Technology – rising challenges on the brink of a revolution

Paul Barbu 27/05/2019 | 14:50

Attracting and retaining talent in the technology field at a time when the labor market in Romania is extremely dynamic seems to be one of the greatest challenges that companies are facing at the moment.

That’s why Genpact Romania hosted a plenary meeting on May 23 with representatives of prestigious companies: Elizabeta Moraru (Google CEO), Violeta Luca (General Manager at Microsoft Romania), Marian Popa (Country Head at Deutsche Bank Global Technology) and Fady Chreih (CEO at Regina Maria).

The event was hosted by Shibu Nambiar, the Chief Operating Officer of Genpact Europe.

„In the last 13 years or so, we have built a very attractive brand in Romania. Our story is very interesting, exciting and full of learnings! At the heart of that story is our teams across Europe, who have supported our growth all these years. Romania continues to offer incredible raw talent, a business culture which is progressive and a safe environment to do business…we are delighted to be here! This building is humming each day with thousands of Genpacters running digitally enabled intelligent operations for our Clients. Having said that, we still have a long way to go…and today’s discussion is all about learning from industry leaders who have had similar, yet very different journeys…especially how they have leveraged and invested talent in Romania differently,” said Shibu Nambiar.

According to him, Genpact has 4000 employees in Romania. ”We have built and leveraged availability of language, F&A, Procurement, CS and Analytics services but now we have a big opportunity ahead of us specifically to tap into the digital talent”.

The challenges of technology and old-fashioned employees

According to Fady Chreih, the CEO of Regina Maria, implementing new technologies in a company, especially if it’s not part of this sector, can be tricky.

“A few years ago we implemented reviews for our doctors. Now we have now more than 165,000 reviews on them. As a result of that, doctors have asked for my resignation from the board and said that the CEO should be fired because this is not booking.com or hotels.com, they are doctors, and patients don’t have a clue about what doctors do,” said Chreih.

Luckily, the board saw this as an opportunity to improve and now Regina Maria is at the top of its field in Romania. But to illustrate how important technology is for our lives, he gave another example.

“A couple of weekends ago, one of my friends told me that his Apple Watch picked up some irregularities in his heart rate. He called me, and I told him to come to our ER immediately, because if the watch found something we should check it out. He turned out to be at a great risk of having a heart attack,” said the CEO of Regina Maria.

Where to start with technology?

On the other hand, Elizabeta Moraru, the CEO of Google Romania, thinks that in order to evolve as a society you have to bring technology to future generations in their early stages of life, beginning from the first school years. “We have to show them the technology, what and how to learn, that we are passionate about it and that you can really make a difference if you learn.”

After this stage of life, when those teens will become employees, leaders will have to keep them on their toes and lead them to better themselves.

“For technology to advance we need to challenge our people. If you have small problems you can’t challenge your employees to be better at their jobs. You have to give them big problems to solve so they can challenge themselves. The more you challenge them the better they will work,” said Marian Popa, Country Head at Deutsche Bank Global Technology.

Popa believes that if there are any banks that are not fully digitalized 30-40 years from now, it will mean that those banks will have taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way.

People need to understand technology

From the point of view of Violeta Luca, the General Manager of Microsoft Romania, people need to better understand technology. ”A society cannot survive without technology and people need to understand this the same way as they understood any of the other technological revolutions that have taken place. They need to understand progress and the fact that they cannot stop it. From now on, no economy in this world will thrive without technology,” she said.

 

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