Raluca Leonte, Webhelp Romania: If there was a perfect timing to use imagination in business, this is the one

The role of leadership in the current environment becomes paramount to inspire and motivate teams and companies to move forward. How are the CEOs and managers of large companies addressing aspects related to leadership and busines resilience within their industries and with the aim of reaching the business objectives for 2020 and 2021?

 We recently talked to Raluca Leonte, Head of Global Delivery & Transformation of Webhelp Group to find out the answers to actual aspects of business life and leadership today. 

Being flexible and a risk taker is the winning combination during these challenging times, since the common business denominator is the lack of predictability

It might seem strange, but the professional purpose and meaning should be even higher than usual so easier to foster

I’m saying this because our personal lives are strongly shaken, which means that the professional becomes an anchor. A healthy opportunism is what’s driving the employers now, while the employees are much more appreciative of their current jobs than few months ago. If until now, talking about a 3 year individual career plan was sometimes seen as a nice to have projection, suddenly we can see a huge value behind it.

If there was a suitable time to use imagination in business, this is the one! As Aristotle said, “no great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness” , so now is the time to put our madness to work!

It’s not a secret that the current challenges acted as an accelerator for the adoption of new trends, such as working remotely or technology innovation

Gladly, these are assets for any industry or sector, so it’s key to not fight the obvious which is the virtualization of the environment. Once we embrace it, the opportunities will show up too. We all talked about business transformation for the past years, without really knowing how it would look like, today the concept is put into practice in an almost natural way and without even being verbalized as such. That’s a huge step forward for the business environment but also for the society. I truly believe that we, as business leaders, have the power to bring positive change into society and so, a moral duty to not waste the opportunity.

For sure the concerns circle around the indirect and implicit damages that the sanitary crisis will have on economy.

While the explicit ones can be foreseen and addressed, not necessarily solved but at least addressed, the implicit ones are much more difficult to capture into a prediction.

 Hope relies mostly on technology combined with human creativity. And even when you don’t have these inside the company, you can always ask for help from the experts to drive new paths for business development.

We will continue to adapt our way of working for the benefit of our clients and our employees

First thing that we didn’t do: we didn’t cut our innovation budgets, on the contrary, we have lunched a technology innovation incubator for our entire French region which is based here in Romania. Led by Valentin Tudose, who is in charge with building innovative solutions for our clients using our people’s skills, new technologies and BPO expertise.

At the same time, our HR Director, Andra Antoche, was in charge with adapting the comp & bend policy to the virtual environment, one good example is the “We care“ line , a 24/7 number that our employees can call in order to get support from the management.

We will continue to adapt our way of working for the benefit of our clients and our employees, because now, more than ever, behind the business opportunities and profitability, there is a profound and meaningful human purpose.

As of November 1st, Raluca Leonte is the Head of Global Delivery & Transformation of Webhelp Group.  Raluca has a 15 years Webhelp history but considers change as being her driver “energy flows where the action goes”. As proof, Raluca moved several times within the organization from Operations to Account Management, from Paris to Lisbon and back to Romania as a CEO.

Flexibility, diversity, and engagement are what Raluca calls the successful ingredients within the Webhelp’s magic formula