Area Manager IT Services at valantic – a Challenge with Many Facets

In the interview, Claudia Sehr reports about her challenges as Area Manager IT Services in the Frankfurt location and explains to us why she likes working at valantic.

How was your start at valantic?

I got to know valantic (or Cedros, as it was known at the time) as a customer, when I was still working in the area of fraud prevention at 1&1. After another period at Telekom, I was talking to people I knew since I wanted to make a professional change. After a long while on the customer side, I was ready to step over to the service provider’s side. In conversations with various valantic colleagues, we found out quickly that we’d be a good fit for one another.

Since at the time my position didn’t exist in its current configuration, I had to learn a lot about a wide range of new topics, I was able to contribute a lot and redesign processes. The most exciting thing for me was that I was able to define my target structure myself and always count on support from the management.

What do you do as a Area Manager?

I manage the IT Services division in the Frankfurt location and am responsible for the smooth functioning of the IT services we offer. 4 teams with 28 colleagues provide the services. I manage the team of service mangers and coordinators. Furthermore, I am the commercial and organizational contact for the customer with regard to all questions relating to our IT services. My task area is extremely varied and ranges from management tasks including team and organizational development to the handling of commercial processes, on through to sales tasks.

I am in regular contact with the service managers and coordinators, divide up the work, and ensure that people are working effectively and efficiently and that our knowledge is digitalized to the greatest extent possible and available to the entire team. This is how we ensure that topics can be handled even if employees are on vacation. In addition, I am constantly working to enhance and optimize topics and processes relevant for the customer. Creating transparency on all sides is an important component of what I do.

What are the challenges of your job? And what do you especially enjoy?

The challenges of my job are as varied as my tasks. On the one hand, I have to manage customer requests. On the other hand, I have to develop the team systematically. That’s why it’s crucial that I remain in constant contact with the customers and employees, so that we can define and achieve our goals

Managing my employees is a lot of fun because I have a great team. We give each other honest feedback, work very constructively together, and we make progress. In addition, my coaching training helps, because I’m able to listen to what my employees need and provide them with individual encouragement. This is complementing the many facets of my job and is very important to me.

What do you especially like about valantic?

I like that everything is so relaxed and personal here. That makes working together easier and open exchange, even with other areas, is easy and possible. This is how new topics keep cropping up, for I’m constantly being confronted with tasks that expand the horizons of my task area. If you want to learn new things, then all doors are open to you at valantic.