Working for an IT department in the Netherlands: Randall Wijntuin
Published on: Author: Team Communication Category: NewsWhen the clock strikes five in the Netherlands, our Software Developers in Paramaribo still have the whole afternoon ahead of them. Randall Wijntuin is one of those developers. All the way from Paramaribo, he is working for international company A.S. Watson in the Netherlands. How does this structure work?
A.S. Watson is the world’s largest international health and beauty retailer with well-known brands such as Kruidvat, Trekpleister, ICI PARIS XL, Pour Vous and Prijsmepper. Since 2019, Qualogy has been preferred supplier of A.S. Watson, providing knowledge and consultancy in the field of (Oracle) application development, integration, Business Intelligence, and Data warehousing. A considerable part of the work is being carried out from Suriname.
Randall about his work: “As an APEX developer, I build and control several A.S. Watson applications. We are currently carrying out upgrade work, which means that we modify existing applications and add the latest APEX features. In addition, we make sure the current application becomes futureproof. These are great projects that challenge me on both a technical and a creative level.”
Working together with Qualogy Netherlands
Some of Qualogy’s consultants work on location, at A.S. Watson in Renswoude. The other consultants are part of Randall’s team. How do you work effectively together, if there’s a 4 to 5 hour time difference?
“It is actually quite beneficial. Our hours of overlap with the Netherlands are in the morning. That is why we start our day with work for which we need our colleagues in the Netherlands, such as meetings and questions. In the afternoon, we carry out our independent development work. Hence, the time difference does not interfere with our work. We can even answer questions and perform maintenance in the evening. The team in the Netherlands can pick up our results and continue our efforts the next morning.”
In the same boat
Nevertheless, the time difference does bring about quite a few challenges, Randall knows. “I joined the A.S. Watson team in April 2020. A rather worrying moment at the company, due to the recent outbreak of the coronavirus. Everybody had to work from home, which took some getting used to. In addition, I was part of a new team of which I could not yet meet its members in person. In the end, we were all in the same boat. And it turned out I got used to the new situation faster than expected. This pandemic actually shows that working remotely does not negatively affect the quality of our work.”
Offshore IT gains in popularity
Randall sees a trend: the threshold to outsource IT activities abroad is much lower than before. “To many companies, working at the office is no longer a deal-breaker. Especially if you speak the same language and possess cultural awareness, which is the case for Suriname and the Netherlands. Companies have actually experienced quite a few benefits of the time difference. We make big steps forward in a relatively short amount of time.”
A culture of shared successes
The same goes for the experienced growth at Qualogy Caribbean. Both foreign and Caribbean companies increasingly demand IT services.
Randall shares his vision on this success. “The Qualogy Caribbean culture is one of shared successes. We are valued by the results that we make as a team. This inspires us to be really supportive of one another. We keep each other sharp so that we can all grow. The same goes for our collaboration with Qualogy Netherlands: we are one team. That’s how we uphold our quality and attractive services.”
Proud of development
It really is something to be proud of. “I really am. We have experienced a nice growth that applies to me personally as well. When I started back in 2019, I had to learn everything from scratch: Oracle Database, Oracle APEX, and web development. Now, I feel very much at home, and I really enjoy my work."
