Tom Saenen on Avento: “The best of both worlds”

Business Consultant Tom Saenen is enjoying himself at Avento and is happy to give us a look behind the scenes. He’s been with Avento for 6 months now and has over 10 years of experience in similar functions. As such, he is the ideal person to give an evaluation of Avento.

The best of both worlds

“Client needs to get value from the start”

“When it comes to project management, everything is running smoothly. We work in a highly structured manner but at the same time, we show the necessary flexibility towards our client and his questions. My job is to gain insight into their business processes and to determine their functional needs. Afterwards, all tasks are divided. I do the configuration, but we have computer engineers who take care of the actual coding. Obviously, our main goal is to create added value as soon as possible. This is all very interesting, but it’s not always easy to work according to a plan or to remain organized because we work in a small group and we maintain a casual atmosphere.”

“Best of both worlds”

“The difference with my previous jobs couldn’t be bigger. For a long time, I held logistical – and IT-related – functions at the shipping company Maersk, which is a multinational company with a strict hierarchical structure. Afterwards, I had the same function at a much less organized – you can even call it chaotic – SME in Mechelen. At Avento, I truly found ‘the best of both worlds’. An informal and productive work environment but also a structured and professional approach.”

Challenges on every level

Despite the fact that he hasn’t been working that long at Avento, Tom sees some clear challenges but, therefore, also opportunities. “Some clients aren’t that acquainted with IT projects, the prices and the procedure. But they do have high expectations due to word of mouth. And then there’s also the aspect of Mobile CRM. In cases like these, we sometimes have to educate our clients. They often know big CRM companies, important names and how good CRM should work. But how CRM really works and its impact on an organization? That’s where we can make a difference, with real offline availability thanks to Resco.net.”

And how about the technology, Tom?

“If I knew Resco before I worked here? No actually, I didn’t. But for our job interview, we had to make a small application with Resco. We had to develop an app with Resco, within the Dynamics environment of Microsoft. That immediately caught my attention. And I’m glad it did because now I’m here!”