian.

lync as a work toolIn purely practical terms, the meetings work like this: Brian sets up a camera on the meeting table at Novo Nordisk that is connected to Lync. The camera automatically zooms in on the person speaking while he shares his PC desktop with the other participants so that every-one can see the document with change requests. In that way, the technicians can sit at their own desks following the meeting on their own computers:

“In the meantime, the technicians can sit with headsets working on other tasks while following the meeting. When it’s their turn to review a change request, I say their name and they quickly join the meeting. They can log off afterwards,” explains Brian.

Operations Specialist Janus Theodor Hove (JHJQ), who takes part in the virtual meetings, is very happy with the new scheme – in spite of some obstacles:

“A large part of the non-verbal commu-nication is lost, so I feel a little left out

in relation to the participants who are sitting in the meeting room. In situations where there are conflicting interests and where it’s important to ‘sense’ the others who are participating in the meeting, I’d prefer not to go on Lync. But for a meeting like the one we had today, where we have to quickly re-spond to a practical question, it doesn’t matter as that’s where Lync is ideal,” explains Janus.

A system that worksThe new meeting form has saved the department a great deal of wasted time, and Lync has been a great suc-cess. According to Brian, the customer is also very satisfied with the solution, so there is no choice but to begin to use the system:

“Of course some training is needed to get started. It’s important that you remember to speak clearly. And the sound is best if the technicians wear headsets. But the system has always worked without a hitch, and can easily be used for other types of internal and external CAB meetings.”

Brian and the team borrow the Poly-com CX5000 video camera from the customer, which ensures that the technicians have the best conditions for following the meeting. You can also connect a normal tabletop loud speaker to Lync.

A few good tips on Lync: Write ‘Com-munication’ in your browser and find Lync tips and tricks in ‘Tools’.

By Line Thaarup (LTAA)

PAGE 18 I 19


one newcolleague – a dayThe room is humming with energy as NNIT’s recruitment team talks about their every-day work and tasks. The high energy level is also evident in their joint track record: 1,000 interviews with carefully selected candidates since 1 January and an average of one colleague hired a day!

The recruitment team comprises fi ve consultants and HR Manager Søren Møller Rasmussen (SMR):

“It was a customer survey in 2009 that laid the foundation for the team. It showed that the managers wanted more help with recruiting the right candidates. And at HR we took that request seriously. It was an exciting project.”

Previously, each manager was respon-sible for a large part of the recruitment

process, but now the recruitment con-sultants are responsible for reducing the managers’ workload. After its successful implementation in ITOS, the process was rolled out throughout NNIT.

The process frees up time in the or-ganisation, as managers can focus on their teams and other tasks. For the fi ve consultants however, recruiting is their only focus. They are all highly specialised in this fi eld and have pro-fessional backgrounds with recruiting service providers.

The department in focus

From left: Kristian Bloch Sørensen, Karin Zimmermann, Marianne la Cour, Søren Møller Rasmussen, Steff en Buus and Rikke Rasmussen.

I 21

Plenty of dialogue and many facesThe many interviews and new employ-ees naturally make you wonder wheth-er the recruitment consultants ever get tired of talking. But Karin Zimmermann (KZMM) replies very convincingly:

“If we did, we'd be in the wrong jobs! In this job you must like talking to people and exploring competencies.”

The consultants must have a genuine curiosity about other people and be interested in both the candidates they meet, and in NNIT’s managers whom the team supports and advises. They coop-erate with their own areas of NNIT, and know the organisation well. They are therefore ready to challenge the manag-ers when they present their recruitment jobs: Are you making realistic demands on the candidate? How do you imagine the candidate will fi t in with the team – in what role and with which personal strengths? What is plan B if the job advertisement does not result in a new employee? How business critical is the role you want to fi ll? And so on.

motivation and work satisfactionInsight into the business and coopera-tion with managers are what make working in the team fun and challeng-ing. And that is the main diff erence between working at NNIT and out in the fi eld with the various recruitment agencies. Meanwhile, the consultants’ background in this specifi c industry means they can make demands and evaluate the service when we have to resort to external assistance, as some positions are hard to fi ll.

Working as an internal and external recruitment consultant also diff ers in that internal consultants can see and follow the results of their work. The fi ve consultants meet the people they have hired - in the canteen and elsewhere in NNIT and closely follow the teams and managers they recruit for.

