AN INTERVIEW WITH
Aleksandar Maglic
Technical Support Senior Manager – EMEA leader, joined NCR in 2017
AN INTERVIEW WITH
Aleksandar Maglic
Technical Support Senior Manager – EMEA leader, joined NCR in 2017
Could you begin with a brief overview of your background, career journey and what brought you to NCR?Tell us a little about your career journey. What do you love most about your current role?
I started as an L1 help desk agent for the then newly formed Morrisons team, which is one of our major UK Retail accounts. Then, as with any new team, there was plenty of opportunity to learn and prove myself in that dynamic environment. Support from my managers allowed me to quickly rise through the ranks taking on a new role as service control, after a couple of months, and then as an interim team lead.
After another few months, I joined the Service Management Organization acting first as a junior account support manager and later as senior account support manager for the Morrisons account. Last May I transitioned into my current role as a senior technical support manager.
I am leading a team that provides first-line technical support to our CEs across all lines of business (with the exception of T&T in UK&I, Germany, Spain, Italy and France) and is also engaged in various field service improvement programs, technical escalations and knowledge management across EMEA. The ATM remote resolution team, the Turkey remote support team, the boots triage and on-site support teams, all take care that our customers’ businesses run seamlessly and securely.
What do you love most about your current role?
I love how dynamic and diverse the role is, but most of all I love working with all the amazing people I’m surrounded with, whether that’s my team, which I’m very proud of, my other regional counterparts from NAMER, APAC, and CLA, or of course my leadership, which is very supportive.
How did you hear about NCR? What made you consider joining the team?
I first heard of NCR around Christmas time in 2017 from a friend who was working on one of the help desks. From what I heard from my friend it sounded like a good place to start and develop yourself professionally. I joined with the goal of becoming a network engineer, as that’s what I was studying for at the time and I had previously interned at Cisco. Obviously, my career development went a different route but that was my line of thinking at the time.
How did internal mobility opportunities and learning opportunities help you grow professionally and personally during your time at NCR?
It provided me with an opportunity to interact with people in pretty much every organization across NCR worldwide. There’s a lot of perspective to be gained from that.
I appreciate that I have an opportunity to thrive within one professional and inspiring corporate environment. If you want to learn more, challenge yourself and grow, the opportunities are always out there for you to seize. If you do you will be rewarded for all the effort.
“If you want to learn more, challenge yourself and grow, the opportunities are always out there for you to seize.”
How did your managers support your growth?
I have been extremely fortunate with all the managers I had the opportunity to work with in NCR. From Boris Terzic, who first hired me and has been a big support in my life ever since, to Richard Bradley, who never put pressure on me but was always available when I needed him. Then to Chris Manning, who was my manager only for a short time but whom I still work very closely with (and it’s an absolute pleasure), to Farid Shamji, who I learned a lot from and was always there to help support me as I transitioned into my current role, and now Billy Karruli, who brings great energy to the team. I wouldn’t be where I am today without all of them and I truly appreciate all of the support they’ve given me and continue to provide.
How do you stay consistently challenged to thrive both personally and professionally?
I always make sure to look toward the next thing I want to tackle. I set that as a goal while also ensuring I take a moment to look back on what I’ve done and try to understand what I could have done better. I then take those lessons learned into whatever I want to do next. The learning process never ends — you should always challenge and improve yourself.
“The learning process never ends — you should always challenge and improve yourself.”
What are you excited about learning next and is there a long-term challenge you are considering tackling?
With our organization being fairly new, even though the foundation is there and we’ve done a lot of great work already, there is still much to do. For example, growing the teams and our scope, as well as standardizing and sharing best practices. With this, we can get to a place where we can truly say we are the very center of all things technical in our NCR world — accomplishing that is my main goal currently.
How are you helping NCR to transform, connect and run the business in your role?
I know that “transform, connect and run your technology platform” is referring to our customers’ businesses, but as with any important mission and change I believe it has to start from within, which is exactly what we’re trying to do as part of the Global Technical Support organization. We’re working tirelessly to transform and connect our Global Technical Support community to ensure we’re all sharing knowledge and best practices that will enable us to run our customers’ technology platforms seamlessly.