Première Entreprise Générale du Digital en Europe (EGD)
Le groupe Econocom conçoit, finance et facilite la transformation digitale des grandes entreprises et des organisations publiques. Implanté dans 18 pays, nous sommes parmi les rares acteurs européens à couvrir l’ensemble de la chaîne des métiers du numérique : des équipements aux services et jusqu’au financement.

Gérer la complexité
Nous observons sur le terrain que les demandes et besoins de nos clients sont de plus en plus complexes : les évolutions technologiques sont permanentes, les projets sont de plus en plus internationaux, les enjeux relatifs à la RSE sont absolument à prendre en compte, l’offre est d’avantage fragmentée entre éditeurs, constructeurs, banques… mais surtout, les utilisateurs finaux (collaborateurs, clients…) sont toujours plus exigeants, mobiles et connectés. Pour guider les entreprises dans ce monde digital flou, nous apportons une réponse simple : One Digital Company.

Ce que nous faisons
Le groupe est un des seuls à pouvoir coordonner et prendre la responsabilité globale de toute la chaîne de métiers d’un projet digital : des équipements, aux services jusqu’à leur financement sur mesure ou leur paiement à l’usage… Et cela dans un ou plusieurs pays.

Comment nous le faisons
Pour ses clients, Econocom conçoit et met en œuvre un numérique qui leur sert vraiment et qui crée de la valeur durable. Pour cela, nos équipes conçoivent des solutions à partir de leurs usages réels, en préparant toujours l’étape d’après et en plaçant le numérique responsable au cœur de nos activités.

Ce qui nous distingue
Nous faisons aboutir les projets digitaux en gérant leur complexité et leur durabilité. Pour cela, nous nous appuyons sur des spécificités uniques sur le marché :

• notre présence dans 18 pays.

An Interview with Diana Robben and Julie Verduystert of Econocom about their latest collaboration with AGC BELGIUM.
How Diana (engagement manager) closed the deal with AGC by creating a strong long-term relationship over the years that elevated our brand reputation.
How Julie (recruitment specialist) increased the efficiency of the recruitment process through searching and selecting the right candidate strategically.

How is the relationship with the client?
AGC Belgium is a long-standing client of Econocom. In March of this year, the client approached us with a direct request for a full-time IT specialist, without publishing the request on the client’s platform.

Could you share more on how you went about your business with this client?
For this client, we already had some other projects in the past, which led to a relationship based on trust. This was a sort of dream situation to our team; we strive more towards this kind of contacts. We knew from the beginning that there were no competitors, which created some confidence for us as well.

The client had not prepared a comprehensive job description when it contacted Diana. This gave her the freedom to create a profile description and job specification, based on AGC’s company objectives.

This involved some improvisation, but it is also very important to have a proper understanding about what the customer is looking for and requires for this project. After the description of the profile, we start searching for the right candidate, first internally via the recruitment manager. If we do not find a suitable candidate, we continue our search through recruitment. Julie has then actively been looking into finding a suitable candidate. For Julie, it is crucial to make a proposal that matches what the customer and Econocom are looking for at that same time.

This is how we matched Alice to AGC. She already had gained experience using collaboration tools in her previous job. Alice’s experience really appealed to the client, and she also has a good profile that matches our client’s requirements. We now have a clear understanding of which profiles are passing through AGC and how we can connect them to find a perfect match.

First, Julie had an interview with Alice, then Diana came into the conversation to provide further details about the customer, after which the candidate was proposed to the customer. Of course, this was the ideal situation for the team, where the client starts searching for candidates with a profile and outsources this process to us.

The interview with Alice was very pleasant and the customer soon agreed to work with her.
This is where we were fortunate, because some of the introduced candidates are matching and some might not be matching with the client.  It was soon clear that the customer was confident of Alice’s capabilities, because at the end of the interview it was already decided that Alice was suitable for the profile. Usually we only get a final decision after the interview, whereas here the client didn’t go looking for other profiles. The customer was convinced that he had the right candidate in front of him. We can say that the search was concluded very quickly: it was approximately 1-month from first contact to Alice getting started.

How do you build your relationship with the customers? 
Being honest with the customer is key, as is resolving issues and setting up priorities for the customer’s best interest. Monitoring at close range on projects builds engagement as does asking about other concerns of the customer and monitoring budgets to determine which price range we are in.

Who stays in touch with the candidate? 
Julie is the candidate’s first point of contact until she is recruited and after that, her job is done, and then the competence manager comes in and checks whether the candidate is satisfied. When Alice is employed, Diana will check whether all went well or not.

What role will Alice fulfil at AGC?
Alice will give support to the end users of AGC, where the domain name of the company is going to change. She will assist the users within the framework of this project. In particular, she will be providing user support: by phone, or remotely by taking over control. At first, users will be able to come to her with their laptops; after a period, when she has enough information about the client, she can switch to teleworking.

Why did the candidate choose Econocom?
Alice indicated early on that she had a good feeling about working at Econocom, which was the key factor in her decision. She informed Julie that she had a former co-worker who had started working at Econocom in 2020 and who had also worked with her at the European Commission, where he had been responsible for the helpdesk. This former colleague has left a good reference to Alice about Econocom, which is why she gave us the time and the trust to help her with a new job.

Can you say the company has grown accustomed to the services of Econocom?
The client knows our services well, and that creates a sense of loyalty. For instance, we have recently had a new application of a project in which AGC would like to make use of our services. The request was made when they were searching for a candidate for their last project.

This shows once again that clients are only human, and that if things go well, they will not be changing their ways or looking to competitors for their services.