The team agrees that the proximity of the business and the clear contribution to NNIT’s growth help create motiva-tion and job satisfaction.

The NNIT Way in handAn interview with a potential employee is about more than simply identifying professional competencies. It is just as much a matter of fi nding out if the person and NNIT really match when it comes to values, career opportunities and ambitions.

So the consultants enter the interview room with the recruitment process in one hand and the NNIT Way in the other. Søren explains: “At the speed NNIT is travelling, we meet a lot of people from the IT industry – from our customers, suppliers and competitors. So it’s very important that we perform well and give the candidate a good impression – every time. Because even though they might not be the required match, we still talk to a lot of highly skilled people from within the industry and we must maintain good relationships with them. Our paths may well cross another time.”

The team• Søren Møller Rasmussen (SMR) • Karin Zimmermann (KZMM) • Marianne la Cour (MLXC) • Kristian Bloch Sørensen (KrBS)• Stefan Buus (SFNB)• Rikke Rasmussen (RKRU)

info

The tasksThe team is in charge of recruiting within NNIT DK, and assists with the recruiting process for the offi ces in the USA and the Czech Republic.

China, the Philippines and Switzerland recruit locally and have their own HR consultant.

info

The department in focus

By Anne Pia Bjerg Overbeck (APB)

New colleagues


In addition to managing servers, networks and systems, NNIT took over a large group of employees from DSB on 1 April 2012, and during May most of them moved to NNIT’s headquarters. Four months down the track, Interface met Amagoia and Carsten to hear how it feels to join a new workplace that specialises in IT rather than train timetables.

I 23

New colleagues

NNIT’s agreement with DSB beat several records – one of them was the number of employees it brought with it to NNIT. A total of 48 DSB IT employees moved to IT Opera-tion Services (ITOS). Senior Operations Specialist Amagoia Ramos Respaldiza (ARRE) and Operations Specialist Carsten H. Hansen (CTME) are two of them.

“My first impression of NNIT was super positive. My col-leagues made me feel at home and helped with everything. I felt really welcome,” Amagoia begins, describing her first day at NNIT. Carsten adds: “Yes, coming out here has been a purely positive experience. My colleagues are incredibly nice. And it’s great to have a workplace where things are so organised.”

Of course there have been periods of doubt, explains Ama-goia: “At our former workplace we were told that IT opera-tions were to be outsourced from 3 February 2011, so we had a whole year of uncertainty with plenty of time to wonder which company would be our new employer. It was a great relief when we heard it was NNIT.”

Both Amagoia and Carsten wanted to join NNIT because they had a good impression from former colleagues who had gone to work for NNIT.

good food and great partiesAmagoia and Carsten laugh as they answer the question to-gether: What has made the biggest impact on you at NNIT?

“The canteen!” they laugh “and the coffee!” Tasty food and good coffee machines at the headquarters have made a posi-tive difference for the two new NNIT employees, who also highlight the social aspects of the job. They emphasise GRID, which with its clubs and Friday bar gathers colleagues in new settings, and Amagoia likes jogging in the fitness centre with a team of colleagues. And they both enjoyed the summer party in Copenhagen.

A new way of workingThe two new NNIT employees miss their colleagues who stayed at the Danish State Railways (DSB). During Carsten’s

eight years with DSB he was in contact with DSB people from all over the country, while Amagoia worked closely together with the developers for more than four years, and they both appreciated the strong team spirit and affiliation with the same company.

As consultants at NNIT, they must get used to working in English, having more customers and being more specialised, whereas they previously handled a broader range of tasks. And that has both advantages and disadvantages accord-ing to Carsten: “At DSB I always knew who to get hold of if a problem arose. That’s a bit more difficult in an IT organisation as big as NNIT. On the other hand, I have gained some col-leagues at Datacenter Services who I can spar with. And they are very professional.”

Amagoia feels the same and adds: “I can focus on the tasks I like best. At Database Operation Services I can work with Oracle databases and get to know the other systems and new types of databases. I’m very happy about that.”

