Partner in the spotlight: Capgemini
It’s becoming a tradition in the meantime. Every month we talk with one of our partners. This month, we’re sitting down with Michiel Staessen of Capgemini for a chat over a cup of coffee.
Hi Michiel, can you introduce yourself and explain what’s your role at Capgemini?
Hi, I am Michiel Staessen. I started at Capgemini in 2013 as a software engineer, after working with Capgemini for my master’s thesis. In the meantime, I fulfil more the role of software architect. In addition, I am also the Microsoft community lead, the person who brings together all consultants of Capgemini who work with Microsoft technologies to share knowledge. Besides that, I am also active in some presales assignments, recruitment,… a little bit of everything actually, but mainly my role is software architect.
Can you tell us a bit more about Capgemini?
Capgemini is a large multinational company with approximately 270 000 employees globally. We've grown quite a lot in the past few years through acquisitions of which Altran, since April 1 Capgemini Engineering, is the most recent one. In Belgium, we are relatively small compared to the neighboring countries. Together with Sogeti, Capgemini Invent, Capgemini Engineering and Frog, all brands that also belong to the Capgemini group, we are with approximately 1900 employees in Belgium.
Capgemini does almost everything related to ICT. These services range from strategy to delivery and maintenance and anything in between, both for package-based solutions (for example SAP) and custom developed software: UX, testing, project management, development, … In short, we offer a very broad spectrum of services to our clients.
Capgemini has been a Visug-sponsor for many years. Why do you sponsor Visug?
We want to invest in the community. Of course, we have our own community within Capgemini, with which we come together, but it is equally interesting to learn from the knowledge and experiences of others outside of Capgemini. We want to help support that platform and that is why we invest in this collaboration. We cannot have the knowledge of everything, so sharing knowledge across “company boundaries” is a bonus.
And of course, it also helps to position our logo (wink).
What value do you see of the Visug (or the community in general) for your employees?
Value is such a concept that is difficult to grasp.
On one hand, networking. The possibility to get in touch with other developers who are dealing with similar challenges but in a different context. On the other hand, the opportunity to gain knowledge. I think those are the greatest values the community has.
After Corona, if we organize an evening together, what should such an evening look like?
I think many people are looking forward to returning to the traditional way of getting together. Getting together digitally is very easy and we are very happy that we don't have to hit the road to attend a session in the evening. The traffic is something we can all miss, I think. But a lot of subtleties get lost in online meetings. You can't see the reactions of other attendees. What you have now with online meetings is only the session, everything around it disappears, such as the networking, the conversations over a slice of pizza, the atmosphere is completely different. I think we all want that back.
Thank you Michiel for your time!