Meet Partner Dragana
Dragana Mijatovic first heard about Eraneos when she was at the start of her consultancy career. “During my studies I was already interested in consultancy, but first decided to gain experience as a business developer in telecom,” Dragana explains, “However, the curiosity about consultancy continued to grow, and when I was offered the opportunity to join Eraneos, former Quint, I seized the opportunity.” Dragana had given herself 2 years to give the field a chance and has now been with Eraneos for 20 years.
“I started as a junior consultant, as I had no experience in consultancy yet,” Dragana says, “I had to learn what it is like to be a consultant”. In addition to sourcing, Eraneos did a lot of work within the service management domain, especially optimizing IT processes. Dragana has learned the tricks of the trade by working on large projects for various customers.
In recent years, new opportunities and propositions arose for Dragana, “but what the turning point was for me, was an assignment that lasted more than 2 years that we did together with McKinsey at the Tax Authorities”. From then on, Eraneos continued to develop and implement its ‘Lean within IT’ proposition with other customers. “Around that time, I became Practice Lead of a small team under the name Lean Application Development & Management, since I was going to try out this proposition with a customer,” Dragana explains, “That evolved into the High-Performance Transformation practice. We then continued to develop our capabilities in Agile and DevOps, among other things, and today we have one large Organizational Excellence & Transformation practice.”
“Our people are proud of who we are and what we do: proud of Eraneos, proud of Organizational Excellence & Transformation, and proud of our core values: impact, together and dedication.”
The Organizational Excellence & Transformation practice is currently active with clients in various sectors. “I believe that every organization must learn to deal with today’s digital transformations and new technological developments. Whether you are a government institution, an NGO or a commercial company, you must become a high-performance organization,” Dragana says, “You have to become an organization that is able to stand strong when disruptive situations arise.”
The best Agile consultancy firm in the Netherlands
“With our knowledge and skills, we help organizations throughout the entire customer journey: from strategy development to implementation, using our methodologies such as Lean, Agile, DevOps, all around change management,” says Dragana. The most important thing is that the change is sustainably, so that the organization can also experience the positive changes in the long term. “It is not without reason that we have been named the best Agile consultancy firm of the Netherlands“, Dragana mentions proudly, “A nice recognition from customers and other consultants that we are really making an impact with Eraneos.”
“Agile Transformation in IT is something we do very well and have many assignments in, just like designing an organization’s New Target Operating Model,” Dragana explains. “We want to be known as a company that can help leaders further in their development. We want to be known for Operational Excellence: how can you map and digitize processes to make fewer mistakes and accelerate them.”
The other propositions of the Organizational Excellence & Transformation team are: People & Leadership, Operational Excellence, and Organization Design & Transformation. “We want to focus on change management outside IT,” Dragana explains, “Take a large platform implementation for example: you also have to deal with the way-of-working around the platform, training people so they can use the platform properly, to name just a few things. So, we are concerned with all the building blocks that are needed in an organization to implement such a platform, except for the IT implementation of the platform.” It’s all about the people.
The Organizational Excellence & Transformation practice
You will find all sorts of different people within the team. “We have a healthy combination of people with a lot of experience as consultants and young people who are just starting their career,” Dragana says, “In addition, we are not only diverse in age, but also in terms of male-female ratio, which is not very common in IT.”
Every Wednesday morning, the team meets and discusses the pipeline of assignments. “I also let everyone free to show their preference when it comes to which assignments they would like to do. I think it is important that people make their ambitions known so that we can take this into account during the matching process: is there a particular sector in which you want to delve further, or a particular practice or skill that you want to learn, you can always discuss it.” There are also assigned development coaches who are responsible for continuous learning & development within the team. What someone focuses on depends on their personal development plan. “I think it is important that we can create a win-win-win situation: a well-earning assignment for Eraneos, an impactful change for the customer, and an educational experience for the consultant that helped them developed themselves further as a professional.”
Helpful, driven, fun!
If Dragana had to describe her team in three words, they would be helpful, driven, and fun! “Everyone within our team, and throughout Eraneos, is very helpful. If you need something, you ask a question in the group and within 5 minutes you have 10 solutions. That is the power of camaraderie: we give each other time, trust and energy to be successful together.”
Twice a year, the team has a two-day professional training at an external location. “After the professional part, we always have drinks at a karaoke bar,” Dragana smiles, “It has become a tradition within our team. It is unthinkable for us to do those two days without karaoke or DJ. The night almost always ends with German schlagers!” These types of moments of connection are important. Our people feel that they work for a special organization with a great group of people.
“The highlight of my career at Eraneos is during the summer of 2018. The team all saved up so that we could do the two-day training with everyone in Banja Luka, my hometown” Dragana smiles with joy, “For me, this is the ultimate example of connection. It was so beautiful and special for me to be able to give my team the experience of Bosnia: traditional food, going out, whitewater rafting and ending with a party with DJ in my parents’ orchard.”
With her head in the books
Outside of work, Dragana likes to read, although the books are often still work-related. “Everything related to our work, especially management books, is something I still continuously read and try to keep up with” Dragana says, “I am also currently reading a lot of books about history and politics.”
She grew up in a musical household, “so it used to be mandatory that you play an instrument. I can play the piano and accordion, but I don’t do it enough anymore.” You can also regularly find Dragana in museums. “I love art and beautiful things, and I like to go to galleries and exhibitions, for which the Netherlands is a perfect country “. One of her last museum visits was to the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam for the exhibition about the work of Marina Abramović.