New standardsNNIT’s special quality requirements have also made an im-pression: “I’m not used to things being as restrictive as they are when working with the medical industry and with many customers. It makes life more difficult. And initially applying for access to systems and doors was time-consuming – and then there’s QMIT and ISOtrain – it’s rather daunting when you open a system and find more than 200 documents,” explains Carsten.

Amagoia nods and says: “Yes, you just have to get used to things taking time and that you can’t just install the usual tools on your laptop. But now I’ve chatted with the 36000 helpdesk a few times and it’s all beginning to fall into place.”

Next stop

By S

vend

Ravn

(SV

RV

)

Sales success


how has Client Management achieved this year’s sales target in just half a year? what does it mean that we have won dSB and Arla – in relation to existing cus-tomers, potential customers and our employees? why do more people quit at Client Manage-ment than the rest of NNIT?

It is with some trepidation that I enter the offi ce on the third fl oor at Østmarken, with the brass bell hanging beside the door. A bell that has been rung frequently during the fi rst half of 2012. Read here what happens when CVP Michael Bjer-regaard (MIHB) puts himself in the hot seat and answers our questions – some of them quite critical.

Everyone is talking about Client Management achieving its annual sales target in just half a year – tell me what happened? “Our order target for 2012 was DKK 2.5 billion for the whole year, and when we went on our summer holidays at the beginning of July, we had just reached DKK 3 billion – in other words we have reached 120 percent of our total annual budget. It’s extremely unusual and not something I recall happening before at NNIT, or during my 15 years as a sales manager.”

But how did it happen? “It was driven mainly by three factors. First of all, we closed the DSB deal in February. It was the largest order we had ever entered outside Novo Nordisk. And while closing the DSB deal, Arla came up with an equally large tender. So we were in the very unusual situation in this market that two huge tenders overlapped in the same period – and extraor-dinarily enough one and the same supplier ran off with both contracts. The third factor was that we extended our infra-structure agreement with Novo Nordisk – the CIA agreement – for fi ve years.”

What will the DSB and Arla contracts mean for our existing and potential customers? “The new contracts are naturally a huge pat on the back for NNIT – and put us in the premier league, and now the market is sure to ask NNIT to bid for similar large tenders in the future.

Right now it’s a matter of proving to the two new customers, but also to the rest of our customers and the market that we can handle these customers in precisely the same way as all other new NNIT customers. We must fulfi l their expectations and keep our promises to them. With reference to DSB, we have passed the fi rst major milestone in a very satisfactory manner. We must do the same with Arla when we get started. When new customers consider NNIT as a potential supplier, they talk to our existing customers. So it’s vital to keep your customers satisfi ed, because then they describe NNIT in glowing terms and help to make new customers feel safe in joining us.

In-house, our ability to deliver will come under pressure and we’ll need some time to get used to the new reality and adapt ourselves in purely structural terms. But, we will be able to accelerate investments in the improvement initia-tives we have already decided on with a view to scaling up our delivery capacity from here. We can therefore keep on growing – also in the years ahead. We have a very interesting pipeline in 2013, and at Client Management we are working in a goal-driven way to position ourselves to be able to win some of these too.”

Will our existing customers be nervous about being forgotten when we get new major customers such as DSB and Arla? “First and foremost, our existing customers are happy that their supplier is doing well. All customers realise that when we show that we are competitive, it means essentially that we can still deliver the right services for the right prices. This benefi ts our existing customers as well.

Naturally, customers want to be assured that we can provide the same level of service as before, even though many new customers join us – it would be unnatural to think otherwise. But I think the fact that we have managed to renew just about all our existing 3 to 5-year-old outsourcing agreements that have come up for tender within the last couple of years is the best proof that our existing customers are still happy with our services. Having said that, we are well aware that our customer satisfaction during the last survey was lower than last time, so we are working closely with these customers, lis-tening to their feedback and making an extra eff ort to ensure the satisfaction score begins moving in the right direction once again.”

The bell’s ringing

I 25

What importance does the internal sales department have when you are bidding for such large tenders? “When we bid for such resource-intensive and large tenders, we have to put together a very large and very astute team. Competition is very tough for these tenders and that means we make a lot of resources available, and the very best team.”

