Greetz Exchange Program: Bridging Teams
When the first seeds of collaboration with Greetz were planted 7 years ago, there were just 2 developers from the SFL team working on the Greetz project. Fast forward to 2016 and SFL unites 20 team members backing Greetz technically.
Today Greetz is the leader in online cards sales in Benelux countries. It’s also penetrating yet larger areas in the gifts and flowers market. The company unites some of the brightest heads in the area to make this process possible!
We at SFL think that delivering success to our clients doesn’t come along without clear understanding of their identity as a company. What change and impact do they want to have in the world around them? What value do they want to add to their customers? While we do our best to blend into the Greetz team and bridge 2 teams in different locations of the world into 1, the idea to hold an exchange program and have the developers from the Armenian team “see the processes for themselves” still rocked!
The First Steps
The first exchange took place in summer 2015 with 2 girls from SFL, Mane and Ruzanna exploring the experience for the first time. The success of these days spent together with the Greetz team in the Netherlands laid the route for the next participants. With 7 developers having participated and 3 guys on it right now, we’ll have sealed the number of participants within the first year at 10!
Traveling Not for the Sake of Traveling
Netherlands may be the capital of bikes and the tastiest cheese, windmills and canals, and there indeed is lots and lots to discover! However, the guys jump into the exchange program for some other benefits, too. This experience solves some of the most important issues of remote teams.
Understanding subtleties and the impact to real life
Professionals at Greetz enjoy one experience that’s not available to remote teams: the impact their services and products have in people’s lives. As Greetz is the go-to for celebrations and present delivery, the professionals in the Netherlands get the experience of participating in people’s joy. This personal touch helps to understand what people want the most, and how to enhance their experiences even better.
Exchanging valuable experience
There’s no doubt that all of the specialists in Greetz and SFL are talented. And as such, each of them has some peculiar approach or knowledge that can be beneficial for the other members of the team. While we always share knowledge working remotely, it’s cool to add some more personal touch while you’re sitting at a table with your mug of coffee and talking about stuff that’s important, knowledge that doesn’t have to lay dusty on the shelves and ideas that are best handled when brainstormed!
Seeing the processes on your own
Our guys take it to see the process of card creation and onto printing. This gives them clear insights into what parts of technical support need to be boosted and paid special attention to. They can then share these insights with the team and rock the work together!
Three developers from SFL are currently hosted by the Greetz team, and we are looking forward to their great news.
We are going to cover more topics from the exchange program in the future, so stay tuned for our next posts!
About the author
Armine Hakobyan is a technology-oriented content specialist and social media geek.
