Here is Chris' Story...

• What can you remember about your very first day?

  I remember the whole UK team at the time being made up of around 40 people, on company day we would all be crammed into a meeting room!

  I can see that we have gotten better, and we have definitely grown within the last 12 years. We were originally in the Pure Offices, so not too far away from where out Nottingham office is now (little bit closer to the Dakota pub!)

  I had a formal induction that went on for a couple of days, I guess the process even back then was pretty slick in terms of the onboarding, with I think maybe 6-7 other people (I remember a few familiar faces, but I cannot remember who else was there at the time). I thought that overall it was an okay onboarding process 

• What have you learnt that you have brought with you back to Columbus?

  It has been good to get a different perspective on things, such as delivery, methodology, presales and processes. 

  There is a mixture of good and bad things that you see when working in a different environment.  I think commercially I have seen a different side in terms of selling of services and more of a data driven approach.

• Whispers of a return and your "second first" day.

  My manager had mentioned that he would send an email out to notify everyone that I was returning back, however whispers within the office and beyond had happened and the message got around to most eventually in the end when I returned!

  It was like I had never been away, once we had gotten over the jokes it was straight to business as usual. It also felt great to be back in a busy office environment again – almost felt like I had to hit the ground straight running! 

• Has your role changed now that you are back?

  Yes, it has, and I am now focusing on Professional Services, and I can now play with what I have used whilst I was away in terms of how Columbus can go into market professional services.
  
  Considering being compared to other partners, we should be the experts because we have implemented probably one of the most difficult global projects that there could be – Columbus QED.

  So we perhaps have more capability than other partners, and it is how we harness that to strengthen our relationship with Microsoft. One of the things that we might do is incorporate what we've done into our go to market-offering, which includes our IP and our reports as well. It gives me that perspective to go to deliver market offerings around professional services and how we can leverage that.