Evolution of NATEK: from staff augmentation to managed services

Transition from staff augmentation to a managed services model can bring all the benefits of skill access and flexibility a company is looking for. Adding a greater commitment from the provider assumes all the risks. As more and more of business see the value opportunity and require a greater commitment from NATEK side, the company is undergoing an evolution.

Talking about NATEK recent transition, followed by new organizational structure and career openings with Jana Kruzliakova, VP of Sales and Marketing and Joanna Pejo, HR & Recruitment Director.

What is the direction of NATEK business development?

Jana Kruzliakova VP Sales & Marketing at NATEK

Jana Kruzliakova: Our customers no longer expect from us to only deliver the resources and cover some of their skill gaps in a project. They want usto gradually overtake more responsibilities. Having good previous experience with staff augmentation, our customers are seeking more benefits they can gain by working with us. To compare, two years ago, we were delivering 20% of services based on managed service and 80% of staff augmentation model. Today, we are already delivering 50% of our services on managed service basis. The growth just happens naturally.

Joanna Pejo HR & Recruitment Director at NATEK

Joanna Pejo: Despite the fact that managed services are our focus, staff augmentation will not disappear. We have grown from it and we are awarethat it is still important for particular customers to have this service available. We are using the experience we’ve got from this business line, with its quality and volume, for the managed services.

How do we make sure that we will succeed on this delivery model?

JK: It comes down to understanding the real need and challenges of our clients. There are weeks, or months, of discussions, during which we get to know their needs, infrastructure, the complexity of the projects. There are workshop meetings, which help us assess and estimate how much time and resources need to be allocated.

What have we done already to turn more into Service Delivery Company?

JP: The transition we went under afflicted reorganizing the workflow of internal support functions. We are now providing administrative support to the HR, service delivery, operations and to our offices (NATEK sites). To facilitate and to ensure the quality of service that we provide we enriched the Operations Department with new headcounts: Resource Managers, Service Delivery Coordinators, Service Administration Assistants. We have strengthened our recruitment capacity for over 40% increase in recruitment headcount. That is what has the direct impact on our customers and our employees. To complete the final stage of the transition we have decided to open the Service Delivery Director position. We are also currently staffing Service Delivery Managers. Their focus will be on our core business: banking and telco, with the tech stack on software development and infrastructure. It is an important investment on securing and uniting the IT service delivery.

What are the most important competences that our future Director of Service Delivery should possess?

JP: The competences that are crucial are related to a service delivery management – on the management or director grade. The Director will be also co-creating the strategy of the department, will own the budget, etc. The optimization of the workflow, resources, cost- this are the highest demanded competencies. For the services that are running already we will need the Manager who will already have relevant expertise. Like setting up KPI, SLA, service design and service management with the customer interfacing role.

What are the opportunities and challenges SDD will face?

JP: Definitely change management which is coming directly from the business growth. In NATEK we are increasing revenue 30% each year – this creates exciting challenges which will stimulate the career growth. Imagine that you are joining the Service Company as a Service Delivery Director, where you are not serving one country with its domestic corporations, but you are delivering the service within 4 countries for global corporations.

JK: We can describe our structure as a triangle. We are building the big recruitment organization, sales, and on the top of it, a service delivery, which will be fortified and further consolidated by Service Delivery Director. We want to keep building our structure in a way that we can continue to improve the quality of our services delivered to our partners.