Vista is on a journey to become one of the most iconic data-driven companies in the world. The destination is clear: Provide small businesses and consumers alike with Jaw Dropping Customer Value [JDCV]! Follow us on this journey as our CDO, Basti Klapdor reports on the latest news!
It’s amazing what you can take for granted. I’m currently sipping a coffee while at the airport, something that just over a year ago couldn’t have happened. Covid restrictions closed everything down, and I remember Munich airport a cold, empty place with nothing except endless barriers and markers leading you directly from security straight onto your flight.
It’s great to see the world waking back up after such a long time. Small businesses are popping up where others had closed. Planes are becoming full again. People are adapting to a new normal, and that’s great to see. It’s also giving me the chance to travel a lot more which I’m relishing.
Today I’m heading off for the week to join my leadership team at an offsite in Maine, USA to align on our FY23 priorities. It’s the latest in a series of face-to-face meetings I’ve been having. These past two months I’ve been in Barcelona, Dublin, Boston and India, hosting town halls and team meetings with the Vista Data & Analytics (DnA) crew. Many joined us in the past two years and so this has been the first time to come together in person.
While we’re priming our engine as a remote-first organization, it is first not only: it’s so important to invest time in face-to-face collaboration and relationship building. That’s something I want my whole team to feel empowered to do whenever they feel they need it, not just because I’m visiting.
My travels have included meeting Vista’s Board of Directors and updating them on DnA’s progress. Joined by my leadership team, we talked about DnA’s journey so far, the impact we’ve made for the business, the scalability of data, the kick-ass team we’re building and the talents we’ve brought into the org.
It’s natural to spend your days focusing on the challenges and problems immediately in front of you. And yes, there’s more we want to solve organizationally and technically, but seeing the progress made is super inspiring. I attached a very short film that quickly captures our story in 90s; we played it at the start of the meeting, and it makes me super proud every time I see it!
Hearing positive feedback from the Board of Directors, who assesses the team from a business impact angle, is very strong. And a reminder to other data and analytics teams on a similar journey, having the engineering, the science, and the technology is all vital, but it comes second to having a clearly identified business problem that data can help solve.
And that brings me back to why I’m sitting here at the airport. Our time spent this week with my leaders is all about getting DnA super synchronized on our business priorities, aligning to the overall goals of Vista. With lots to cover, the time together will be intense (in a good way!), but I couldn’t be more excited to get there and be ‘sleeves rolled up’ together. It’s energizing and am seriously glad we’re now at a time when these opportunities have returned. The coffee’s not bad either.
Want to learn more about our journey? Check out our blogs and make sure you follow us on LinkedIn to stay up-to-date! We are also hiring! Check out our open positions!
Want to hear more from Basti? Here’s a great podcast covering the “Increase of adoption of your enterprise ML & Analytics”