Georg Niemczik

Working in close collaboration with a wide range of international clients, Georg finds the best solutions for their needs. Breaking silos, using innovative tools and agile methodologies, he learns, explores and analyses our clients’ businesses in order to understand the pain points and offer an appropriate solution and service.

I'm a sales manager for global accounts based in Nuremberg, Germany. Before I started my career at Konica Minolta, I did an apprenticeship in hotel management in a high-end, family-owned restaurant where I quickly took on responsibilities. When I was 20, I moved overseas to South Africa for a year to work as a trainee food and beverage manager at a wine estate. Back in Munich, I worked as a supervisor in a one-star Michelin restaurant where I learned that, without the appreciation of my managers, it's impossible to deliver consistently great performance. After this very challenging period, I continued my education and got a degree in International Business, specialising in Sales and Marketing, from the University of Applied Sciences in Nuremberg. A 13-month round-the-world trip followed and showed me that we often take things for granted that are a much bigger deal for people elsewhere. Afterwards, in 2018, I joined Konica Minolta as a trainee in strategic sales, which is called "key accounts" in other places. First, I got to know all the processes, departments and topics related to sales and built up my knowledge in that area. I had a fantastic opportunity to steer my development in the direction I wanted it to go. In addition to that, I was able to do specialised training and get further qualifications. I'm still developing and driving forward now, taking more training courses, shouldering more responsibility and working my way up the career ladder. For me it's important to learn, grow and have a perspective. After 14 months of being a trainee, I joined the international business and affairs department. My focus now is the strategic expansion of our global customers located in South Germany, with particular responsibility for global pricing strategies in international tenders. I see it as a continuation of what I did before, with lots of contact with people in the very international environment of Konica Minolta, and being able to speak not only German but also English and Spanish.

For me, the ideal environment incorporates a good mixture of different factors such as people, strategy, agile approaches and regular direct feedback to allow reflection and development. The approach with our new performance management tool is spot on. And it's good to see how you can develop using the LinkedIn Learning licences too. However, because sales people are driven by KPIs, it would be good to have a link between both systems.

At Konica Minolta, there are many areas outside your day-to-day tasks where you can break silos and make a contribution. Along with some colleagues I've created a special workshop series for new trainees, supported a project for an electronic archiving system and taken part in the 6-month Technology Innovation Programme where I was able to build up a large international network outside my department.

I live with my girlfriend and my Husky. Usually I bring my Husky into the office with me and my colleagues love that. When I want to relax I go for a run with my dog, and I also like to cook. I enjoy flexible working hours and I have a good balance between my private and my professional life. The quality of your work is only as good as the quality of your private life. That means that a good balance is necessary. At Konica Minolta you have the flexibility to work as you wish.

Konica Minolta sees people as its most valuable asset

Right from the outset I could see that Konica Minolta considers people its most valuable asset. On my first day, my manager introduced me to all my colleagues in the Nuremberg office. Although I wasn't a member of the SMB team, they took me on board, made me feel welcome and helped me get to grips with everything and settle in. We collaborate not just on a business level but also in terms of friendship. People are always the main focus and I find that everyone's got time for me. As I'm in a new role, I'm mentored and I'm very grateful to all my colleagues for their help and support.

Our long history is one of constant development

We manage a large portfolio responding to our clients' needs. We cover many fields including printers, planetaria, sensing, MOBOTIX, etc. which means we're in contact with a whole host of very different customers and departments. Working cross-competency means we have access to all sorts of information, and aligning this with services means we can offer real value to our customers and create upselling and cross-selling approaches that make us highly competitive. Digital technologies and especially our data structure give our company a huge amount of possibilities to identify potential.

With units like our Business Innovation Centre we're able to explore new fields. If there's a requirement we can't solve with our standard business approaches, we always find creative solutions. For the time being we're concentrating on Connected Workplace solutions in order to support our customers in improving routine activities by moving from manual and paper-based processes to digital processes. In my day-to-day work I'm focusing on digital solutions for strong document management so we can achieve process improvements and efficiency gains for our customers on a global scale.

Konica Minolta is also committed to sustainability. We want our behaviour to make a global contribution. We were awarded the first Blue Angel certification, an ecolabel issued by the German federal government since 1978.

The ability to learn from the past, adapt and move forward

In addition to our excellent standard services, we work with our customers to create tailor-made solutions. I analyse customers' needs and look to discover potential by getting information from the key account manager, carrying out business analyses, dealing with strategic initiatives, reading the news and social media posts and then using agile methods and technical tools to develop the best possible solution for the client. It's important to gain a complete understanding by gleaning information from a wide range of customers, industries and internal departments. In our regular quarterly review meeting, we discuss customer service and cooperation in order to support our ongoing performance optimisation. This is the basis for defining joint strategic objectives and strengthens our partner relationships. Sometimes senior management join customer meetings and I think this is extremely important as it's really useful to be able to learn from their commercial behaviour and extensive business experience. Ultimately it's a perfect mix, using the different levels of knowledge and experience of young and more experienced professionals to decide on the best strategic approach for our customers. Sometimes I miss quick responses from colleagues. We have many departments, peoples' functions are not always clearly defined and our country structure is complex, so there are occasions when we're a bit sluggish and unsure who to consult. However, every day we face new challenges or experience change and it's incredibly important to be able to move forward, accept things and be agile and proactive. We need to learn from the past to adapt to the future and for me, this is the key to success.