In celebration of International Women’s Day 2024, we portray four women from NTT DATA Business Solutions Nordics – from Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Finland. We asked them about their experience of being women in the IT world. About what motivates them and what challenges them. And what led them to where they are now.
In this portrait, we meet Tugce Muderrisoglu, Director in Supply Chain Management in NTT DATA Business Solutions in Sweden.
..It was not my biggest passion when I was a kid or when I was growing up. I should thank one of my female teachers at high school. She was the one who introduced me to the bachelor program Business Informatics. I was 17 or 18, and I started to realize that I wanted to do something in between business and IT. I wanted to understand both the business, but also want to have my feet in the IT field.
..I started as a solution expert. In Turkey, I was a SAP application consultant working mostly on the logistics execution. After I moved to Sweden, I started to work with IT security. It was a difficult change with different products. I was used to be involved in SAP projects, but it was a whole other world with a lot of new terminology. And I started to work as a project manager, what I wanted to become moving forward in my career. But I was challenged by moving to a new country, new culture, and new domain. After embracing that change in my profession for 2 years, NTT DATA Business Solutions reached out. I was offered a position as SAP project manager. That was always something I was looking into, because I had a team lead role when I was working as an application consultant. I enjoyed being the people person, but at the same time structure the team and the deliverables.
..In Turkey it’s a different cultural mindset that has effects on the work life. In Turkey you want to take fast decisions. You want to act fast. You know everything needs to happen now. Istanbul is a huge metropolitan where everything needs to run 24/7. When I moved to Stockholm, I saw that people are calmer. It’s a much more relaxed environment both in private and professional life. I realized that here, people are taking a step back to think about it, then decide and then move forward. It took me some time to get used to it.
..I have an additional responsibility to create much more awareness. What I am doing should be an inspiration, a guidance for all the females we have in my team and in the company. We have all the statistics about women in IT, tech, and women in management positions compared to men. We are still paid less. We are still a minority when it comes to women being in the managerial positions. We still have some way to go to being close to having equal conditions. We must create this mindset, regardless of gender, so that we make sure this is not a topic anymore. And it’s not just, in my opinion, the female support. Are we paying the same amount of money to the same roles when we compare the genders etc.? It adds a bit more responsibility to all the female managers to create that kind of awareness. It’s a big challenge. There are initiatives at NTT DATA Business Solutions that is supporting women in IT. But I think if you want to have that kind of change, it must be a daily reflection and responsibility that you have to take.
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.. is that please don’t listen to the kind of rumors that women don’t want to choose IT, because they think it’s going to be a male-dominated place. In Sweden we still have this norm. We have strong women in IT representing us in a really good way. So, be self-confident and be a part of the world. Don’t be afraid.
..especially being a woman in IT. It’s also important to own your successes, own your failures, learn from them, and talk about it. Don’t hide your successes. When people ask you about your highlights, you should be able to have your list in your mind. I have done this and I have done that. I have also done this wrong, but I learned from it. And that lessons learned will always help you the long way. And always ask for feedback. It’s the only way to help you improve and get better, whatever you’re doing. Asking actively for feedback is important.
.. at work and in professional life is important. What kind of career development opportunities do I have? You have right to negotiate your salary. With your manager. Women tend to settle, most of the time, to what they have been offered. I would advise to know your own right to negotiate.
..with all the project charts, plans and everything, you must motivate people to understand it and to follow it. Being able to gather people to work together. To let them be the team player and understand what it means. So at the end of the day, we can say: We achieved this. The project manager’s role is important in the sense that you can understand people. At the end of the day, you achieve your goal as a team working together.
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..both internally at NTT DATA Business Solutions and in the projects that I am involved with as a project manager. I would like to take ownership over that team and be the advocate for the employees, when they have any kind of requests. I would like to be that support person. And I think being a woman, being emotionally intelligent helps a lot. That’s my biggest strength.
..I think it’s coming from your character. At the same time, when it comes to my team, they are super experienced people. We don’t have any hierarchy in the whole setup at the company. And even though they are much more experienced than I am, they are open to listen if there is any advice or feedback to give. This is mutual. We are quite open overall in the company. I think recognition and the feedback part is really working well.
..and this year we are aiming to get more graduates. For the newcomers, for graduates, for juniors, mentoring and feedback is really important. I like to explain things and I don’t mind sitting next to someone showing something. In the consultancy business, it can be really hard to find the time to do that, because when you’re 100% on assignments, your focus is there. But it’s important to invest the time.
..Because as of my role, I am working with people a lot. I’m perhaps talking more than I am producing. To me, it’s important to have this positive kind of environment. I think people are really getting impacted or affected by the person in a team lead role. Someone needs to be the person who can lift everyone up and say, guys, let’s do this. I don’t think people skills is only applicable for managing meeting type of roles. To have that kind of motivation, in our sector, in consulting, It’s applicable for all types of consulting. We must have people skills and be able to involve and be able to let everyone be open. We can talk about product, we can talk about solution, about technical details. But at the end of the day, it comes to have an open communication with people.
