M247: Pushing digital boundaries across the globe

Managing and securing data in a world of continuous change requires M247 to always remain agile and avoid distractions. CEO Martin Ford spoke to Business Review about his leadership style and gave us an overview of the company’s key achievements and challenges last year.

By Anda Sebesi

What is your leadership style and how does it support your company’s performance?

First of all, my belief is that great teams beat great individuals—regardless of how talented those individuals may be. The leader’s job is to bring together a set of people and, by playing to their strengths and mitigating their weaknesses, achieve great things. We must have common values and consistent behaviours as culture is shaped by leadership and people mirror people!

Many factors will determine success, but crucially it’s the individuals’ commitment to the team that makes the difference. In our interconnected environment, we are only as good as the weakest link in the chain. I expect each person to deliver on their specific objectives, but we succeed and fail together. It’s the buy-in to what we’re trying to achieve that secures commitment, and that requires compromise and mutual support. My approach is to generate a feeling of ownership in the team by encouraging the team to shape what we’re trying to achieve and how we go about doing it. In other words, when I’m trying to do something “new,” I discuss the rationale and benefits with my team and solicit input on how best to succeed. If that can’t get consensus, I “make the call” and the direction is set.

From there onwards, it’s about execution and managing expectations. I have weekly 1:1 meetings with my direct reports and also a weekly team meeting. I expect my team to do the same with their direct reports. The idea is to review progress, but more importantly, to look forward and learn from the past and act decisively and at pace. It’s in these sessions where I seek to support my team as a group and as individuals. Sometimes as a sounding board, sometimes as the devil’s advocate, sometimes directive; but always curious and always empathetic. My expectations are pretty simple. Have just a few priorities, have concise plans, timelines, dependencies, and quantifiable benefits. Finally, do what you say you’re going to do and don’t get distracted.

What were your main professional achievements in 2023?

We continued to achieve double digit growth across all the main business metrics and we successfully completed our biggest project outside Romania with a very large data centre migration in central London. Additionally, we launched new products (Disaster Recovery) to enhance our cloud services proposition in Romania and new locations in South America to enhance our global reach. Last but not least, we received the Gaming Industry recognition for Cloud and filled our management posts through internal promotion.

What were the biggest challenges your business sector faced last year and how did you navigate them?

As an IT services company operating in 25+ countries, we faced numerous challenges—there’s no single thing. Our biggest challenge as a company is the management and exploitation of information in the world of continuous change. We need to be really agile and have systems and processes that enable this agility. It’s not easy to do. We have a plan, the leadership “own it” and we are definitely acting for the greater good!

Goals for 2024:

Exploit the burgeoning opportunities to enable AI deployment at the global level.
Help companies increase their digital footprints.
Continue to accelerate Cloud adoption among Romanian companies.