What are the future perspectives for Econocom and AGC?
As a trusted client, AGC is familiar with all 3 main branches of Econocom. Currently, the client has opted to continue using the leasing and services activities, which it consistently relies upon. The lease contract for PCs and laptops comes to its end and the fleet must be replaced.

The renewal of the park demands extra resources in order to implement and provide support, and for this the client once again counts on a partnership with Econocom. We are currently examining how we can work together within the team to address this matter. We begin by consulting the competence manager, who looks for someone in-house or checks if there is somebody available at a client who could do the job for some days and who we can recruit. If we can’t find someone internally, then Julie moves to external recruitment from partners or freelance. We are looking forward to matchmaking the right candidates to AGC soon.

TAKEAWAY 1: Be authentic and create an human connection with your customers.
TAKEAWAY 2: Employees that are experts and passionate about their work achieve shared team goals.
TAKEAWAY 3: Teamwork and collaboration are essential for a successful business.

Hi Elke – You are now 3 months at Econocom.
Can you firstly introduce yourself – Who are you and what is your professional background?

On my 25^th birthday, I started working as a Sales Coordinator at AC Systems in Hoegaarden. After one year and a first great experience, I decided to go back to Leuven and joined Belisol as a commercial assistant. Unfortunately, this function was not challenging enough and after only 4 months, I left the agency and got hired as a customer service agent at AB Inbev where I grew in competences and changed account portfolio several times.

AB Inbev is known for its many career opportunities and I happily took part in that. As a service-minded employee, I wanted to gain experience on the sales-side and after 2 years, I took up the position of Inside sales coordinator, the entry-level function for becoming an inside sales manager, where I was also able to acquire experiences in project management.

At a certain moment in your career you decide to change jobs – What has triggered you to join Econocom?

It was the job content and the flat structure within the organization that convinced me to join this team. As from the first interview with Pascal Verpport, I was pretty clear that the current internal sales team has many more responsibilities than order taking and follow up. They are the SPOC for our customers and take the lead in activating other stakeholders to resolve the demands of these customers. I was informed about the many opportunities for improvement and creating efficiencies and this gives me tons of energy.

The function of internal sales manager is a perfect mix of my mission from the beginning of my professional career: make every customer experience outstanding!

You have joined Econocom in challenging times – How have you experienced your first 3 months?

They say it’s not easy to be onboarded in a new company during these covid times. Although it might not be ideal and of course I wish I could meet my whole team all together in real life, I feel that we manage around pretty well. They and all other colleagues gave me a warm welcome in the Econocom family. I was lucky to be able to go to the office sometimes to meet people face to face.

As a newcomer seeking for efficiencies, it was a great experience to take the jump after only having a rather limited onboarding scheme. This might sound negative, but in fact I experienced it as something good, because it enabled me to find out processes myself and to rethink them were needed.

I know it is not a long time – 3 months, but what are you proud of in terms of realizations so far?

I am very proud of what the internal sales team and I achieved together in these 3 months. By tracking the major part of the workload via a new reporting, I try to find a balance in workload for all internal sales B2B agents. We went live with a new telephony system, we have set a clear back-up system, we are continuously improving our ticketing system and we are mapping our processes via a RACI. You can compare us to a tandem, where I guide the way, but only together we can gain a top speed. It’s the team that does all the hard work and reduces the backlog in tickets. It’s the team that has an open mindset and they are supportive in developing our hybrid structure. It’s the team taking care of our customers.

Where do you see your and your teams’ biggest challenges in the future?

The biggest challenge we already face right now, is the shortage of devices and accessories which helps growing the amount of backorders. This has a direct impact on the customer experience. Although it’s not always the most pleasant message to give to the customer, it is up to us to make these contacts outstanding ones.

The other main opportunity is our current tooling package. We are working on improvements and the first meetings for the new ERP systems are marked as done. In 2022 we will go live with a new system which will allow us to reduce manual workload to follow up customer processes from A to Z. There’s still a challenging year lying ahead of us and I am fully convinced that together we can have nothing but happy customers and stakeholders, who will see Econocom as their preferred partner for digitalization.

Global E-waste Monitor 2020 apporte des informations pour le moins alarmantes sur cette question.

Conclusions essentielles et ambitions

Le rapport montre que depuis 2014, on assiste à une augmentation de   21 % des déchets d’équipements électroniques et électriques (DEEE) générés dans le monde. Cette augmentation est principalement due à la croissance de la consommation des EEE (une croissance de 3 % par an), au cycle de vie plus court du matériel et aux possibilités limitées de réparation.

La lutte contre les DEEE contribue ainsi à atteindre les objectifs de développement durable.

Les principaux défis identifiés par l’UN’s Global E-waste Monitor 2020 :

• Les procédures officielles de collecte et de recyclage ne savent pas suivre le rythme de la croissance mondiale des DEEE.
• Les DEEE offrent la possibilité de créer une économie circulaire en traitant les équipements hors d’usage et en valorisant les matières premières qu’ils contiennent.

• Le rapport identifie les principales opportunités suivantes :

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In an ever-changing business environment, the use of digital technologies is key to keep abreast of changing market trends, create new or modify existing business models and embrace organizational change.

The Econocom Belux digital roadmap identifies and prioritizes the main digital initiatives we are planning to undertake in the coming years to support our business objectives. The roadmap (downloadable in attachments) distinguishes short, medium and longer term initiatives for the period 2020-2022.

As indicated in the overview, each initiative in our digital roadmap is aligned with one or more of the key ambitions of our digital strategy:

	Optimize efficiency
	Reduce cost
	Improve quality
	Enforce compliance
	Ensure business continuity

We will keep you posted on the progress we are making though regular articles on this intranet.