Hello, everyone and welcome to our Caring as the new business currency session. So my name is Lucia and I will be your host for, for this session. I hope everyone can uh can see me and hear me. OK. Um We have also the chat.So I would like to start by asking you something. And that is how do you measure a successful partnership in life and in, in business? Is it in a life the duration of your relationship? Is it the quality? Is it being there when you need it the most? What about a business partnership? Is it the maximum of what both parties can win? Is it the duration or the outcome like the evaluation of the business overall? Is it the number of opportunities created or the obstacles passed together? Which one can it be? So please use the chat section, give us your thoughts and answer and let's gather as many perspectives as possible from all the participants today and while you take your time, um I would like to start by saying a few words about myself. So I'm Lucia. I'm am B A graduate. I am a mother of two and I have a background of 16 years in the it field in a variety of roles. My professional experience covers expertise in, in operations in management of it, telecom and business process management projects in consultancy activities, training team, leading risk management and process improvement.

And for the last four years, I've contributed to building the fastest growing it outsourcing company in Romania and I'm constantly learning and adapting and growing with, with our business. I'm currently acting as the co ceo of my IO. We are in top 20 it outsourcing Romanian owned companies and are the only companies this stop with women in, in founder and the c opposition. And more than half, half of our board are women. More than 80% in the middle management are women and more than 30% in the company are women. And if these numbers make you raise the eyebrow, well, don't because Romania ranks first when measuring the proportion of women in top management position in 2020 among European Union countries according to the European Institute for, for gender equity. And what I will be guiding you through today is my view on how caring got me through this amazing learning journey when it was never about aiming success but aiming value and a better version of myself. So we will look together our partnerships through, through different lenses, be them with your dear ones, with acquaintances, colleagues, uh customers, customers of your customers and we'll try to answer if the focal point of all can be care and how we can enrich and strengthen the partnership through care.

See if this can shift of perspective, have a positive impact on strengthening all relationships partnerships from one year to another because being in it, I've mostly worked with men over the last 16 years and I always love discussing ideas and challenging each other. I chose not to look at the gender difference, but to focus on what brought value to the table. And with our specific kind way of caring, just by being women, we managed to make this value so obvious that we just kept going. The emotion a woman brings is extraordinary, the greed, the combination of passion and perseverance a woman creates is even more spectacular. What I believe though um that is different about myself and about us is the leadership style because for me, leadership is about inspiring people.

And as a mother, I, I shaped my style as women. We care for others and we care naturally. Before being a mom, I was the school leader in any possible group that was formed. And I was a friend, a sister before being a mom. And it was always about the care and this girl stayed with me through my professional life. And uh about professional life, I would go to partnership at work and I would look through the lenses of, of colleagues. And I would say that for me and, and my team, the success was always a team's recipe. It is about creating opportunities to grow others. And this translates into moments of teaching of mentoring, but also in going out there and do things differently, see opportunities where others see risks and take them and make the most impact out of them. And if you want to put a tag on it, I think it's a human first entrepreneurial approach. And for me, positive impact means giving back more than I have received and always, always build trust and deliver up on that trust. It also means that even if it's painful, you need to make room for others to grow. And this is true as a mom, it is true as a leader. So how do we do that?

Well, we care where people are, where they want to be, care about their own journey and not measure in one size fits all. So put what our people need first, but you really need to mind your own growth in order to mind others. Because for me, growth is a mindset. It's a constant learning path. And the impact we have with minded is our way of doing things because the pandemic showed us clearly that uh those who had a strong foundation and a strong team uh could adapt and had really great results. And it is no longer about the company office processes and procedures is about company way of doing things. And for these years, we defined clearly that it's not only about the number of people or the customers you have in the game, but about the number of lives we touch. So if the number of lives we touch is bigger than our numbers, it means we succeeded. So we'd better make something truly great out of it. And about making something truly great. I would take partnerships with, uh with our, with our customers now and about care and how does care come into picture now.

Well, it can be a customer who really wants to build something and thinks he can never do it because he doesn't have the right technologies or the right people. Then here we are or it can be someone who has been with you for a while and you've paid close attention to the business needs so far, um delivered everything upon expectation, but the context has changed. Uh the competitors made some moves or the geopolitical situation changed the market evolved and you really need to stay on top of the whole picture. And if you care about your customer, you care about the products and the services they're building or offering. You care about their struggle and their success. You anticipate disruptive trends in the market and try to act on them. Like you ask questions, you read, try to understand and analyze and correlate data, give recommendations, try to give advice you care about their customers and you need to do that constantly, what has changed and why and how, and you care about what their customers will need.

Yes, you, you care. So I've done a little bit of analysis for, for today. So I have asked five of our um customer partners, which are the most important criteria for selecting someone to do business with. And most of them responded, I would say there, there were three categories of answers. So um most of them replied with uh the strategic version, which is the governance of innovation, the strategic relationship management or the cultural alignment overall, which is no values.

