After Rogier Termeer and Danny Kind, it is now Christian Willemsen's turn to introduce himself to you. What does he focus on as Senior Business Consultant at ICreative?
Continuously improving customers' purchase-to-pay processes: that's what Christian does in a nutshell. To do this, he uses the Lean Six Sigma methodology, for which he has now obtained the Black Belt.
No band-aids
Lean Six Sigma is a cyclical method for process optimization consisting of five steps: Define > Measure > Analyze > Improve > Control. In practice, Christian finds that the first step in particular, defining the problem, is often underestimated.
"You have to know very well what the problem is before you can come up with a solution," he says. "Otherwise, you're just going to put band-aids on. That doesn't do you much good."
Often people have no idea what the issue really is. That sometimes requires quite a bit of digging. "Data plays a key role in this," Christian explains. "Data shows exactly what has happened, allowing you to accurately pinpoint the problem. But data doesn't tell you why it happened, so then I start talking to everyone involved to find out. I see that this has happened, how is that possible?"
"Data shows exactly what happened, which allows you to very accurately put your finger on what happened."
He himself compares his work to that of a digital detective. "I'm always looking for what took place and how it could have happened," he says.
Ended up at ICreative by accident
How did Christian actually end up with us in 2018? "By chance," is his answer to that. At his previous employer, a technical wholesaler, he was involved in the invoicing process, among other things. A number of important customers were working with Basware via ICreative. He was curious about what kind of company ICreative was then, so he looked up the website.
After some clicking around, he landed on the work-at-home page. "At that time I was not really looking for a new job, but I saw a vacancy at ICreative that looked interesting," he says. When it also clicked really well with the director and HR manager during the introductory interviews, the decision was quickly made.
Continue to develop
In addition, after 12 years, it was also time to leave his familiar base. Christian: "I think continuing to develop yourself and learn new things is the most important thing there is."
So it is not very surprising that in his spare time he likes to explore new technologies such as AI. That free time is pretty scarce, though. Christian has four sons between the ages of two and nine as well as a long list of hobbies. These include chores around the house, programming, gaming and hiking.
| READING TIP Earlier in this column, colleague Rogier Termeer introduced himself. "My work starts when the customer receives invoices that the automated system cannot process," he said. |
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