An interview about my profession, my company (GTech) and me

From an interview I recently gave for a TV program... Q&A. You know we love this :) 

Question & Answers:

1) Can you briefly tell us how you started your career? Why did you choose this sector and how did it progress?

While I was completing my computer science education at Işık University Istanbul, I was reviewing the business lines and sectors in our field in 2006.

During my university years, I took a  comprehensive database course in addition to the software and other engineering courses.

The field of relational databases in general ( Oracle especially) was a promising field at that time. (Let's say Java in the software and Oracle in the database tier)

As soon as I completed my education, I started to do an internship in the software field, but at the same time, I decided to take the Oracle specialist training.

Within a period of approximately 2-3 months, I came across a Junior Oracle DBA job opportunity.. They were looking to find a junior to be trained in the HQ of Acıbadem Healthcare Group.

I considered this and applied for the job. 

The first 4 years were quite challenging but enjoyable.  During this period; Databases, Operating Systems and ERP Systems became my passion. In parallel to my work, I was also doing MBA in Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul.

I read more books than I did in college. I need to admid that, these first 4 years became the source of my motivation for blogging, establishing Forums and writing Books.

In Acıbadem, I added a lot of things to myself both as technical and soft skills. My managers were my luck. They trusted me.

Then, when I returned after the military service that lasted for 6 months (there I was also dealing with the software problems and developed 2 applications), I stepped into the consultancy sector.

I even received an offer from a consulting firm while I was in the military.

I have been working for 16 years in this field, and I have been a consultant for 12-13 years. 

I have been a manager in the field of Consulting for the last 8-9 years.

I have been an Oracle ACE Pro for 7 years.

I have been at GTech for the last 6 years. Here I am the Senior Director of the System Database and Middleware department.

We have a team of 15 consultant.. All of them are experienced and knowledgeable engineers. We are a real team and we have good relations with each other.

With this team, we offer technical consultancy services not only in Database technologies, but also in the field of Middleware, Integrated and Engineered Systems, Cloud and ERP (Oracle E-Business Suite).

We follow trends, anticipate future trends, and align in advance in new areas where we see the future.

Of course, in this process, we have completed many successful projects together with my team and we have lots of success stories in several business sectors.

2) Could you tell us about the services you provide?

In fact, as GTech, we provide solutions and consultancy in several fields. But! Analytical and financial technologies have been always the key of our success.

With our 22 years of knowledge and experience, we offer end-to-end services to our customers from all sectors, from software to hardware, from projects to 24/7 maintenance activities and managed services.

We not only meet their needs, but also help them meet today's standards, become more competitive in their fields with our modern solutions, and create more value more easily by getting rid of the background work. Thus, our customers find more time for focusing on their core business.

We provide services in the fields of Big Data and Advanced Analytics, Data Warehouse and Business Intelligence, Financial Services including Core Banking (which is our own software), System and Database management, Risk Management and Corporate Performance Management.

We have sub-services such as turnkey projects, consultancy, maintenance, outsource and training in the related fields.

We have many products besides our services. Symphony Core Banking, Symphony Sense, Our Legal Reporting application, Smart Bank and Profit 4.0 are some of them.

In GTech, where we serve with 300 employees, we develop these products in our own R&D centers. We have 5 offices, 1 of which is in Dubai. Our Maslak Office (our HQ) is also an on-site R&D center.

3) Detailed explanation of our services.

Our department touches the work of all departments in the company. We're at a key point -- especially in terms of troubleshooting and continuity.

As GTech, we can say that our Financial Services team, which has been growing rapidly recently, especially with Core Banking, is establishing banks. I mean, they establish the banking system of the banks (of newly established banks or of customers in the banking sector, that wants to change their banking software).

Of course, this is a complex task. Complex and fun.

In the background of this business, of course, there are databases, systems, middleware servers, message queues, load balancers, ETL and ELT, DWH and many additional software solutions and products.

We take part in this big picture by supporting all these solutions at all layers. From the sizing process to implementing best practices, from architectural design to installation & configuration. We support the solutions both during the project and after taking them to live.

We also work with Risk Management solutions, especially on the Moody's side.. There are also those studies we carry out together with our other departments like Data Warehouse, Big Data and Business Intelligence. We cooperate with other departments in cloud modernization solutions and related projects as well.. These cloud-type projects have been started in recent years, and we help the companies during their cloud transformation journeys by playing the role of Cloud Architect.

But, I want to emphasize that we are mainly on the system, database and middleware side of the business. We carry out critical work in our field such as database maintenance activities, Oracle ERP application administration, Middleware administration and operating system management and similar consultancy activities.

In these areas of the work, there is no tolerance for any error and the expected service is 24/7. In order to handle these critical tasks, you need to have an expert team, technical operators and a sophisticated software supported monitoring system like we have.

Customer satisfaction is very important for us.. We measure it. We act proactively in service quality through satisfaction surveys and after-sales interview processes. Monthly and weekly reports are also sent to customers.