Uh Then the second category replied with um different dimensions like um business understanding or um technical fit or um collaboration and communication, transparency, flexibility, reliability, um technical project competence or references. And the third category uh was the the most pragmatic one.

So they put quality or uh cost versus quality uh or the efficiency or um the risk attitude, the re the references and the overall customers portfolio. So pretty, pretty much a lot of answers, you know, but when I try to refine and I asked them if you were to choose one thing that makes you stay with the business partner, um what would that be? And here the answers were much simpler and very aligned. So they said that we want some someone that just gets it and or we want just uh we don't want just a supplier. We want a partner or keep doing what you're doing because this is what we need or, you know, it's the involvement and the enthusiasm in making sure that you guys build the right thing and that right thing actually brings value and that is used and it's adopted. So um many answers. But if you take a look, I think you, you can spot that what all these have in common because even if it's not written, it's care what they are all saying is take care of it. I mean, that's all it is really and going back to where we started um the discussion, yes, care is the focal point of, of business partnerships.

So if it is, how do you start to care because I'm in it outsourcing and I know that starting work with a new software services vendor is never easy. But no, it is for us to start with a new client, especially in this industry. Because every time both sides of the partnership have to go through a discovery period where we have to understand more than just the business context, how the product is gonna be used, the technical requirements, how is this gonna be deployed and so on and so forth. The discovery process is a lot like dating and even if we have a common objective, it still means that getting there, it can vary a lot and the speed at which will get there depends on so many factors. It and it's ultimately about short beliefs regarding work and, and life. So dating is for sure, not easy. But finding the the right business partner is even more challenging because, you know, in dating it's a one on one, every party with its background and history, but finding the right business partner, it's a many to many relationship and uh with multiple time dimensions and uh a lot of projects going on at the same time and a lot of future plans.

So ensuring a great fit involves multiple strangers from across the world, connecting and clicking with each other. And personal chemistry is usually unpredictable. So for sure, they didn't teach me this in the NBA. And it's hard to find that partner that genuinely cares about more than just the business outcome. You know, those beautiful schemas with data connectors and how data flows in partnership. People from both sides start clicking with each other and delivering value projects start to, to run smoothly and to deliver and you know, make no compromise if needed. But when you just go and talk to people, you find out that everyone actually starts learning from each other and adjusting with each other like in any relationship. And when you come with the right proactive mindset, the customers begin to see as a partner that will commit and will deliver in a long term collaboration. Having long term mentioned after just a couple of months being together is a good signal. In any type of relationship. And the keyword here is, is proactive and we encourage our teams, you know, to deliver more and better than expected and not because we have to, but rather because it will genuinely help the partners in achieving their goals and showing someone that you care beyond the interest beyond, you know, this is what was promised is a strong foundation and for trust for an amazing team.

And what we constantly do is that we ask for feedback for every interaction, like, you know, formal informal from all the people we work with. And when you hear that your team is actually part of your partner team and the other way around, you know, that that's a sign that you're um on the right path and blurring the lines of business interests actually help people and to do their jobs and feeling, you know, proud about it.

Um So, although it's not predictable, I mean, it's for sure, not easy to predict the fit between the things is very important and the shared values will matter a lot at the end. So finding people that can really care about each other, it's important in anything but more valuable when it's across companies, across countries, across cultural bridges. And in order for you to do this with your customers, you need to care for your people first. So going back to where we started and, and closing the loop because yes, we're all grown ups but we all want to be seen and understood and talented, hard working people look for purpose and find meaning. And this is their personal journey. Spotting talents is just a piece of what we need. Talent in itself is no longer a guarantee that people will succeed in their job. Portability of talent can be a myth if you're not creating the flourishing the unique context for people to grow and what every individual need is unique, not only to them personally, but also to the respective phase of their personal and professional life. For me, the journey is about surrounding myself with people who want something more than just a job and know about the locus of control. They truly believe they can influence their outcome, their journey.

And it is for this type of people that I'm doing what I'm doing every single day and this is how care comes into place because we're redefining how business is done through genuine care. And we are building a way in which driven and smart and talented people wanna be part of. So this team takes their, you know, jobs, projects, clients and partnerships seriously and they allow themselves to make mistakes because they know it is the only way to learn. We didn't have an imposed working place, not even before the pandemic. As for us, people can work from where they are their best versions. The physical presence is just a dimension, the growth and the learning mindset is what drives our things. So here is and will be the the business currency and my wish is to learn every day. So being on a constant learning path gives me hope that I will be able to give back more than I have received. I thank you for, for taking the time to listen to me. Uh We can interact and exchange ideas and I'm really looking forward to see your thoughts um about today and um you know, learn from you, learn from your experiences and why do you think care is, is important in strengthening partnerships? Thank you very, very much.

And we can be in touch throughout the event via the chat session or, or reflection. Thank you.