With a financial background working in the freight industry, I was afforded the chance to interview at Informed Solutions – a growing international digital transformation practice, in October 2020. The freight industry offered good opportunities, but my ambition was to seek out a role in a fast-paced industry where I could develop more rounded business skills and gain a better understanding of an industry, which has a great role to play in our collective and sustainable societal, environmental, and economic development and growth.
Although a little reticent and nervous about applying for a role despite having little demonstrable digital industry experience, I was both comforted and encouraged by a comprehensive interview process that communicated and demonstrated that if I had the aptitude, I would be taught new skills and be developed in the role. I was delighted to be invited to join Informed in November 2020. This short piece highlights my early career development through the past year.
Overall, my main responsibilities as a finance assistant involve time management and forecasting – two vital elements for a scaling practice as accurate capacity forecasting and billing efficiency enables better decision making. Additionally, I work on our management accounts, assisting with the billing process and maintenance of the purchase ledger.
I understood these roles and responsibilities from my previous experience - using skills I understood and could execute, however rather than have me focus on simply reviewing larger volumes of transactions, the team has afforded me the opportunity to take control of nuanced business processes with a focus on quality outputs and improvements for Informed, which help to drive our future success.
A key aspect of my role involves collaboratively reviewing our standard daily processes and devising new strategies to improve them. With the input and assistance from the rest of the finance team, I have recently implemented a change in the supplier invoice process that removes the requirement for repetitive manual data entry, whilst maintaining the level of control we have over the invoices to ensure no errors occur within the process. It is rewarding to be given opportunities to make a positive difference from an early stage in a new role.
As we continue to digitise, refine, and improve our finance processes, we also work to ensure continual improvement of our operations through a business initiative programme. This year, I’ve been heavily involved in our online time recording system initiative, which has greatly improved the way that we record our time and capacity plan for future growth. My role within the initiative group was to test the new system before managing a staged roll-out to all employees.
At Informed we’re always keen to leverage the latest technology to maximise our efficiency and streamline our processes. In line with this we have introduced a new digital platform to handle our expenses known as Expensify, moving away from a paper and spreadsheet-based standard process. This allows our colleagues to receive prompt payment for their expenses through a simple, digital platform, which minimises manual errors and reduces time spent on administrative tasks.
Alongside our core values around fostering innovation and continuous improvement of our daily processes, I believe that one of the greatest aspects of working in finance at Informed is the number of opportunities that I will be given to develop new skills through our InformedACADEMY© world class learning and development framework. This formal framework is supplemented by internal training, coaching and skills sharing through communities of practice, where I already get an opportunity to learn about the different digital disciplines involved in digital service design.
I have not only gained further skills linked to project accounting, which are directly applicable to my role, but I have advanced my general business knowledge through regular interaction with other business units at Informed. Additionally, I have thoroughly enjoyed learning more about delivery management and user centred design, which are just two examples of disciplines that form the basis of the challenging work we carry out for our clients.
Ultimately Informed has allowed me to broaden my experience within the digital sector and provided me with ongoing opportunities to collaborate with people of varying levels of experience and specialism. This, in addition to a supportive plan for personal growth, has allowed me to develop my personal skills and increase the capabilities of the finance team over the past year.
As a company, we place a great deal of focus on accelerated development and improvement, whether it be through encouraging and facilitating professional growth or actively working to improve the daily processes that keep the company going. This ensures that we are maximising our efficiency and constantly evolving the important, life-changing work that we do. It’s been a year to-date, but worth two or more in terms of accelerated personal development.
If you are thinking of exploring a career in digital where you can focus on developing your skills and advancing your career- get in touch. We’re a fast-growing international practice with plenty of opportunity for the talented and ambitious.
