Didier, Project Leader - My career @NSI
“What I liked when I joined NSI, and I still enjoy 20 years later, is the atmosphere at work above all.”
Even if that sounds a little old-fashioned, you might call me an NSI senior. In fact, after qualifying as a civil engineer in IT, I worked for a few years in academia before joining NSI in 1999. Actually, at the time, NSI picked up the research project I was working on to industrialise it and that’s how I joined this dynamic, booming young Walloon company, which has thrown many challenges my way. My technical and organisational skills, plus my sense of communication, meant I was quickly made project manager, running a team.
Today, NSI has grown a lot, and I am in charge of the Third-Party Application Maintenance business (TPAM). As a computer system is never really complete, and its users constantly come up with new needs, my team and I provide the services required to correct or progressively change relatively recent software, which might be complex or vital, developed by the customers themselves or by external service providers. Each maintenance job on an unknown system is a real challenge, although it’s also the variety of fields and the wide range of technology to be integrated that make my job so exciting.
My business manager role is a bit like a Project Manager - or a Service Delivery Manager - spanning many products and customers. I make sure that NSI meets the needs and expectations of the latter within the agreed contractual deadlines and budgets while running a multidisciplinary team of project leaders, functional managers, analysts and technicians.
On a day-to-day basis, that means a lot of communication, an acute sense of organisation and a good helping of adaptability.
What I liked when I joined NSI, and I still enjoy 20 years later, is the atmosphere at work above all. Even though there are now several hundred employees, we have been able to maintain the family feel where peer-assistance is our watchword.
Of course, like everywhere else, there is room for a whole host of talent here, although the various teams always move forward together in harmony. At the end of the day, our customers feel the benefit of this good understanding and coherence, making them trust us more every day. What’s more, many customers from the early days of NSI are still working with us. Over the years, we have developed a real partnership with them that stretches far beyond a simple customer-supplier relationship.
I wish that every new IT specialist could experience these powerful human values in their career because they kind of light the way in a profession that is often solitary and pitted with thankless tasks.
“In any case, for me, working with a tight team to get satisfaction for the customers in my care is the best motivation to keep me moving forward.”
That became particularly clear in 2020, when the health crisis hit all sectors and greatly tested our solid organisational processes. We had to reinvent ourselves to work from home and provide even greater support for our customers who were also struggling. However, in the end, this just added a new dimension to our daily challenges, demonstrating the TPAM team’s resilience - I’m really proud of them.
