Page 34 - 我与阿科玛

BetWeen Us BetWeen Us
Interview Our Employee - Session 2
Time: 10:00-10:30am Nterviewee: Abdelkader KADRI
Date: Mar. 21 , 2017 Interviewer: Alan TAN
st
Venue: Kadri's Office Recorder: Faye DENG
Q1: Would you please kindly share with us your career
evolution in Arkema?
A: After several experiences at Technip & EDF, I joined Arkema in 2004.
I held different positions in management and project management in
corporate functions and in a Business Unit. I have been working in Arkema
Shanghai since 2014 to lead the roll-out of Ambition Program in Asia.
Q2: What makes you stay in Arkema for so many
years? What do you like most working in Arkema?
A: There are two things that attracted me when I joined the company in
2004: First, it is the clarity of the Strategy since the creation of Arkema.
Second, it is the transformation plan being implemented with clear
momentum year after year. There is one sentence I like to remember from
our CEO Mr. Thierry Le Henaff: "do what you say and say what you do", I
believe there is no coincidence in the success story of Arkema since 2006
but this is also relying on strong values and the engagement of women
and men employees of the Group.
I like the working environment and culture of Arkema. The company is
always encouraging employees and entrepreneurship. During the past 13
years, I have enjoyed the collaboration and relationships with colleagues
from different functions and regions. There are always something to learn
and to share with each other.
Q3: What impressed you most working in Asia in
the past 2.5 years? What’s your impression of Asian
culture and Asian team?
A:First, when I arrived in Shanghai for the roll-out of Ambition in Asia, it
was a big challenge: a very short schedule (1 go-live every 6 month), a
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large functional scope Supply Chain, Finance, GASP,… processes to be implemented in same
time and on top of that, starting from scratch with new teams. After 2.5 years, we can say that
the roll out in Asia was successful, there was no negative impact on business operations. The
program has been implemented in line with initial target schedule and budget. This achievement
was due to a very strong engagement from all teams: BU's, Function Departments and Program
Teams with strong focus from the Management.
Second, beyond all teams' efforts and hard work accomplished by every single person, I would
like to say that I was impressed by the very positive spirit and the solidarity that is existing within
the Chinese teams. I was also happy to see people with different backgrounds from Arkema
working together in such good way in order to meet project objectives.
Finally to summarize, I would like to say that: "everything is possible in China!" I am really
impressed by the engagement of Chinese teams to meet challenges as well as their adaptability
to work with different countries and regions: Europe, US, Japan, Korea, India, Malaysia, and
Singapore. That was the beauty of this project because it is relying on people interacting with
each other with different cultures and different way of thinking or working.
Q4: We know that 'Ambition' team won the ‘Outstanding Team' in year
2016. Doing some big project like 'Ambition' needs great focus. Could
you share your experience on how to make a project successful?
A: Ambition Program Team Asia has won the Outstanding Team trophy this year this is
the recognition of the work accomplished by the team, they deserve it! Sure, this kind of
transformation project requires a strong involvement and focus from everyone.
There are many key aspects to consider in order to make a project successful within an
organization. I will try to highlight few key success factors according to my experience.
At first, driving a "big" project cannot be done without a strong support and sponsorship from the
Top Management with a clear governance in place. The role of the governance team is to make
sure that objectives, scope, expectations of the project are clearly defined. The governance team
is also, on a regular basis, reviewing risks of the project with clear mitigation plans, deciding
allocation of resources according to priorities and ensuring that the budget and planning are under
control.
Obviously, respecting the budget and planning with concrete milestones is very important however
you should highly consider your customer satisfaction by providing a high quality of service.
A project, most of the time, is involving expertize and knowhow from different people coming from
different departments with different backgrounds, thus alignment is really important. At all stage
of the project, tasks of each team or team member need to be defined properly: basically, who is
doing what? With a proper responsibility assignment matrix (RACI).
Another key topic, is to deliver and to engage an efficient communication along the project phases
with all stakeholders frequently and timely. People need to have the right information at the
right moment not more, not less! This is something definitively not so easy to perform! Because
communication is at all level and the responsibility of everyone.
Finally, a successful project is relying on women and men, keeping good spirit and collaboration
is a "must" to maintain a good motivation within all teams. As such, celebrating success and
achievements is the role of the management.
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