Interview: why company culture is key to client success 

bancon has a long-standing relationship with Rabobank having worked on all their IT migration projects since 2013. Zaui Mahmud Taleb is a Managing Consultant at bancon and joined the team working with Rabobank in 2019. We sat down with Zaui to find out what his experience has been joining an already well-established team and how company culture can influence client success. 

So Zaui, tell us a bit about your background and what brought you to bancon?  

I was lucky enough to immediately start my career in SAP Banking. I joined one of the big four consultancies and back then I didn’t really know much about the world of SAP, but that didn’t last long. I learned a lot and fast. I was on a project for one of the biggest banks in Spain which, for someone fresh out of university, was a great learning experience. After a couple of years, I moved to a much smaller company, still working in SAP Banking, but because it was smaller, they didn’t have all the bureaucracy issues that you get in a large multi-national organisation. While those consultancies are great at what they do, there is a process for everything which stifles creativity. I’m someone who likes to learn, but also likes to challenge the norm and be creative with the technology I’m working on - there is always room to discover a better solution. At a smaller agile consultancy, that’s much easier, which is naturally better for the clients.

So, when the opportunity at bancon came up, I really liked the idea of joining a consultancy that is established on strong foundations, well regarded in the industry, but also small enough to maintain an agile working environment. There is still process, but it’s a much flatter hierarchical structure so accessing anyone from the board down is much easier and just makes everything work much more seamlessly.

So, what are you working on at the moment?

I joined bancon a couple of years ago and I was lucky enough to start on the Rabobank migration project which has been a long-standing client for bancon over many years. They are currently undergoing a transformation of their entire IT landscape. Moving everything over to SAP from lending to collaterals. More specifically, I’m on the data migration team. We’re gradually moving everything over to SAP in phases. At the moment, we’re busy with the collaterals migration and we’ll shortly be moving onto the loans migration, then one after the other, we will keep migrating data from old legacy systems into the newly built IT landscape, eventually decommissioning these old systems.

What’s it like joining the client team that have done all the historic migrations?

Luckily, the SAP Banking world is quite small and once you’ve been in it for a couple of years you start getting familiar with names. When I joined bancon, particularly the team working on the migration for Rabobank, two of my team mates, I had worked with before at another organisation. It’s always nice to have that familiarity, but it can always be daunting as the new person, joining a constituted team that has been working together for years. You often have to adapt to their way of working but in this case, it was very smooth. No issues at all. I felt very welcome and that was helped by what I described earlier about the flat hierarchy. You can talk to everyone at bancon.

That must be good for the client. 

Of course. It’s fantastic for the client. Seeing a new joiner up to speed and integrated right away, so they can start delivering puts them at immediate ease. It can be a concern for clients when you have to bring in someone new, but that’s why internal company culture is so important. What happens internally, and the chemistry between teams and managers, has a direct impact the output. A rewarding company culture where employees feel valued, manifests itself externally not just as great work, but as the best work. There is a strong feeling at bancon of wanting to do yourself proud in terms of the work you produce. Going above and beyond in order to get the best results for the client in turn lifts the team, it lifts the brand and it lifts the whole perception the industry has on our business. In a smaller consultancy there are no hiding places, and no one wants to let the side down.  

That team spirit is certainly something that has come through in our other interviews. What would you say to someone who is thinking about moving to bancon?  

Well as I said, the reason for me joining bancon was because you get to work with some of the highest skilled people in our industry. As the original developers and architects of SAP Banking, they really know their stuff. We’re also a very youthful business in terms of our attitude to work. We’re agile, we’re flexible, there’s no rigid hierarchy or bureaucracy. You really can talk to anyone, share your point of view and propose to do things differently if you believe there is a better way. Working with the top people in your industry is always very attractive and equally rewarding so, if you are someone who likes diversity and the chance to work in different countries and with people from different cultures then bancon really is the place for you. Also, the recent expansion into India and Singapore means we now really can cover every corner of the globe. 

 If you’re interested in joining bancon, visit our careers page for our latest job vacancies.