How would you explain your job?
I manage all operational activities of Sopra Steria at our client’s side, meaning that I have to make sure that the commitment taken in the contract during the sales part is properly delivered to the client. This goes together with making sure that our consultants are happy where they are. I am the Service Delivery Manager for 1 client, the biggest banking group in Belgium, and we have around 100 Sopra Steria consultants working for this client. In my job, I can rely on a delivery management team. Each member of this team is responsible for one or more of our client’s departments where Sopra Steria is present. To support our client, we work on activities related to infrastructure (network and window systems), activities linked to data, and we take care of almost all non-core banking applications of the client, amongst which SAP applications.
What does a regular working day look like for you?
My main focus is following up on our teams’ deliveries through different governance instances. To do so, it is important for me to be close to both the client, and our consultants, who encounter different issues every day. It can be consultants who are not happy in their job or who are not performing at the expected level. We also have teams working in India and Spain, so it is important for me to keep proximity with them as well, since they are fully part of our team. Despite my experience, there are always issues that still surprise me and that we have never seen before. Making sure our consultants are happy is a full-time and important job for me, because when they are happy, the client is also happy.
On top, I also support our sales team with extending the business with our client, and I make sure we reach the financial targets we have set up. This is of course the final objective in the end, but this is only possible if our consultants and the client are happy.
What are the most important qualities for a Service Delivery Manager?
I would say that soft skills are the most important ones: you need to be a good leader and a good communicant towards both the client and your consultants, but also towards other departments of Sopra Steria like legal and HR. For technical skills, I guess experience in project management is the most important one. On top, resilience is needed as well; you need to be able to adapt to the speed and pace of the customer.
Fun fact
If Sébastien could switch jobs for one day with someone else at Sopra Steria, he would like to experience being the HR Director (but only for 1 day), because in this job, you have a lot of connections with other employees who have the same issues as the consultants working on his project.
What can you say about Sopra Steria’s culture?
I started working at Sopra Steria as a junior, and I am now leading a team of 100 people, so I would say that for sure there are opportunities to evolve here. This is also one of the many reasons why I stayed at Sopra Steria after all these years.
Sopra Steria is a big family and a safe place where you can speak freely and express your needs and feelings. The atmosphere is informal and the vibe between colleagues is very nice. There is of course some pressure to reach your objectives, but it is pressure within a good spirit. Both are key elements to enjoy my work, and I believe this is a unique feature of Sopra Steria, since this is not always the case in a big company. We organise from time to time small events with our team and twice a year, we have a BBQ or dinner.