From Munich, we bring you the warm story of an ex-professional bowler, an amazing cook, and most recently, Senior BI Consultant, Patrick Richter. After two years at HICO-Group, Patrick had a lot to share about his experience in BI. Instead of doing a classic-style interview, Patrick actually wrote a letter. To all of us. Enjoy!
Hello there,
What makes BI great isn’t BI in itself.
It’s a bold statement, I know. But it’s true. The true joy of working as a BI Consultant lies in the challenge of creating the best solutions possible using the technology available. Personally, I find great pleasure in helping our customers find solutions to issues lying in the way of growing their business. It means we are doing and creating something better. I genuinely enjoy this part of my work.
As for this job in itself, it’s really interesting. Everyday is another fun day to solve a challenge or to help our clients. And of course, it is lovely to see the clients’ development and that they try to find and adopt new solutions with our guidance.
I also enjoy the freedom we get at HICO to not stick to a predefined set of practices but rather go out and “find a better way” to be efficient and achieve good results. Of course, this goes without saying, but I have to give a shoutout to my amazing HICO colleagues. Working with this team is simply awesome!
As for challenges, this and last year had this strange “feature” called the pandemic. It changed the way I work with customers and colleagues completely. And many people do share the same fate – working exclusively from home now, talking via a webcam with colleagues and then doing your work remotely. And I have to say, I don’t like it. For me, it was always a satisfaction to visit colleagues and customers and see them face-to-face. I hope this will be possible again soon.
Looking into the future, I think many developments will occur. Mostly we will see way more automation in the implementation of new technologies and solutions. Also the amount of data will change drastically. Today we say something like “Data lakes” or “Big Data”, but I believe that this is just the beginning. I think we also still have some ways to go with AI, as it is rapidly developing but it is not “finished” yet. Companies are also working with increasingly more complex data and the biggest requirement moving forward will be the “understanding” of that data.
Doing so efficiently will require more resources, more complex processes, while statistics and mathematics will be more present in the future. To my pleasure, I think this will lead to the expansion of a lot of BI roles, specifically data specialists.
So now some “data” about me ;-).
I reached the golden first “3” in my age some months ago. As for my professional life, even in my studies, I was always fascinated by data & BI. And that’s still the reason why I work as a planning consultant and will hopefully do so in the future.
Most recently, I started to cook. Like, a lot more cooking than before the pandemic. Previously, I didn’t have much time for it due to travelling, but I must say I really enjoy it now. If my HICO colleagues are down for a dinner prepared by Chef Patrick at one of our next team gatherings, I’m open to an invitation!
As I was already advertised as a professional bowler (skittler), I should say something about that. As a hobby, I have skittled or “gekegelt” – bowling with 9 pins instead of 10 pins – for many years. Sadly, I stopped doing so, because as I was playing in a major league, I had to travel a lot to the different sports teams’ locations and this was not really working anymore with my job. I hope that I can do this sport again in the future (after Corona), but I’d like to stay in a minor league so I’d travel much less than before. 😉
What else can I say about me before I wrap this up? Hmmm…
My favorite movie is The Cabin In the Woods.
My favorite TV show is The Boys.
A book I still enjoy to this day is Die Zwerge by Markus Heitz.
Now, to end this letter on a good note, I’d like to make a toast. To things going back to normal soon! To going outside and meeting (new) people again! To enjoying life like we’re supposed to! To my colleagues, clients, friends, and family!
To anyone reading this, my advice is…
Be positive! We are having a bad time, but there is always a way to become happy again. 😉
Yours truly,
Patrick
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