Int4 AG – a Swiss based company

As of April the 1st 2021 Int4 is now a 100% Swiss based company located in Zug.
Being a product company and preparing a big expansion of Int4 IFTT (#1 Software in testing and virtualization of SAP APIs) we need to become a global company and Switzerland gives us the opportunity.

Why Switzerland?

Switzerland is the best location for IT software innovations and it offers stable political,
economic and financial framework conditions. Our new location, Zug has shown outstanding economic development over the past decades.
with whole canton having 34,000 companies apart from offering amazing business friendliness and an effective business environment.

Int4 AG is here to support you from the best place in Europe to do business.

The post Int4 is now 100% Swiss based company appeared first on INT4.

Introduction

Check our article in which Int4 team members share their stories on how they shifted their careers to the IT world.

Switch to IT and boost your career!

Many people perceive working in IT as spending hours behind a desk with one’s eyes stuck into lines of source code, solving problems with software/hardware that is not working, and so on. Ergo – work for geeks. Nothing could be further from the truth! According to Forbes, over 450 thousand specialists work in the IT industry in Poland. Not all of them are programmers with university degrees. What is more, in 2018 alone, nearly 90 thousand job offers in this sector appeared on the Polish pracuj.pl website. Few? According to the data available in the Google Ads keyword planner, “working in IT” is searched almost 4500 times a month (*Google.pl). Will you ask why the result was so impressive? We can safely say that it is a result of a trend – called switch into IT. No one will be surprised that also at Int4, there are specialists for whom IT – was not the first choice, but thanks to the support of the Int4 team and a great emphasis on development – they are becoming stronger and stronger members of the crew dealing with the test automation for the SAP Integration. Meet the Int4 heroes who haven’t always had IT on the way.

I wish I could, but I can’t

Hi! My name is Jarek, and I decided to write this article because I am a journalist by profession! You are probably wondering what I can do after my studies in the humanities at an IT company – apart from making good coffee for my colleagues that are good at this stuff, it turns out that quite a lot, but one by one… From an early age, I was much better at writing essays than with mathematical equations. From my computer science lessons, I remember only the basis of MS Office and the hours wasted on playing Deluxe Ski Jumping (by the way – I recommend). The breakthrough moment was probably the time when I chose high school. I decided to go for an IT profile, and for those few years, I have significantly improved in the sciences. However, I was still far from Tomasz Czajka level. What is more – for my further adventure with the world of computer science – I was effectively discouraged by one of the teachers (after years, I know that it was a mistake). So a little bit against everything, and a little bit out of sentiment, I bet on studying journalism. However, my enthusiasm was very quickly halted during the first journalistic workshop. We heard the following sentence then: “If you want to treat journalism as a way of living with dignity – I advise you to change your course of study today”. As a 21-year-old boy – I did not take it too seriously. More than three years, I was still creating content and later also editing it and managing the website of our publishing house. However, it turned out that the professor’s words were not trumped up. I started looking for a new job, having absolutely no idea what I wanted to do with myself – I was “only” able to write and talk nicely to people (oh yes, working in a newspaper teaches it perfectly). After two months of sending my CV, I finally received a call from the Sales and Marketing Department – one of the largest SEO agencies in Poland. Having no idea what optimization for the Google search engine was, as well as having no other choice then, I picked up the gauntlet. The beginnings were terrible, acronyms I didn’t understand, many complicated tasks based on programming – that was fearsome! But I quickly realized that to do my job well (sales) – I had to understand perfectly what they were selling and how it all worked. So it took me a lot of time to master the basics of the hated programming anew. Speaking frankly, I needed about 5 years to reach perfection in the mysterious SEO techniques. I was able to realize my aims very effectively; often hearing that my approach to the subject made a big difference. Everything was going according to the plan. When I went to a business meeting with Int4,  I didn’t expect my future to go that way.

But what is this SAP about?

