As Head of Client Services at Beeks Financial Cloud, my job largely involves managing relationships.
Uniquely, it was my former relationship as a customer with Beeks that led to my taking the role in the first place.
I started my career as a typical IT guru. Like many of my peers, I knew networks, systems and databases. Working in the telecoms industry, I designed and managed large international networks and large server farms. After a while, I rolled into the trading world, which allowed me to experience a number of roles, including IT architecture, projects and even some marketing. My previous position was Head of Infrastructure at a trading firm that happened to be a customer of Beeks Financial Cloud.
Beeks was an obvious choice to me as our supplier: an agile company that sells a very flexible service at competitive prices. It allowed me to quickly deploy a substantial infrastructure by myself. The alternative supplier options were either more rigid, or more expensive, or both. Whereas the monthly contract options for servers (even the higher spec ones) at Beeks, and the access to various services and execution platforms that Beeks offered, was the perfect combination.
What I always liked about Beeks was the atmosphere.
There were no uncooperative people, and the engineers wanted to go the extra mile for me. During my career, I found that the colleagues you get to work with can be a key determining factor with regards to job satisfaction. It can make or break a working environment. Personally, I like to have fun doing what I do. Having a great team providing a great service made Beeks the obvious next move.
When looking for your next job, it’s not natural for everyone to move to a supplier. In fact, the reverse is likely to happen more often. In order to do make this transition possible, here are a few things that are worth noting:
- Don’t burn bridges – You can only make the move from customer to supplier if you leave amicably, so as not to risk straining your customer relationship. Your new company will not appreciate it if the cost of hiring you is to damage the business coming from your previous company.
- Good handling of your handover – It is necessary that you ensure a smooth handover process, and to be aware that, as their supplier, you will be dealing with the people that you hand over to. Of course, this is particularly essential when moving to an IaaS supplier like Beeks, where business critical services are supplied. Make sure that your successor has all the necessary information, contacts, and advice in order to continue to maintain a smooth relationship with the supplier company.
- Adjust your perspective – It’s good to be able to bring your expertise from the customer’s point of view to the team; the fact that I have experience in the trading world in which Beeks’ clients exist gives an advantage to the team in helping to understand what the client is trying to achieve and what the success factors are. However, it is important that while you utilise your knowledge of the client side, you remember to advocate and think like the supplier side, which can be particularly difficult if your former work friends are now your client.
Use your customer perspective but don’t act like the customer.
I love being part of the Beeks team. I thoroughly enjoy my new work environment and the challenges of a different role.
Don’t be afraid to move to a different aspect of the process you’re working in; a fresh perspective can be rewarding.