Does anyone feel passed over in such a process? “During the fi rst half of the year, we had to decline some very good tenders. Tenders we would have bid for if we’d had the resources. And it’s clear that if you are a salesper-son and are told not to go for a tender that looks very good on paper, and you can also see it was a tender that could have reeled in your annual budget, then it can be frustrating. Unfortunately this has resulted in some salespeople leaving us. But we are trying to communicate that the situation we have experienced is temporary. And we can see there will be a lot more breathing space in the second half of the year. I would like to highlight that I would far rather have more than enough work than be in the opposite situation with too little. Put like that, we’re in an ideal situation and I know many people envy us.”

Can I be cheeky and ask if the salespeople are just far too spoiled if they can't cope with a little adversity? “The pay models mean that when a salesperson doesn’t meet his or her targets it has more of an impact than for other employees. The pay model for the sales force consists of 70 percent basic pay and the rest is linked to personal sales targets. Imagine going down to 70 percent of your pay for a period. That has actually been the case for some people here at Client Management – and that’s no fun. So I don’t think it’s a matter of being spoiled – it’s more a sign that people need a certain income – we all have bills to pay, after all.”

So is the pay model wrong? “The pay model isn’t wrong. Regardless of how you design a pay model you can’t take every scenario into account. There can also be good years where you earn more. I’m sure that our pay models are an aspect that helps to positively stimulate growth here at NNIT – all things being equal.”

Can you say anything about who resigns – is there a common denominator?“During this hectic period with very large tenders, it has typi-cally been employees who have not been with NNIT for very long – less than a year in most cases. We often hear that it’s hard to start at NNIT as a salesperson because we are a com-plex company with many products on our shelves. If you join us at a time like the one we have just experienced, perhaps it’s even tougher than normal and you might feel it’s even more diffi cult to fi nd your feet.” Let’s end with a positive question: Tell me about the most positive thing that has happened in Client Management in 2012 so far? “It’s defi nitely been our many new customers – both the very big ones and the slightly smaller ones, and all the cus-tomers renegotiating their agreements and choosing NNIT once again.”

What about on the employee side? “Despite the resignations we have discussed, we are very happy that we had our best eVoice ever in April this year. It means an awful lot to us. We are very happy about the people we have. We think they are highly skilled and we try to create the best possible opportunities for them all.”

By K

irsten Texto

r (TE

XT

)


Leisure

makes perfect

IN ThE SPRING, ClAuS RyE JACoBSEN (CRJ), MANAGER AT IT woRkPlACE oPERATIoN SERvICES, woN ThE woRld ChAMPIoNShIPS IN AShIRA SABAkI kARATE. ThE kEy To hIS SuCCESS IS TRAINING, PASSIoN ANd PlENTy oF huMIlITy.

Eighty contestants from 11 different countries battled it out for the world championship title in the karate discipline Ashira Sabaki in April 2012 in Viborg, Denmark. It took five matches for Claus to win the title:

“One match lasts three minutes. It might look a bit boring and simple, but it definitely isn’t. It’s a bit like interval running in terms of strength, and it’s incredibly tough.”

Claus actually trains in another karate discipline, but his coach encouraged him to enter the world championship in Ashira Sabaki. And in the open class, too, where Claus, weigh-ing just 82 kg, is hardly a heavyweight.

In the final, Claus met Wahid Joya from Afghanistan, a profes-sional fighter with a fighting weight of 106 kg. It took two minutes of extra time before Claus could call himself cham-pion. But what does it take to be so good?

“I’ve been training karate for about 30 years, though with a few breaks along the way. I only train a couple of times a week, but I run as well. The biggest difference is probably that I’m a very bad loser. That’s also why I don’t play team

sports. I’m best at pushing myself and think it can be hard to push a whole team,” explains Claus.

A world champion has technique and focusIn Ashira Sabaki karate there are ‘full-contact knockouts’ a little like in boxing, and it’s therefore basically a matter of hitting or kicking your opponent to the ground. You get one point for pushing or kicking your opponent to the ground, and the first person to get nine points wins. Everyone entering the world championship had a black belt, which usually takes 8 to 10 years to get. And according to Claus anyone can learn it:

“Karate is essentially about technique, strength and keeping focused on your training. Of course, it can be challenging if you don’t understand your body or have bad motor skills. But as with any sport, it’s a matter of feeling passionate about it. I started training at the age of 10 when my friends and I were fans of the karate films that were popular at the time. And the sport has fascinated me ever since,” says Claus.