After meeting with Int4 management, I received a job offer. “Great, but I’m not really familiar with your industry at all.” – I thought. It’s like asking a tailor to bake bread, it will probably come out, but you are never sure if that is going to be as tasty as from a bakery – I continued analysing the situation  in my mind. – Don’t worry, we’ll teach you everything – the guys from Int4 calmed my anxiety. For a couple of days I was having second thoughts, analysing the pros and cons (after all, I risked a lot, the whole career so far), until one day, I woke up with full conviction that I was going to take up this challenge. After the first day, I wanted to cry. Suddenly, I was again at zero from an expert stage. Still, the worst thing was that I completely did not understand what my new colleagues were talking about PI, S/4HANA, Migration, Virtualisation. It was black magic. There was no time to warm up because I joined Int4 in a very busy period, so I was thrown into deep water from the very  beginning. However, every day I could and can still count on the professional and expert support of my colleagues. Thanks to great mobilisation, but above all, a well-planned development path – I slowly began to understand what it was all about. I must admit that I wouldn’t have achieved that without Int4’s team members full technical and business support – so I’m again on my way – to being the best technical salesman in the SAP world. In hindsight – I’m entirely convinced that this was one of the best decisions I’ve made in my life, although at the beginning – I was so scared. To sum up, I joined the IT world purely by coincidence, but life is full of opportunities, and it’s up to us to make the most of these occasions in life. My story confirms that even after studying humanities – you can find yourself in a world where the main language is ABAP.

Teach me how to do that well

As I mentioned at the beginning, we have a bit more of these “cases” at Int4. So I decided to use my journalistic experience a little bit and ask my colleagues about their adventure to the IT industry. Meet Edyta, our HR sorceress, who started her professional career as an English teacher. – When I was in Primary School, High School English was my passion and my hobby. I treated English grammar as riddles to be solved and analysed. However, being an English teacher was never my dream job that I had been planning to end up with. My father wanted me to become a doctor, so I was preparing myself through high school to go to medical studies. A sudden car versus track accident the day before the ‘Matura’ exam made us revise my medical plans and redirected my path to English studies ? recalls Edyta and adds: – From the very first year of my studies, I started teaching at schools as I wanted to be financially independent. Moving up my English teacher career ladder I came to the point where I was a private school director and ‘Matura’ exam coordinator at OKE, Poznań (oh, irony) That was another turning point in my career path, and as the market was changing with companies opening SSCs in Poland, I decided to try my luck there. Having English only, I landed my first job in a corporate environment as a proofreader, as a replacement for a girl that was on a sick leave. Once she was to come back, I was looking for some opportunities in the company for myself. And there, there was a job post on ‘holiday tracker specialist’ in this totally financial environment. I recall, as if that was yesterday, my future/ex-manager’s interview questions whether I knew V-function. I got this job, which occurred to be totally something different then described in the job post. I was suddenly a payroll specialist who was to implement eTime Kronos system, which was tracking PTO, and to be able to answer all ‘hard’ HR law related aspects. That’s how I started my adventure with Payroll and HR. Implementation, Processes, Systems, Labour Law, Calculations and People. After more than 14 years as an English teacher, payroll specialist and HR expert, Edyta started looking for new professional challenges.

A journey into the world of new technologies

Why IT? – A couple of years ago when I was working for a polish, furniture company I realised that I was missing an environment that was exposed to new technologies. I do not have the hard skills necessary to do a developer’s job but I am very curious of what is behind the scenes and what that kind of work involves. Moreover, the IT branch makes things possible for an HR person to happen. Cool graphics, videos and apps that I can use to make my ideas more fancy and modern is something that drives my can-do attitude to an even much more higher level than I naturally have – admits Edyta and adds: – I would say that I had a pre-start in that financial company where I was a proofreader working along with graphic designers and later on implementing a working time system myself. However, my true love for the IT world started at Ciber. My talent for setting the HR vs Payroll system was recognized by PeopleSoft Functional Analyst (Ted), and beside my HR/PY role I was asked to set the system for HR/PY matters. That was an awesome recognition and I felt at that  very moment that I could have been great in that area if I had been born a bit later.

Our Int4’s HR manager makes no secret of the fact that choosing the IT sector was the best decision she has ever made, and joining Int4 was even a better one. Why?

If she wasn’t working for the IT industry, she would work either in a factory or in a corporation. As she says, she would see herself as a human resources manager in both companies or as a global payroll manager in the other. However, she claims that it doesn’t matter  which sector you work in, but who you work with. When you become part of a group of people who follow the same standards as you (see Int4 values), your working life becomes much simpler, positive and you can’t wait another day.

