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Åsa Arvidsson, CEO of Avanade Sweden

Working in the IT industry, or the tech industry, as it is also called, does not have to be as technical as it sounds. As in many other areas people with a great understanding of other people's needs are needed also in the tech industry. This is what Åsa Arvidsson, CEO of Avanade Sweden says.

 

 

I myself was an information scientist, and that I ended up in tech was no active choice. I slipped in and discovered that it was very fun and varied, says Åsa Arvidsson.

The global company Avanade is a joint venture between the large consultant companies Accenture and Microsoft. They are also partners of JA Sweden and the worldwide sister organization Junior Achievement.

We want to influence young people’s choices at an early stage. The partnership is a long-term work where we hope to inspire more youth to choose the IT industry.

The tech industry has long been male-dominated, but Avanade is actively working to recruit more women. The company wants to reflect society and believes that a diversity of personalities and backgrounds is needed to be successful. One way to recruit more girls is through Avanade's popular trainee program.

In the last recruitment period of trainees, we had a 50/50 distribution between women and men. We also strive to present both a female and a male candidates to each senior positions we announce. Avanade constantly seeks new talents with different skills such as the ability to listen and understand the customer.

Åsa has previously worked in both Ericsson and IBM, and of course has been a lot happen in the IT industry over the past 20 years. Some examples of tech innovations only in the last 10 years are Skype, Spotify, Klarna and IZettle.

From my perspective, the importance of soft skills has increased in the IT industry again. The focus has shifted from viewing IT as a cost to an integral part of the company's business model where it is needed to understand the user. Interface, user friendliness and how to build a long term relationship with the customer is crucial for success.

The opportunities to develop as a person in technology are great and at Avanade, employees work closely with customers and help them develop their business opportunities.

The rapid technological development gives us endless possibilities. It's really just the customer's need and ability to come up with new opportunities that limits the work. This in turn creates new exciting development opportunities for our employees.

Category : Entrepreneurship, Entrepreneurship Education Posted : 8 February 2018 10:49 UTC
About the Author
Åsa Arvidsson, CEO of Avanade Sweden

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