We (as Systems, Databases and Middleware) also have our own software solutions and routines for simplifying and accelerating the monitoring process, and for handling some of the admin tasks automatically. Those routines also help minimizing the human errors.

In our field, bringing system accessibility to 99.999% (5x9), making the systems stable and robust, ensuring that the customers benefit from their hardware and software investments, adding value to the data management processes and being reliable advisors are the most important factors for the real success. Without compromising these factors, we look ahead (especially for exporting our services and expanding abroad) and we grow in a controlled and utilizing manner..  Achieving a world-wide success in these areas is among our most important goals.

4)What distinguishes you from your competitors?

First of all, as GTech we are very experienced in the field.

All the tech consultant and managers working in our teams are highly qualified and are involved in highly advanced technical tasks. Managers and directors are escalation nodes for the hard problems.

All the employees have the passion for their respective fields. (In my opinion, being passionate and disciplined are important features of successful and trusted consultants)

Since we have many business lines; the ability of transferring information and collaborating across different areas give us an opportunity for taking a step forward. Over time, this enables a team of experts in their field to approach the problems of different fields from the right perspective. Being able to measure the business impact before taking a technical action is another benefit of this capability.

The "consultant profile" is very common in our company. In this context, in addition to technical knowledge and experience, things such as customer relations, respecting the business ethics, minimizing the risks and staying on the safe side come to the fore.

Newcomers who are transferred to GTech or juniors who are just starting out quickly come to a point where they differentiate themselves from their competitors by internalizing this company culture and getting the benefits of it.

We pave the way for young people through the Gtech Summer School where we offer to new graduates every year.  After the summer school, we recruit suitable candidates. In this way, the knowledge of experienced consultants sheds light on young dynamic engineers, and we preserve dynamism as well as the knowledge.

As a company, we have very critical business partners. Oracle, Moody's, Microsoft are some technology giants that are examples of these.

Our consultants are certified in the related areas of expertise. Our company is also certified in most of these areas and is engaged with business partners in the background.

Professional and strong staff provide services professionally in all processes from sales to marketing , from consultancy and delivery to after-sales.

Successful projects, critical references, customer satisfaction, broad range of product and services, a good reputation and strong reliability are also among our highlights.

5) Can you tell us about your vision or your company's vision for the future?

As GTech, where we want to go is growth and globalization with quality. We are aimed to innovative, and increase our customer satisfaction by providing our services as promised.

Of course, while doing this, we focus on strategies such as making it profitable, sustainable and efficient (in terms of operations), developing the skills of our experts and employees continuously, and expanding towards to the new and right business partnership ecosystem.

My own vision is actually parallel to that of the company. If I need to personalize it a little, I can say that, my main goal has always been "being valuable". (rather than being important)

I think I have taken steps towards this goal with my day job and with the additional things that I have made so far. Instead of adapting to the changing world and living a relatively easier professional life with my past knowledge and skills, I face open problems. And I will continue on my way by challenging future technologies and doing more than what my job requires.

For this reason, I follow the developments in my own personal time and try to improve myself on the subjects that interest me.  I focus on subjects that can add value to us, our services and customers.

Physics and Quantum Computing are among the things I have been interested in lately.

6) Who should choose this profession and what qualifications should they have to do it?

I actually discovered my predisposition after started working. That is, my passion developed after I started working.

I would like to abstract the passion here a little more. In our field, a passion for problem solving makes things easier and allows you to make a difference in the short term.

I think the key to success in this business is researching, wondering, dealing with those tiny details (there are a lot of information in those tiny details), approaching problems causally, and doing all these with the motivation to learn new things at the end of the work.

Of course, discipline is required, a little perfectionism and order... Actually these are what engineering requires.

In addition to these, especially for consultancy; being passionate to learn new things, being okay with a dynamic business life and having the desire for working hard and being up-to-date and being resilience are the prominent features.

7) Finally, what would you like to say to the audience?

I wish everyone to do something they are passionate about. Sometimes you can't discover this on the first day or before, but I know from my own story that sometimes when you go into details or sometimes on the contrary, when you isolate the subject, the work you do can reach a point where you can constantly feed yourself with passion.

No matter what sector or field, continuous learning makes you successful both in social and business lives. These paths are long, but shortened by passion and knowledge, and they leave us legacies that we can extrapolate towards different topics in the future.

Technical ability, command of jargon, experience and diligence are very important and indispensable. However, I think that it is necessary to constantly improve communication techniques and social skills, as well.

For the tech side; I recommend that we should learn the current problems very well and then focus on open problems in the relevant fields. 

I don't recommend refraining from sharing information. Knowledge really increases as it is shared.

And finally, I can say that in order to succeed in the long term, one should walk the path, in which is full of experiences to be gained and knowledge to be gained. One should look around while walking that path. (I hope the analogy here is understandable.) 

One must be result-oriented, but also should achieve the results by doing what is necessary and by learning along the way.

In any case, it should be a win win. Your company will win, you will win, maybe your nation will win with your successes, but in order for this to happen, one must continue to search for answers to the question of why, in addition to the question of what. Time to time, I say all these to myself as well.