A humble lifestyleKarate is also a sport with many important rituals that must be respected:

Leisure

PAGE 26 I 27

“Every time you start and end a match or training session you bow to your trainer and opponent. Karate involves a high degree of both humility and hierarchy, though that has faded a little over the years. In the old days you bowed to club members who were at higher levels than you were if you met them in the supermarket or on the bus. Today you just greet them normally. The great respect for your teacher lives on, but is adapted to the present day,” explains Claus.

According to Claus, karate is more than just a sport – it’s a lifestyle:

“The humility continues in both your private life and at work. It’s a lifestyle that ends up being entirely natural for you when you’ve trained in karate for some time. The motto about being tough on yourself, but humble to others is one you must be able to see yourself reflecting if you want to enjoy and be good at karate. Those who can’t appreciate how to live like that drop out quickly.”

Although karate is an individual sport, Claus says it is still very social:

“People in the karate world are very good at helping each other, especially up to meetings and graduations where you train together a lot. While training, we are good at motivat-ing each other and giving good advice. So in that way it closely resembles our working life,” explains Claus.

infoKarate has numerous kinds of styles. Most are very similar, differing mainly on the point system. With some types, such as Ashira Sabaki, it’s possible to win a match by knocking out your opponent. The types of blows and kicks that are allowed also differ and the strength you can deploy them with.

By L

ine Thaarup

(LTAA

)


will ensure good quality

I have a toolbox at home in my garage. It contains all kinds of lovely bits of equipment and each one solves an important task when I'm trying my hand at a discipline called ‘simple home improvements’, though I’m all fingers and thumbs and need a first aid box close by.

Generally speaking, the contents of my toolbox are fairly sensible. For example, I have a good drill that handles both large and small holes, so one is enough, and I have a power screwdriver that can screw in and out, so one of those is enough too.

But now and then a less useful item sneaks into my toolbox. For example, I have lots of the same size Phillips screwdrivers, and that makes no sense unless it’s because I’m disorganised and might put one down and not be able to find it again, or because I like the thrill of visiting the do-it-yourself centre to buy another nice tool just for the sake of it.

The basics are in order in NNIT’s technology portfolioAttentive readers will already have worked out that you must replace tools with technology – and that the toolbox symbol-ises NNIT’s technology portfolio.

Generally speaking, the basics are in order and we are good at prioritising technology from our strategic technology partners in order to integrate our many systems as smoothly as possible, and we have incredibly highly skilled people who know how to use the technology to create the best solutions for our customers.

IT’S A MATTER oF kEEPING youR ToolBox IN oRdER – whEThER you’RE FoCuSING oN do-IT-youRSElF hoME IMPRovEMENTS, CoMPANy TEChNoloGIES oR youR ChoICE oF SuPPlIER.

By K

arsten F

og

h H

o-L

ann

g (K

FH

L)

Karsten’s column

I 29

However, some areas still require fine-tuning. This year we have addressed areas such as storage and security and in the autumn we'll be taking a closer look at our monitoring sys-tems, partly to see how many ‘identical Phillips screwdrivers’ we have in our collection. I think we can optimise the toolbox in this respect.

best of suiteFirst of all, the technology we use must be able to solve the task. Of course. But in most areas, we can solve the task with technology from various suppliers. And then it’s a matter of making sensible commercial choices: Sometimes the solu-tion with the most attractive features might not be the best choice for NNIT.

The supplier matters a lot, and whether that specific supplier can support NNIT in our work to create happy customers who buy more. If we have to choose between a small specialised supplier with a solution that in isolation can ‘do more’ and a solution from one of our strategic partners that solves the task perhaps not quite so elegantly, we often choose our partner’s solution. That is because partners – in addition to technology – also provide greater security that the solution will still exist in three years’ time, they support our sales work and they usually have a suite of technologies that work better together than if we choose specialised solutions. Our opportunities to achieve significant savings are also better when we purchase technol-ogy in bulk. You could say it’s a ‘best of suite’ approach rather than a ‘best of breed’ approach, and Technology Office man-ages the process of selecting the technology.

