New episode in our series of articles on the professions at Fit Retail. After working as a PLM technical consultant and 3D model-maker consultant, it’s Manel’s turn to tell us about her career. technical-functional consultant. Stéphane – who has the same title – had already tried his hand at this, but as you’ll see, the work contexts are varied and can from one profile to another.
🔙 Manel’s path to becoming a technical-functional consultant at Fit Retail
Manel graduated with a degree in Textile Engineering, and then went on to do a Research Master’s in Industrial Systems Engineering (Textile Materials and Processes). Attracted by computer development, and not having had the opportunity to delve into the subject during her studies, Manel embarked on a professional training course in “Computer Designer-Developer” in order to begin her professional reconversion.
As part of her internship, she joined AFG as a Java design and development engineer (For those who don’t know, Fit Retail was born out of AFG, which was a generalist ESN – in fact, a small team was formed around PLM in the Textile and Retail sectors, which the following year became a company in its own right: Fit Retail.). At the end of her internship, Manel was hired by Fit Retail as a Technical Consultant. Two years later, she upgraded her skills and moved to the position of Technical-Functional Consultant.
🔎 What does a technical-functional consultant do at Fit Retail?
To begin with, Manel is part of a dedicated (in-house)Skills Center at a luxury goods customer. This skills center works on the product information system (PLM and third-party applications) and handles projects and maintenance related to this field. Our day-to-day contacts are therefore solely on the business side.
Manel is also working on a reporting tool (Jasper) connected to Centric PLM. Its role is to create or develop reports of all types – production, materials, prices, items, models, all during or after the collection – and to make them available to users, managing rights and access to consult or generate them.
She is in charge of following up customer requests and is involved in all stages of the process, including :
🔎 10% – Phase 1: Gathering requirements
Present the functional specifications to the customer during a dedicated workshop (expected report and desired requirements):
- First, analyze the need: its technical feasibility, the number of days needed to complete it, and the delivery time,
- Secondly, step back and take a global view of the rendering: create simple tables or pivot tables? Will there be sub-tables? How many lines are required? How many tables? What format? Do I need to create tables in advance? Do I need to create attributes, variables and formulas in Jasper?
💻 70% – Phase 2: Development + Support
- Identify and extract information from PLM databases for integration into Jasper,
- Create and launch queries,
- Preview the final report, and in particular identify the different pages that will appear in it,
- Test the report and add any new requests that may have arrived during the project,
- Manage upgrade requests.
🚀 10% – Phase 3: Production start-up
- Launch report production and layout
- Manage report access rights for relevant users.
📝 10% – Phase 4: Creation of reflex cards for users
- Create step-by-step sheets so that users can navigate the report in the best possible way.
☕ A typical day for Manel
🛠️ The tools and languages she uses on a daily basis
🎯 Manon’s essential skills for this position
- Enjoy teamwork,
- Focus on customer support,
- Be logical,
- Have patience,
- Like to have a foot in the technical door and understand customer language,
- Learn how to create pie charts and pivot tables,
- Be organized,
- Knowing how to anticipate things.
❤️ What she likes about her job
- Novelty: there are always new requests, and no routine in report generation,
- Her super Fit Retail team (that’s what she says!),
- The relationship with the customer, who is very appreciative of her work (which she finds very rewarding),
- Occasional travel to customer sites in Paris,
- Never be alone.
Would you like to talk to Manel and find out more about her day-to-day work? Get in touch with her 📲📲📲
