Ioan Cocan, Tremend Software Consulting: Now it’s the time to rethink resilience strategies

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  Ioan Cocan – Managing Partner, Tremend Software Consulting to find out the answers to actual aspects of business life and leadership today. 

CEOs should lead with empathy, clarity, and agility. And when addressing today’s unique challenges, these qualities become even more important.

In our rapidly changing landscape, leaders must communicate clearly with their teams and partners to maintain connection and a sense of belonging even when they cannot be in the same room together. They have to listen, build strong bonds, and share common goals.

Leaders play a significant role in helping their team members deal with stress by being empathetic and understanding, allowing time for relaxation, and facilitating flexible schedules. Our team is our top priority, and in this respect we have established some programs with Clinicile Oana Nicolau, to help our colleagues overcome this period more easily.

And by adopting an Agile mindset you can quickly and successfully respond to changes through today’s uncharted territory. For example, after the pandemics started, we rapidly shifted to working from home. We took all necessary measures to ensure continuous delivery, efficient communication with our team and our partners, and avoid any risks of disrupting our flow. And even apart, we still feel we are together.

Especially during these times, when working from home has become the norm, we all feel the need to be more engaged and create a sense of community.

Before Covid-19 constraints, we used to organize many events and gatherings with our team, on different occasions and even randomly. But with today’s restrictions we had to adapt and get creative under these new digitized circumstances. So now we are constantly organizing Virtual Hangouts, for both leisure and learning: from specialized training on the latest technologies and trends in the industry to online art or cocktail-crafting workshops.

This year, for example, we celebrated our 15th anniversary in a different way than we used to. Before it was our tradition to mark this special occasion by going together on our legendary team buildings. This year the celebration party moved online, but as we saw, not even today’s crisis could stop us from having a blast together as a team, even when apart.

Covid-19 pandemics might be an opportunity for introspection for each CEO. It is the time for business leaders or decision makers to take a step back and evaluate their businesses exposure, vulnerabilities, and potential losses in this new context, it is time to rethink resilience strategies.

Nowadays, technology teaches us that high efficiency is not enough to cover risks, and a valuable leader needs to adopt a think-outside-the-box minded approach.

When it comes to the IT industry, we are the vanguard of digitalization and processes automation. Agility is our business framework and we rely on adaptive and innovative thinking. We rely on these values and also on our team of world class engineers to successfully navigate through the pandemics and become a more agile and innovative company.

Now fastening the digitization processes might be a new competitive advantage in productivity, flexibility, quality, and end-customer connectivity

Most companies were already digitizing their operations before the coronavirus hit. To compete with industry leaders and also have a global impact, we constantly invest in R&D. For us, the research and development area is an important pillar in developing products and applications based on emerging technologies to support the current needs and create new opportunities.

Also, we are keeping a  strong focus on innovation as well as the rapid adoption of technologies such as Cloud, Artificial Intelligence, IoT, Microservices, and their integration into software products developed for sectors such as telecom, financial, automotive, or retail.

Our top priority for 2021 will be to further offer our partners and customers the best solutions that support their businesses and drive growth through digital transformation.

And we will continue investing in increasing our level of know-how in cutting-edge technologies through training programs and tech-talks.

Right now, our main concern remains protecting the health of both our employees and our customers, along with the continuous process of reinventing our operations and expanding our business in the current pandemic conditions.

Soon after the lockdown was imposed, we officially launched TORP, a competitive digital onboarding and origination solution with applicability in various industries, from financial and telecom to education and health. Through this solution, companies can make their products and services more accessible to their users, from anywhere and anytime, without the customer ever needing to come to a physical branch or office.

Also, after the suspension of in-person classes, we developed observED, an innovative online proctoring tool based on biometric data. This solution enables schools, universities, and assessment centers to take their traditional pen-paper exams online, enforcing academic evaluation integrity.

We have also prototyped a telemedicine solution and a tool for facilitating the safe return of employees to the office following the coronavirus pandemic.

Currently we’re making important progress on a research project in partnership with the University of Bucharest for the development of a smart application for verifying a person’s identity and validating the authenticity of official documents – HumanoID. Another research project in partnership with University Politehnica Bucharest and the University of Bucharest, is Graphomaly, for building an AI-based solution for risk/anomaly detection in financial transactions.

Covid-19 crisis had a major impact on people and organizations around the world and it fundamentally changed the way we do business, the way we work, the way we live.

 It has forced us all to rethink strategies, find new innovative ways to adapt, and ensure business continuity and growth.

The inevitable shift to remote work has happened, with the great opportunity of recruiting talent from all over the country, or the world. For example, we extended our team with highly motivated and talented colleagues living in Romanian cities where we do not have representative offices or branches, such as Iasi, Craiova, Suceava.. For us, working remotely has always been a normal part of both our work culture and business operations, as we have clients from many industries, like banking, telecom, healthcare, operating in 20 countries on four continents.