The VHs strategyAnother image that works for those of us old enough to remember what preceded Blu-Ray, DVD and HD streaming is the story of the two rivals in the video market in the 1980s: VHS and Betamax. People with insight into the industry said Betamax was a better solution, but VHS knocked them out of the market all the same. That was due to its distribution model and ability to make commercial deals with the other players in the market. Bad luck for the consumers who chose the wrong solution: Though it was a better technical solution, their range of films and machines was far more restricted.

We have also chosen a ‘VHS strategy’ at NNIT, so we use the technology that wins over the market and is the most attractive for our customers and ourselves in the long run. Of course, it’s not always easy to predict who will end up like VHS, and who will end up like Betamax, but it’s basically about remembering to factor in both technical and com-mercial elements when deciding which technologies to put in the NNIT toolbox – so we can safeguard good quality for our customers.

Karsten’s column


A training programme with theory and teambuildingThe Service Desk will continue as one department solving the same types of tasks. That’s how the vision sounds in the words of Mads Jakobsen (MSJK), the manager at Service Desk, in the run up to establishing the new Global Service Desk team, comprising both Danes and Chinese colleagues:

“In order to create a single department with a good collegial working environment, it’s important that there is a level playing fi eld for all employees. The workload and tasks must be the same. Social cohesion is important in this respect, because Service Desk colleagues work closely together. So from the very beginning, we’ve focused clearly on the social side of the new Chinese colleagues’ training programme,” explains Mads.

Frontline Service Desk Consultant Jonas Blomhøj (JBMH) helped design the programme, which started with two weeks in Tianjin:

“The weeks were fi lled with English lessons, theory and practical training. Every day after lunch we held a teambuil-ding activity that ranged from telling who we admire most, to small games. The activities were important as the social element must be in place before the business element can work,” explains Jonas, while his colleague Andreas Kongebro (AKGE) adds:

“All the exercises had a theme that could be translated into cooperation and communication. The theme was discussed

Social activities promote an international mindsetSix Chinese NNIT employees set-tled into place during the spring to take charge of part of the NNIT internal Service Desk. The depart-ment has created a more interna-tional mindset in a department united across time and space. Teambuilding, folk dancing and sightseeing have helped create the success.

International mindset

I 31

International mindset

after each exercise and formed the basis for some really good discussions.”

It was also a very positive experience for the two Danish col-leagues:

“During our stay, our new Chinese colleagues were exemplary hosts. They invited us out to eat at a karaoke bar, which was a really funny experience for us Danes,” explains Jonas.

Dancing and sightseeing give ‘one NNIT’ After two weeks in China, both the Danish and Chinese col-leagues moved to the headquarters in Soeborg, where the training programme continued for six weeks. The time in Denmark was also an ideal opportunity to bring the depart-ment together:

“A group of us in Soeborg were responsible for including social activities in the training programme while the new Chinese colleagues were in Denmark. Together we went sightseeing in Copenhagen and some of us hosted dinners at our homes,” explains Jonas, and Mads interjects:

“The funniest experience was defi nitely when the new Chi-nese colleagues introduced us to a Chinese dance and the Danish colleagues did their bit by teaching their Chinese col-leagues a form of folk dancing called ‘les lanciers’. It was an incredibly good evening that really helped break down some barriers.”

International mindset gives value for customersAnna Tingting Zhao (TGZH) from NNIT China, who took part in the training programme was pleased that it focused so clearly on creating a united department:

“The greatest benefi t was defi nitely that we gained such deep insight into our cultural diff erences. Getting to know

each other has inspired a high level of trust and team spirit that we have found useful during the training programme, and afterwards,” she says.

Mads, like Anna, is sure that the many social activities have had a positive impact on the process:

“Throughout the process we have taken giant steps towards creating an international mindset. It goes without saying that it takes time to get an international service desk up and run-ning. So the programme also had a strong focus on conversa-tion management and cultural diff erences between Denmark and China. At the same time, the Danish colleagues benefi ted a great deal from the new Chinese colleagues in relation to adopting an international mindset, as they have all worked, studied and travelled in many diff erent places in the world,” says Mads. Jonas adds:

“Most important of all, the process has helped teach us all more about the business. In the course of 2012, the Service Desk will become about 50 percent larger and the process has helped us to scale up and review all the processes from an international perspective. And that is important when star-ting a similar international service desk for new customers.”

