It is a bit of a struggle to work in the Nieuw-Vennep office since I have no staff there. Initially I was slated to move to England which is where most of my team is situated. A few email exchanges and one or two phone calls was the extent of my contact with them.
Day one was mostly getting my mobile phone and laptop ready. I did get my HR paperwork. It was all written in Dutch and didn't receive much help in filling it out other than "let me know if you have any questions."
The rest of the week involved learning. I made a commitment before I even started to begin by learning the business. I've found that it really involves two parts. The first part is understanding their area of expertise, their product lines, their bundle packages of products, their custom turn-key solutions and client side integration capabilities. The second part is regarding their business strategy.
I focused almost exclusively on the second part. What I found is that I do pick up some of the product information in the literature and videos I have seen that describe strategy, however it is clear that the alignment within IT to the business requires a firm understanding of the strategy. I can probably get by with limited knowledge of the product line but cannnot succeed without a firm understanding of their direction.
I wish I would have made the move to Europe earlier. I love the culture. I get 8 weeks of vacation to start. I used to get 2 weeks. I plan on taking full opportunity of this travelling Europe. I hope my children appreaciate the opportunity they have but at their age (10 and 13) I am sure that they will not. But that's OK.
Day one was mostly getting my mobile phone and laptop ready. I did get my HR paperwork. It was all written in Dutch and didn't receive much help in filling it out other than "let me know if you have any questions."
The rest of the week involved learning. I made a commitment before I even started to begin by learning the business. I've found that it really involves two parts. The first part is understanding their area of expertise, their product lines, their bundle packages of products, their custom turn-key solutions and client side integration capabilities. The second part is regarding their business strategy.
I focused almost exclusively on the second part. What I found is that I do pick up some of the product information in the literature and videos I have seen that describe strategy, however it is clear that the alignment within IT to the business requires a firm understanding of the strategy. I can probably get by with limited knowledge of the product line but cannnot succeed without a firm understanding of their direction.
I wish I would have made the move to Europe earlier. I love the culture. I get 8 weeks of vacation to start. I used to get 2 weeks. I plan on taking full opportunity of this travelling Europe. I hope my children appreaciate the opportunity they have but at their age (10 and 13) I am sure that they will not. But that's OK.
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