It’s been quite a while since I finished university and, to be honest, I had almost forgotten what it feels like to sit in an auditorium with fellow students and listen to a lecture. Therefore, I was really excited to accompany Jan Brecht, CIO of the adidas Group, to the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg only a few days ago. Together with two of his senior managers, Ingo Winterhoff and Christian Martin, Jan held an exceptional lecture, providing insights into “New Retail Technologies”.
In the course of this series I am meeting various successful women at the adidas Group who have successfully tackled hurdles and advanced their careers. This time I spoke to Beate Stoll, Director End User Computing at the adidas Group. I can tell you: Beate impressed me! She didn’t only impress me because she is in her current role instrumental in the creation of the Vision for the IT Workplace of the future and strategy for the adidas Group. She didn’t only do so because she has a team of 28 people located in three regions, overseeing the IT Workplace for 30,000+ employees worldwide. What impressed me even more is that Beate seems to be always open to change and brave enough to embrace it. Her motto is “change the things that you are able to change and accept the things that you can’t change but try to make the best out of it”. I find this approach very inspiring and interviewed her on various facets of change to understand what this mindset is all about.
Last Wednesday was a very special day for me and my team. We, the adidas Group IT Service Desk Team in Herzogenaurach, received the “Service Globe 2013” at the Service Desk World Conference in Cologne, Germany. This prize might be described as the Oscar for IT Help- and Service Desk organisations in Germany, Austria and Switzerland, awarding innovative concepts and implementations.
Paving the way for the future… One of our latest additions to our HR portfolio for Global IT is the “Expert Career Path”. This career map is geared towards showing our employees that there are other opportunities within our organisation to grow without having to move into a people management role. Together with my colleague Michelle Robertson, Global IT HR Director, I would like to introduce our new approach and share with you our thinking behind it.
I find that telling a story is one of the best ways to convey a message. In this post, I would like to tell you a story about how we, the Usability Engineering team at the adidas Group, are making a difference. As usability engineers we ensure consumers and employees enjoy the digital products we create at CoE Marketing Global IT. Digital products refer to complex corporate applications, mini campaign websites and stellar mobile apps. No matter what digital product the adidas Group brings to life, we aim to make sure users have a thrilling digital experience with our brands.