So the future – also for the Service Desk – is much more international. And next time you call 36000, you may well get support from China from one of your new colleagues.

By Line Thaarup

(LTAA

)


Tombola

INTERFACE IS INTRoduCING A NEw SERIES: MEET A CollEAGuE ChoSEN AT RANdoM To TEll uS ABouT hIS JoB ANd ThE Good ANd BAd SIdES oF NNIT.

By K

irsten Texto

r (TE

XT

)

I 33

Tombola

A BAT developer speaks out The first name pulled out of the hat was Martin Qvistgaard (MQVI), a de-veloper at BAT (Business Applications & Technology) – Microsoft Solutions, Developer Team 3, who works in BVA.

Martin is a civil engineering graduate from Aalborg University, specialising in robot and vision technology and came to NNIT from Coloplast in March 2009.

Why did you want a job here? “I was a production engineer, but missed IT. Throughout my studies I’d had a passion for IT and wanted to make it my livelihood. So when I found myself optimising processes on machines in a production hall, I quickly realised that my heart wasn’t in it. I knew NNIT from the career fairs and when searching for a new job, NNIT happened to have posted an advertise-ment for a graduate. I thought: Great, great, great – the chance to work with different aspects of IT.”

Martin was accepted into the gradu-ate programme in 2009, and had a unique chance to rotate throughout the entire organisation: First he spent half a year at IT Operation Services with the VMware virtualisation team, which is responsible for the virtual infrastructure. Then followed half a year as a developer for Microsoft Solutions, and he spent the last half-year at Identity Services learning about security and access, which is the background for USERAR2. After the graduate programme, Martin was employed full-time at Identity Serv-ices and had the opportunity to visit China and train his Chinese colleagues.

Martin dreamed of getting a job as a developer at Solutions, however, and his dream came true in the summer of 2011.

Tell us about your work – describe a random day? “Days spent working as a developer are fairly similar really, but I am privileged enough to work on a scrum project (scrum is an agile development meth-

od). So we start with a daily meeting where we review yesterday’s tasks and define the tasks of the current day, while explaining the challenges and how we intend to solve them. This pro-vides a dynamism and changeability that I don’t often experience in normal waterfall projects. The rest of the day is spent implementing the functionality described in the ‘user stories’ the cus-tomer has described to us. One part of the day-to-day tasks is the code review that ensures code quality,” explains Martin continuing:

“Working with scrum is much more satisfying. You have a much clearer focus on customer deliveries, because it involves sprints that usually last 14 days. Then you must deliver the de-sired functionality to the customer. At the same time, scrum focuses more on team deliveries rather than individual performance, which results in a very dynamic and productive team.”

What is best about working for NNIT? “The coolest aspect is certainly good colleagues and a high level of profes-sional skills. We are good at cooperat-ing and good at helping each other to find solutions. Another point is that NNIT is a company that offers many opportunities, both in the form of tasks and career prospects.”

And what is the worst? “There is too much bureaucracy. NNIT is now a large company. I don’t know whether growing pains are the reason why some of the tools we use everyday have been unable to keep up. But some things can seem a bit sluggish. One example might be eProcure, which we use to purchase hardware for example – a system that acts like a black hole absorbing employees’ time.”

Martin concludes:

“And we need to focus more on training – our company lives off its

knowledge, so it’s vital that we train our employees. We must remain at the forefront, and if customers ask for certain solutions it is counter produc-tive if we say: ‘Yes we can, but we just need some training first’. Training can be expensive, but ignorance can cost us more.”

infoWhy I applied for a job at NNIT:1. Because of our values: Open &

honest, conscience driven and value adding

2. The graduate programme, which offered a unique oppor-tunity to try various IT areas

3. Because I have a passion for IT

infoI spend my spare time on: Cross training, kettle cross, run-ning and travelling to experience other cultures – especially to mountainous regions.


