There can be a presumption when large American tech companies open offices internationally that they will impose their world view and not listen to local concerns and issues. We have surmounted this at Guidewire.
Before starting at Guidewire, managing our Sales activity in the Nordics, my experiences working at American-based firms were all similar; they only focused on their own market and copied and pasted their tactics globally.
That doesn’t always work. Each market is unique and needs its own strategies.
At Guidewire, I’ve experienced first-hand just how influential our local customers are in the development of our products and services. Guidewire’s biggest office and development centre outside of Silicon Valley is in Dublin. It is populated with software developers from across Europe and the rest of the world, drawn from 30+ nationalities.
Guidewire strives to learn locally, and this is clear in the Nordics. I’m excited about how Guidewire is actively engaging with Nordic insurers about digital services best practices. This is one example of how Guidewire is breathing life into the principle of ‘think global, act local’. I’m proud that some of the key research and development functionality which Guidewire has released was created here in my region.
And acting local is reflected by our location in Kødbyen, Copenhagen’s Meatpacking district. This location inspires us to be entrepreneurial and networked with the creative and technology talent that’s concentrated in this part of the city.
My experience at Guidewire has contrasted with experiences from other American-based companies in other ways. Especially when the COVID-19 pandemic hit, our CEO took the pre-emptive step of shutting down our office here before the Danish government enforced a lockdown. Supporting local businesses was another example of Guidewire’s considered approach to COVID, when all staff members were allowed to expense bi-weekly family meals from local restaurants during the strictest lock-down periods. Of course, we also halted all business travel as we wanted to do our part to contain the spread.
We are such a diverse company with a supportive culture, and Guidewire works to make each of us feel welcome. The company strives to create a positive working environment and takes our families into account when making decisions. We also make it a point of celebrating different cultural holidays. And another example of ‘think global, act local’ is our Guidewire Gives Back programme that allows us time “off” to work with charities locally as well as supporting both local and global charities through matching funds raised by employees themselves.
While our Nordic operation is dispersed across the region, we have allocated the necessary resources for us to function wherever our team would like to work on a very flexible basis; and this applies not just to working remotely across this region but also globally in any of our offices (including our families). Guidewire puts a lot of trust in us, and we work to make sure that our customers’ needs are always served effectively wherever we are based. Perhaps Guidewire sounds too good to be true? I disagree. To succeed here in the Nordic region, it’s simply not good enough to transplant Silicon Valley to Kødbyen and expect success. Guidewire gets this, and I am so pleased that I work with this superstar technology firm.