{"id":30538,"date":"2019-12-02T12:48:59","date_gmt":"2019-12-02T12:48:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/?p=30538"},"modified":"2019-12-04T11:41:06","modified_gmt":"2019-12-04T11:41:06","slug":"get-to-know-james-hickman-chief-customer-officer-at-altron-karabina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/2019\/12\/02\/get-to-know-james-hickman-chief-customer-officer-at-altron-karabina\/","title":{"rendered":"Get to Know: James Hickman, Chief Customer Officer at Altron Karabina"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

What would you describe as your most memorable achievement?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being recognised by a mentor and a man I respect hugely with the MDs\naward. This followed a year of hard work, rebuilding a team and a region. The\nbusiness results were in line with expectations but what was recognised was the\nwork that went into achieving the results and the way the team executed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What first made you think of a career in technology?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

My passion for creating an amazing customer experience started\nwhen I worked as a waiter after leaving school. I must have been doing\nsomething right as one of my regulars invited me for an interview at their\ncomputer business, setting in motion the events that have led me to this point.\nAnd with the nature of customer experience evolving faster than ever, I could\nnot be happier with what I am doing now.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a traditional business, I would be considered as Head of Sales\nbut at Altron Karabina we are fixated about providing the best customer\nexperience that results in long term customer partnerships and as such a\npositive revenue stream. Having revenue as an outcome of customer fixation is\nwhat it is all about, not the other way around.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I feel a deep responsibility to help ensure the success of the business. Ultimately, if I fail at my job, I impact everyone\u2019s lives and that is something I take personally. While many view sales as a high-risk environment, I believe that if you focus on your customers\u2019 success, build a passionate team of people and use the data at your disposal, you remove that uncertainty and create longevity which does not come just by focusing on the numbers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What style of management philosophy do you employ with your\ncurrent position?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

For me, a leader\u2019s role is all about creating clarity and building\nenergy. If a person is not seen as someone who has a clear plan, knows where\nthey are taking the business and believes in what they do or are apathetic,\nthen nobody will be keen to follow them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m truly passionate about developing people. There are few things\nmore rewarding than when you see someone you have been growing with become\nsuccessful at what they do. I love working with people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This couldn\u2019t be more important than in the role of Chief Customer\nOfficer as my people are the main interface to our customers. They are at the\ncentre of the feedback loop. Without this feedback we cannot truly understand\nif we are meeting our customers\u2019 expectations and ultimately delivering the\nvalue we aim to. At Altron Karabina we put the customer at the centre of\neverything we do and all the decisions we make, and I am immensely proud to be\npart of this journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you think is the current hot technology talking point?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are many buzzwords, however I think the one that we forget is the people. Tech is an outcome of someone\u2019s idea. The technology that is built will often have incredible capability to impact people, businesses and governments in many exciting ways. However, unless people are fully empowered to use the technology, understand the outcomes and apply these we are truly limiting the opportunity that technology provides.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How do you deal with stress and unwind outside the office?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I love paddle boarding, but my biggest passion is food and\ncooking. On weekends, I wake up and cook. I go and buy ingredients at the\nmarket for lunch, and so on. I always aim to live life to its fullest and time\nspent with family and friends are precious in this regard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

If you could go back and change one career decision what would it\nbe?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I would have read more in my early career. The world is full of amazing\nbooks filled with knowledge and experiences. Learning about these and applying\nthem in your own environment can accelerate one\u2019s growth path and trajectory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What do you currently identify as the major areas of investment in\nyour industry?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Our customers continue to invest heavily in preparing for the\nFourth Industrial Revolution by optimising and modernising their operations\nthrough the implementation of a modern ERP platform such as Microsoft Dynamics\n365. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In addition, the investment into tools that assist companies in\nextracting knowledge and information from data is a high priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, we are seeing significant interest in systems focused on\nthe customer and how companies can better understand and serve their customer\nbase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What are the region-specific challenges when implementing new\ntechnologies in Africa? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The skills conundrum, we have a serious unemployment challenge,\nhowever in certain areas of the tech industry we are desperately short of\nskilled and experienced people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This gap is something that the industry needs to take\naccountability for and ensure that we build the knowledge, and experience that\nthe industry needs. The tech industry is a key pillar of the economy, one that\nwill position us well to compete globally, we cannot afford to fall behind in\nthe tech space and our people are the key to keeping us ahead of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What changes to your job role have you seen in the last year and\nhow do you see these developing in the next 12 months?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I believe a company should understand its customers by coming to\ngrips with how best to partner with them. This will see the relationship extend\nmultiple years and enable the parties to enjoy the good times together and more\neasily survive the challenging ones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

My role is about enabling our business units to orchestrate\ninternal change on behalf of our customers to deliver value in the way they see\nit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We must deliver innovation that matters to our customers. By putting them first in everything we do, we will achieve our own business growth. Altron Karabina\u2019s utilisation of the Microsoft platform is strongly aligned with the company’s strategy. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution our solutions are enabling our customers to embrace a digital business environment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What advice would you offer somebody aspiring to obtain C-level\nposition in your industry? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Work hard, invest in building your relationships, read everything\nand get the balance right between understanding technology, how it is applied\nto business and the business itself.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

What would you describe as your most memorable achievement? Being recognised by a mentor and a man I respect hugely with the MDs award. This followed a year of hard work, rebuilding a team and a region. The business results were in line with expectations but what was recognised was the work that went into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":25,"featured_media":30539,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1949,6,399],"tags":[8989,517,1002,7579,176,2207],"class_list":["post-30538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-get-to-know","category-insights","category-more-news","tag-altron-karabina","tag-erp","tag-fourth-industrial-revolution","tag-james-hickman","tag-microsoft","tag-microsoft-dynamics-365"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/25"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30538"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30645,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30538\/revisions\/30645"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/africa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}