Soitron

Paľo started working for Soitron in September 2004 as a Level 2 agent of the newly established SAP NT team in our young outsourcing division at the HP Aquilla project. The goal was to continually transfer the Level 2 responsibility for all SAP customers from our German colleagues. It merely took him a month to become a team leader.

In early summer of 2005, Paľo became a Service Manager responsible for Level 2 SAP NT and Unix teams. Throughout this period we demonstrated outstanding technical knowledge as well as a proactive service approach. This has convinced HP to transfer the Level 3 teams to Slovakia. Paľo participated actively at their establishment.

After organizational changes at HP in January 2006, Paľo went to become the Service Manager for the RMC NT and UNIX teams. Another year after, he was charged with managing Level 1 transfers from Ajilon, which in turn contributed to Soitron becoming the End-to-End vendor offering Level 1 to Level 3 service support. During this Period Paľo was a head to 150 people and in charge of most services.

In early 2008 after having managed NT and UX teams for several years, Paľo was put in charge of NETWORK service. The greatest challenge was to maintain the high quality of services while increasing efficiency at the same time.

In December 2008, Paľo was transferred to the integration department. His task was to redesign the support and service department completely according to the ITIL recommendations. Taking advantage of his previous experience with outsourcing, Paľo implemented processes and significantly increased the quality of support.

Paľo joined Tronet in December 2004 as an intern while studying at university. Currently he directs the Outsourcing Division in Soitron.

Let’s take it step by step.

Paľo started as a service technician in charge of PC and desktop service support. Since the latter half of 1996 he started working at Cisco routers, network issues and SCO Unix; managing all this while still being a student.

In June 1997, Paľo joined our team as a full-time member. He left PCs and focused primarily on networks (primarily Cisco products) and servers (SCO Unix, Microsoft Windows NT and the coming 2000) and Compaq ProLiant – based platforms.

The first Cisco VoIP and VoFR projects in 1999 predestined his further career in Tronet.

In 1999 – 2000 he participated in the installation of the only two SCO NonStop Clusters in Slovakia. Also thanks to Paľo’s contribution, Soitron was able to commence the first VoIP telephone central (CCM) in Slovakia.

As of 2001, Paľo has been the sole technical instructor of Compaq in Slovakia in Tronet as an authorized training center.

In 2003 Paľo participated in the Aquilla project – the outsourcing project of Tronet and the Spanish company Soitsa for HP under the supervision of the newly established Soitron.

Since December 2003, his task was primarily the building of Production Management teams in HP EITOC within Soitron. The team had grown from a few people to almost a hundred of technical specialists at present. Moreover, he was responsible for enterprise solutions and other HP proprietary products.

Paľo has been a director of the HP outsourcing project since 2007. Hence, his main responsibilities include outsourcing strategy, people management, and relationship management. Other outsourcing projects followed shortly after.

Števo has been working at the HP European Center projects since 2004. At that time he started in Ajilon with responsibilities in Level 1 Windows servers problem resolution. Originally as a student specializing in Audit/Accounting, Števo had only limited experience with IT systems administration. However, he found IT very attractive and went on to pursue the field professionally.

In December 2004 he finished working with Ajilon and started as a Level 2 agent responsible for Windows servers in Soitron. Števo recalls this period: “I am glad I was  given a chance at Soitron back then. I didn’t really know much about servers, but I worked hard, I learned, and over time I became one of the technically more competent in the team.”

While working as a technician, Števo showed interest in process technology and quality and customer service. Therefore, after fifteen months and successfully completing his university studies, he was promoted through the internal hiring process to the Quality Lead position and became in charge of Level 2 Windows server support.

After Soitron took over the Level 1 support in September 2006, Števo became responsible for quality control in both Level 1 and 2 teams, as well as for the coordination of 15 subordinates. That in turn enabled him further to develop managerial competences. Step by step, he went to become the head of the quality and processes in the largest Soitron team. Within this dynamically developing group, he was successful in implementing new effective procedures, communicated with HP regarding the process optimization, statistics and reports, but also dealt with customer complaints and suggested improvements. “It was a great challenge for me to work in the field of processes, and I have always enjoyed customer-oriented projects. Therefore I am grateful that Soitron made it possible for me to work in this area,” Števo adds.

In December 2008 Števo transferred to yet another position. He abandoned the HP European Center project and started working in Soitron’s headquarters as a process manager. Today his main task is to design and implement IT services process management and hence prepare a complex system of processes and standards according to the international ISO 20000 standards. In May 2009 he was added yet another responsibility, this time in the area of information security. Števo helped to complete the newly implemented information security system according to the ISO 27001 standards. He played an important role in obtaining the ISO 27001 certification awarded by the international certification authority TÜV Cert. Also thanks to his efforts, Soitron joined the ranks of the only 7 companies with this certification in Slovakia.  

“I can still see a lot of interesting challenges and opportunities for growth ahead. Soitron offers a great potential for growth for its employees and I have always tried to utilize this potential…”

Peťo joined Soitron in 2005 when he was 26. He started as a Level 2 agent for Windows server support at HP. Still in his probation period, Peťo transferred to the TRADE team where he was given a chance to work in customer service and deal with real issues. One of the great challenges of this period was a business trip to Switzerland, where he helped one of the customers to migrate web and share point sites and SQL databases from an old into a new IT environment…

He continued to work as a systems specialist for several months before he was given an opportunity to utilize his experience from Switzerland in an “application team,” where he carried on supporting the “distance migration.”

A year after, having won the internal hiring process, he was awarded an ITSM Problem Manager position. This enabled him to take part in the formation of the Problem Management within the local team where he was in charge of process design and implementation. This was the first time he realized that management might be the path to follow…

Within the same year, after taking over a service from a competitor, Peťo applied to become a Team Leader and again succeeded in the internal hiring process. He remained in this position for two years. He likes to think of this period as being the most productive in terms of the amount of new experience so far. Managing up to 33 people was a real challenge. He believes that the opportunity to take part in the assessment center had a decisive impact on his career as he was one of the chosen “talents,” and for the first time could see what project management really involved.

Peťo has been a Project Manager for over a year. This position offers him an opportunity to accept new challenges over and over again (in other words, to provide as many services with as little money as possible so that everyone is happy J).

Peter Kurucz has the following certificates:

• PRINCE2 Foundation + Practitioner (Project management methodology)
• ITIL Foundation Certificate in IT Service Management
• Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator for Microsoft Windows Server 2003
• Microsoft Certified Systems Administrator for Microsoft Windows Server 2000
• Microsoft Certified Database Administrator for Microsoft SQL Server 2000

…and continues to study hard to obtain the IPMA (Level C) Project Management Certificate.