“French Business Schools are very well regarded in Spain”
Nice Premium: Can you introduce the company you work in and your role within it?
Richard Fauconnier: ECS is a subsidiary of Société Générale and a European leader in IT infrastructure management. For over 3 years now, I have been serving as a Market Analyst. This role encompasses a range of services and resources provided to the sales teams to help them better promote their approach to their clients and prospects.
NP: What has been your professional journey since graduating?
RF: Having been greatly interested in the Spanish language right after my secondary education, I chose to pursue the international program offered by IPAG Nice, so as to start working in my preferred country, Spain. My initial career plan was deeply linked to my military obligations, as having already utilized several deferments, the CSNE was a good opportunity to start my career abroad. In this regard, I came in contact with a company where I had previously interned during my second year of school, PARSYS, to propose a project for establishment in Spain. The conclusions of my market study then encouraged the headquarters to open a facility in Barcelona, and my fourth-year internship thus turned into a fixed-term contract, then into a CSNE (Corporate Service National in Business) role, which in turn became a permanent position. I then had to search for offices and prepare the start of the activity. Once the activity was launched and the first local salesperson was recruited, I moved into the Project Manager role, which best matched my profile and expectations at that time. PARSYS is a company offering financing and management services for technological assets. The Project Manager’s duties were diverse, ranging from delivering asset management services to clients, taking full charge of client park renewal projects, to developing financial setups and responding to tenders. At the time of the company’s acquisition by ECS, PARSYS had about 15 employees between Madrid and Barcelona with a turnover of approximately 30 million Euros. Joining ECS allowed me to understand the workings of a large multinational corporation and afforded me the opportunity to join the Operational Marketing department as a Market Analyst, representing for me, an interesting professional development.
NP: Did you always want to pursue this career, or was it the result of opportunities?
RF: As I’ve previously mentioned, my career plan was already quite clear in my mind when I entered IPAG. My idea was to start my career in Spain, seeing in this country a strong economic potential that could offer numerous professional opportunities. As for career orientation, things were much less clear to me, even though it was certain that I had developed a certain inclination for marketing and related professions throughout my course. But then, a second-year internship allowed me to get to know a company and an industry with good future projections. And once in the company, I was able to move towards a role that seemed to best fit my profile as a technical-sales person, in which I currently feel very comfortable.
NP: What is your educational background, what degree(s) have you obtained?
RF: I was fortunate enough to start my career right after my end-of-studies internship and didn’t have to question whether it would be beneficial for me to continue with a third cycle. I think the various academic programs offered by IPAG allow students to have a solid foundation and good skills (both practical and theoretical) to enter the professional world and be valued by companies.
NP: What is the perception of students from your former school within your professional environment?
RF: Working abroad, where the educational system is quite different from that in France, you realize that French Business Schools are very well regarded. Here, in Spain, the post-high school options are not as diversified as in France and do not offer as many alternative educational paths to the university, where teaching is very theoretical and not internationally oriented, unlike the education provided by IPAG.
NP: What advice would you give students considering a career in your sector? In your opinion, is it better to start with SMEs or large structures?
RF: I didn’t have the opportunity to work in an SME, in the strict sense of the term, but the level of autonomy that PARSYS had in Spain, as well as having participated in the start-up of the structure, allowed me to experience a very similar work atmosphere. It seems very interesting to be able to start your professional career in a small or medium-sized company. You can learn about the entire internal processes more quickly, often less burdensome, and you can participate more actively in different stages of the production cycle. In a large company, activities are often highly departmentalized, and when joining a service, the learning period is longer and more laborious. Both experiences are very complementary, and each offers its advantages and disadvantages. I strongly encourage young graduates to test these two working environments in order to find out which type of structure best suits their profile and personality.
NP: Why did you choose to work internationally?
RF: The decision to come work in Barcelona was both, a need to get to know this city which I had heard a lot about and a personal challenge: “would it be possible for me to combine my love for the Spanish language and culture with the possibility of a rewarding professional activity offering good prospects?”. The bet was successful as I consider myself well integrated today in both the professional environment and the Catalan culture. Another factor that also allowed me to start my career abroad, as I mentioned earlier, was my duty as a citizen to fulfill my military obligations. However, I managed to turn this imperative into a good opportunity for me to go work abroad for a French company. The CSNE thus represented for me the means to successfully carry out a project that had been on my mind for several years.
NP: What are your current prospects for progression, your professional aspirations?
RF: After spending more than 3 and a half years at ECS and having acquired good experience in analyzing corporate micro-computer parks, my professional wish would be to move towards consulting. It’s a field that I think offers great potential, as is ITIL (International Technology Infrastructure Library, a system that improves IT production). In 2005, I obtained the first level certification on this best practices framework for managing IT services, and ITIL has since become the global standard for IT Directors. Consulting is an activity that has always interested me due to the diversity of missions that the consultant works on. Each new mission involves a change of sector, company culture, and work environment, which is something that motivates me. Moreover, the consultant must demonstrate a good ability to analyze the existing client setup, a virtue that I have learned to develop during my last professional experience.
For more info about RCS company: https://www3.ecs-group.com/
