Sylvie Baes
Business Intelligence Consultant
"It's good to know your work is appreciated by colleagues and company management."
What brought you to Capgemini?
"I came to Capgemini in 1998 because I wanted to work tool-independent. Before I worked for the software
division of Information Resources Incorporated, which was sold 8 months later to Oracle. I did the programming
of their business intelligence tool. At a certain point, I wanted to broaden my horizon and I choose for
consultancy in the business intelligence domain."
Do you remember your first mission?
"For my first project, I needed to travel to Paris every week. I worked as a functional analyst in a data warehouse
project for Thomson Multimedia. My second mission was an 'activity based costing' project for Mobistar. After Mobistar
came ING, where I stayed for quite a long time."
"In a next phase, Capgemini asked me to further develop the business intelligence domain for the financial services division. Then my career really took off. At this point, I am domain manager and community leader for business intelligence in Belgium. This involves competency management, presales and more and more people management. On an international level: we have, for example, a global business intelligence lead, who organised recently a workgroup in Paris to exchange information and best practices between the different countries."
How does a small business intelligence unit position itself on the market?
"By focusing on specific service offerings for specific markets. We implemented software that detects money laundering
activities in the financial industry. With this tool, we won a first fixed price project at Fortis. It was a cross-border
project between Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxemburg. It was the first time I took the role of project manager in a
full responsibility project for Capgemini. And for instance, being part of a steering committee was an interesting
learning experience."
"After Fortis, we rolled out similar projects at Euroclear and AXA. We start to become anti money laundering experts and Capgemini Belgium is considered worldwide as a competence centre on that domain."
What are your future goals?
"Finding the right business intelligence resources will be key next year. At this moment we have about 90 people
on our distribution list, with a core team of 30 people. But we are constantly looking for experienced consultants
in this domain. And we need people from all levels: project managers, architects, analysts, developers, you name it."
You have a working husband and three children. Is combining your job with your family life feasible?
"It's difficult sometimes. It requires a lot of organization and there's not a lot of time for me personally. But I don't
spent a lot of time in traffic as we live quite close to Brussels. In general, I try to be home at seven in the evening.
But when the children are asleep, I often start working again. I have also adapted my working rhythm. Before we had children,
I did not have to bother about being home on time. Now, I have to 'time box' much more during the day."