Newflash

in brief

Since the majority of NNIT’s services are based on software from third party vendors, partnerships are a key component in our go-to-market strategy. With NNIT gaining momentum in the market, external partners who would like to approach the market together with NNIT continuously approach us. Partner-ships are initiated when we see the possibility to cooperate with current and potential customers with offerings that com-bine NNIT’s current capabilities with the partner’s solutions. When selecting new partners, we especially focus on the part-ner’s strategic fit with NNIT, their quality, and maturity and of course the long term business potential. Besides our key strategic partners (Cisco, EMC, HP, Microsoft, Oracle and SAP) our current partnership pipeline contains ap-proximately 40 partners. These partners are either part of an existing joint sales effort or being analysed for future business potential regarding joint value proposition and customer fit. Via FaceIT you can see the full list of partners in the ‘Partner Library’ on the Market Portal. If you have any partnerships that should be evaluated or included in the partner portfolio, feel free to contact Anders Lund Terp (ATPL).

PARTNERINg FoR suCCEss

Did you know that NNIT China:• Has increased the number of employees

by more than 50 percent in the last 12 months – and is now fast approaching 350 employees.

• In 2012, won three local multimillion DKK contracts in China.

• Was awarded ‘Top 10 Best Employer 2011’ in Tianjin (a province with +13m people) – the only IT company in the group.

• Employs people from five different nationalities and has a small (almost) Danish speaking community.

• Has almost doubled the local NNIT revenue annually over the last three consecutive years.

• Is located in Tianjin – a 140 km or 30-minute speed-train ride from Beijing.

• Established a new floor (end-to-end) with +130 workstations within three months – and has expanded the office every year for the past three years.

• Has a 36 percent female to 64 percent male ratio.

• Is heading several international SLAs with Novo Nordisk (Novo Nordisk China and NNIO).

• Has an average employee age of 31.8 years – 20 percent lower than in NNIT Denmark.

10 INTEREsTINg FACTs AbouT NNIT CHINA

On 1 September 2012, seven new employees joined NNIT through our NNIT Graduate Programme 2012. For recent graduates with a relevant higher education from one of the IT universities or institutions, the programme extends over 18 months.

During this time, the graduates will rotate every six months within the division, focussing intensely on practical experience and learning, both in the actual project groups, in dialogue with other graduates and in regular conversations with their assigned mentor.

our seven new graduates will spend their fi rst six months module here:

Division Initials Department manager

SOL JSIR Compliance and Validation CFEV

SOL LBJK BAT Project and Design LJSO

SOL TOFD AO – Process Management CTHR

SOL NIDB AMS MLM

SOL KSLR AO – CAD LMSJ

ITOS RSHM Change Management TKEL

ITOS MBHC PM – Finance, Enterprise & Public TVMI

NNIT gRADuATE TEAm 2012

NNIT and social media linkedIn

Of all the social media, LinkedIn is the most eff ective in the B2B market, with 65 percent of those asked in a survey* say-ing they have gained customers through this professional network. Though only 47 percent of the companies actively use LinkedIn, compared with 90 percent who use Facebook.

Did you know that NNIT has had a LinkedIn company profi le since 2009?

From the summer of 2011 until now, we have doubled the number of ‘followers’ and are now up to 3,545, with an average of eight new followers a day. For the sake of com-parison, IBM Denmark has about 1,000 followers, while KMD has about 3,700.

Did you know that a status update on NNIT’s LinkedIn profi le is seen by an average of 1,990 of our ‘followers’, and that on average 107 click the link directly, and an average of 6.5 percent either like, share or comment on the update?

Did you know that as well as status up-dates, you can also fi nd job vacancies and our ABOS model on the homepage?

Check it out here: www.linkedin.com/company/nnit

The purpose is for the graduates to gain a broad range of practical experience in a short time, and to develop strong profi les that the departments in your division will fi ght to get their hands on once the programme ends.

Twitter

Twitter now has 200 million users, and a quarter of these users are considered extremely active, that is they check in several times a day.

Did you know that NNIT has had a Twitter profi le since the autumn of 2011? We have 125 ‘followers’ and tweet mainly about job vacan-cies and news about NNIT and the industry.

Follow us here: www.twitter.com/nnit

*About the survey: ‘The HubSpot Report’ is based on responses from 972 professionals who were aware of their corporate marketing strategy.

Facebook

Facebook, which was launched in 2004, is the world’s largest social media, with more than 900 million users.

Did you know that NNIT has had a Fa-cebook page since the summer of 2011? And 355 people like our page.

On Facebook you can meet our gradu-ates, see job vacancies, read news items and much more besides.

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22 Next stop NNIT

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