A day in the life of Tita Atang, Senior Office 365 & SharePoint Specialist

I work in the Office 365 team at TSG, providing a best-in-class pre-sales resource to our current and prospective customer base. I give our clients overviews of SharePoint, Office 365 and associated products, and can deliver this in person or remotely. I help our Business Development team and our Account Directors by delivering this product knowledge, compiling proposal documents and developing expertise in key industry sectors.

I have over 10 years of experience on a variety of document management platforms, specialising in helping businesses realise the benefit of EDMS solutions and the effective use of technology. I’ve engaged with customers at all different levels, and love teaching our customers about the wealth of functionality available in Office 365 and SharePoint. My job role is a varied one, but here’s what a typical day could look like for me!

My day
Today I shall be travelling to see a client in Chippenham. The business is interested in Office 365 and needs some advice on the various features Office 365 can bring.

Typically, on such an engagement, I would have spoken with the customer to get an idea of the business processes and drivers. I always believe in conducting demos that are tailored to the company’s business requirements.

9am
On the train I connect to the internet using my corporate phone and catch up on my email. It also gives me an opportunity to run through the demo I will be conducting. It’s always good to test and test again.  

10am
During the train journey, I need to connect with my colleague Tony Hughes to discuss an opportunity for another client based in London. I’m trying to develop a PowerApp and Microsoft Flow solution for a simple approval. Luckily, I managed to get a seat with a table so it’s easy for me to work off my Surface Pro.

I check Tony’s availability via the status icon in Microsoft Teams. He’s online and available. I ping him a quick note asking if he has a few minutes. He says yes, and I then call him via Teams. We use the video conferencing capabilities in Teams (seeing Tony’s face always cheers me up 🙂 – and it gives him a chance to comment on my new tie…except he doesn’t…)  

11am
I have a webinar session scheduled with a customer tomorrow around our PII Discovery Tool Scan R and our BI tool Qlik. Every customer’s needs are slightly different and, having had the brief from my colleague Declan Doran, I know that they are keen on seeing how well the tool works with SharePoint-based documents. My colleague Stuart Wannop will be conducting the Qlik part of the demo, so I have another Skype session with him to review and agree the agenda.

12:30pm
I arrive at the client with an hour to spare, so I use this time to get a bite to eat. I meet with Declan Doran who is the Business Development Manager for this customer. We use this opportunity to go through the agenda for the afternoon.

1.30pm
I arrive with Declan at the client with 30 minutes to set up the laptop etc. – it’s always good to be early.

2pm
I then start the workshop with the client (here I am in action above), where we go through their business drivers followed by Office 365 demos etc.

There is a large turnout of approx. 20 people, each representing the various departments. I prefer it when the attendance is high. It’s a great opportunity to ensure the right and consistent message is delivered to the various attendees, each of whom have their own agenda in what they would like O365 to do for them. There’s also a bit of nerves as the attendees walk into the room, but I use that to ensure I deliver a good demo and stay focused. No nerves can lead to carelessness and mistakes, so in my world nerves are a good thing!

The session goes well. My mouth is dry from all the talking but it’s not been one-way traffic – the audience (below) has raised some good points and now the business is keen to proceed.

4pm
Travelling on the train back, I write up my notes on how the demo went and the proposed next steps. I think it’s always good to write these whilst they are still fresh in your head. Declan and I have scheduled a follow up to discuss the next steps based on the session.

it’s an opportunity to catch up on emails. I also use social media tools to keep up to speed with the ever-evolving technology world we live in. Twitter and LinkedIn are two very good platforms for such information.

On this occasion I also see that the client has tweeted a very nice message and included a picture of me conducting the demo (below). A nice way to end the day. Another happy customer 🙂

5.30pm
Home time!