Working @ Quartess |the experiences & motivations of Kah-kin Yau
Why did you apply for a position at Quartess? Quartess published a vacancy for an ERP consultant Infor CloudSuite Industrial ERP (Syteline). As Infor Gold Channel partner, they sell and implement this ERP solution for the manufacturing industry. I knew Quartess, since I have worked at Infor for the last 6 years (with great joy) with Infor Syteline. Because I also knew that Infor CloudSuite Industrial is a strategic product for the Cloud strategy of Infor as well as that mainly the Channel Partner organization is selling this product worldwide, I was excited for this opportunity with Quartess. At Quartess I feel being part of a team, an important aspect for me. Also I do have the opportunity to develop the team's knowledge and skills (and my own obviously). This is important, also since we are continuously growing to be able to support our growing number of customers. The team has a common goal: to help our customer use their business software in the best possible way to support their business processes.
What Product do you work with and what do you like about? I'm working -as mentioned above- with Infor CloudSuite Industrial ERP (Syteline) and have been doing so for more than 10 years. I've done many implementations, both in the Netherlands and abroad. It's a very complete manufacturing ERP solution which can handle complex processes. But it's also very scalable and flexible. After 10 years, I know the product inside out and that's only possible because it's an open and user friendly ERP system.
How quickly did you feel being part of the team? Straight from day 1, and that's fairly special since it's a team with busy consultants that are on the road and at customer sites. I have to be honest, I had to personally adjust to the situation as well (It has been a while since I've made any coffee rounds or ate cake at the office), but I felt at home really quickly. I've received the same feedback from my new colleagues. It's also nice that the average age is much lower in my new team.
What about your work-life balance? Having started at Quartess with new and current projects, it took obviously some time to find a new balance. But now, 4 months later, I can say I still spend plenty time with my family and at the same time work on site and be flexible for my customers. I normally try to achieve a 40% home office and 60% at customer site time balance. At Quartess I will also need – and want- to spend time at the office with the team instead of working from home, but I like that and it isn't a requirement. The office is close to my home. On the days that I'm working from home, I can spend more time with my children and take them to school, from school and cook a nice dinner at the end of the day.
Do you need to travel a lot? I do enjoy travelling and since the start of this year, I'm also travelling by train, for instance in Germany. It's much better for the environment, very comfortable and you can do some work as well. It's important to make the right agreements with customers. Luckily, it's much easier nowadays to work in virtual teams and use online meetings and tools and I can help most of my customers without being on site all the time.
What makes working at Quartess fun? I really love the fact that it's a nice and real Dutch company. Despite the fact that our customers are in the meantime all over the world, our approach is still very Dutch-like. Simply pragmatic, efficient, honest and customer focused. This helps both with working with customers in the Netherlands and Europe and with the atmosphere and teamwork at Quartess. I'm also looking forward to the further growth, and the challenges and opportunities we will therefore soon encounter. It will be fun to be part of that, as well as to see the further development of Infor CloudSuite Industrial because also at Quartess we keep close contact with Infor Product Management.
