Q&A with Caroline Fletcher
Get to know Caroline Fletcher, our Inside Sales Representative, in this instalment of our Q+A blog series as she shares her background in health insurance, passion for helping customers achieve their goals, and love of penguins.
What’s your job role at InterSystems and what does it involve?
I joined InterSystems back in January 2018 as a PA and Admin Assistant and am now an Inside Sales Representative. My focus is on supporting a designated number of existing InterSystems UK customers with product and commercial information, as well as their development and growth. Part of the role involves handling routine commercial contact and sales within the existing base and monitoring renewals of alternative provision (AP) agreements.
Can you give a brief background of your career prior to InterSystems?
Before moving to the UK, I lived in Ireland where I worked for a health insurance company in a variety of roles over the course of 15 years. This includes working as a Data Control Analyst in the IT department and carrying out several functions within the finance department while I gained my degree in Business Studies & Accounting.
I then moved to the UK over five years ago where I completed my Postgraduate Diploma in Corporate Event Planning while mainly working in procurement roles, before finally joining InterSystems.
What do you like most about your job?
When I first joined, I saw this as an opportunity for me to assist customers in achieving business success using InterSystems technology. Now, I love being part of a team that is passionate about helping our new and existing customers do just that! The collaborative element runs throughout what we do, whether that’s within our UK team or working with colleagues located in different countries.
What is your main motivation in your work life?
In a nutshell, customer success. I enjoy supporting both internal and external customers to enable them to achieve their goals.
What’s your view on utilising data for business benefits?
Data is important as it is the source of information which companies and businesses can put to good use to assist with their customer requirements. Data analysis is vital as it empowers business leaders to make decisions based on facts, trends, and statistical information. This allows them to make the best decisions in terms of strategy and growth. Data helps a business to understand and enhance its processes.
What’s your biggest frustration in the world of data? What’s a common data misconception you encounter?
My biggest frustration is that businesses don’t seem to have visibility of their data. In terms of common misconceptions, I find that businesses may disregard some data as irrelevant when in fact it could be the most relevant.
How do you see data and its uses evolving in the future? / How can data help organisations finding the ‘new normal’ following the pandemic?
Data is evolving to become the most important asset for any organisation. The onset of the pandemic had an unprecedented impact on everything that we considered ‘normal’ and now organisations need to find new ways to adapt to this. Investing in data-driven approaches will be crucial for them to recover and prosper, and collaboration will be crucial. By this I mean, the more data the ecosystem generates and makes available for sharing, the more it will empower organisations to make decisions. As they adapt to the ‘new normal’, businesses will need to find new ways of approaching and thinking about not only the data they already have, but that which they could gain.
What are the biggest benefits you’ve seen in the utilisation of AI whilst working at InterSystems?
With the introduction of InterSystems IRIS, I’ve seen AI deliver significant benefits. The platform is fast and simplifies development, deployment, and maintenance of real-time, data-intensive applications. InterSystems streamlines the whole process from collecting to operating AI models and enables you to develop a new AI solution at every stage which helps users gain a competitive advantage and reduces costs.
And lastly, just for fun – If you could choose any job in the world, what would you choose?
Just because I love them so much, I would like to work with penguins!
Tell us something about yourself that your work colleagues wouldn’t know.
Most of my colleagues will probably know this already but I will share it anyway. Joining InterSystems didn’t just give me the opportunity to work with a great team, but it is also where I met my husband. I never for a moment thought that working for a company could change my whole life in such a positive way.