Psychology goes hand in hand with IT, often late by night

Our next hero – an SAP integration consultant Michał Lubczyński – is a… psychologist by profession. – I remember that after graduation I had many different ideas for myself, but when I look at it from the perspective of time, I think I missed one passion that I would like to develop in my professional life. When deciding on psychology, I was guided by the belief that it was a direction that would broaden my horizons and help develop soft skills, which you could always benefit from on any career path – says Michał and adds:- In fact, I have never worked as a Psychologist. During my studies, I was still fascinated with media, and over the course of 5 years, I participated in several interesting projects of Internet and satellite television. The longer Michał worked in the media, the better he understood that real editorial work differed from his original ideas on the subject. An additional factor was the move from Warsaw to Poznań and met up with the reality of the local labour market. The same year, the TV station where he worked was restructured. He understood then that he could not stand still and had to reinvent himself. The choice of IT was the result of answers to questions:

The most important thing to me was to be able to learn something new at work. To face a new challenge every day – says Michał and adds:- Making this choice was a slow process in which I had to break down stereotypes about myself.

Where there is a will, there is a way

I was taught that I was a humanist, and perhaps that’s where my moderate enthusiasm for the sciences came from. When Michał decided that he wanted to become a developer, he knew he had a lot of work ahead of him. – To be able to start in any recruitment process at all, I had to build basic competences, learn the basics of programming, assimilate terminology and general concepts of IT architecture – he recalls. Online courses, full-time courses and postgraduate studies at the Poznań University of Technology helped Michał to master those matters. In reality, he devoted every free moment he had to learn and acquire new skills, often until late at night. – I remember that at some point, I gave up my full-time job so that I could fully concentrate on my goal. I put everything on one card then,” says Michał and adds :- I also perfectly remember the day when I received a phone call with the information that I successfully passed the recruitment process and will join the Int4 team. There was a feeling of great satisfaction with the achieved goal, but after a while, there came a reflection that it was really just the beginning of the challenges. It was a bit like climbing an eight-thousander, when, after an exhausting climb, you had to rebuild your strength again and fully concentrate on safely returning to camp. As Michał recalls, the most challenging thing for him was to maintain the momentum of learning and to reconcile it with everyday duties in his private life. – It was just then when I was preparing to work on my first projects, facing the real problems that SAP consultants dealt with on a daily basis that I understood how much work was still ahead of me. On one hand, this is what I wanted – new challenges and continuous development, but on the other hand, the amount of new information that I had to assimilate in a short time I found to be overwhelming, especially at the beginning – explains. According to Michał, there is room in IT for both highly technical people and those whose main strength is soft skills, provided that they have a well-developed ability to adapt. – Another aspect is proper motivation. If the only reason why someone considers the possibility of changing the industry to IT is the prospect of high earnings, he should think about this choice well. In my opinion, it is a good idea to take part in a few months course combined with a small project. It may help such a person to answer questions: Am I able to do such work every day? Does it give me enough satisfaction? – advises Int4 consultant. When asked what he would have been doing in life if he hadn’t focused on IT, he answers, – I’d run my theme channel on YouTube.

We break the stereotypes

Working in IT was also not considered by Angelika, the office manager at Int4. Starting the journey, I thought very stereotypical that I would be dealing with “typical IT people”. But on the first day, I realised that not even one person out of these people was close to this stereotype. It was a very positive surprise that everyone was so open, sociable, helpful – recalls Angelika and adds:- When I started working at Int4, everything was new for me. During the first weeks, everyone tried to provide me with an answer to the question (so that I could understand) “What is this entire SAP?”. Because of the specifics of my position, nobody required me to know it, because I didn’t need it in my daily work. Nevertheless, I wanted to know what my colleagues were talking about, so I started to read, talk to people, and my knowledge was expanding every day. Working in IT does not have to be associated with a dull atmosphere and flannel plaid shirts. Although a few years back, Angelika did not consider working in IT, today she would not change it for anything else. – I think it’s because of Int4 I can see this world differently. Who knows, maybe in another place, my perception regarding the IT world would be the same as two years ago – admits.

We help to become part of something bigger

Our last hero is Mateusz – SAP Integration Consultant at Int4. Unlike most of his predecessors, Mateusz already had a little background in IT. – Basically, I am an IT specialist by education, but I don’t like this term very much – says Mateusz, who chose e-commerce as the specialisation during his studies. However, when he joined Int4, he quickly enrolled in classes that allowed him to deepen his knowledge of ERP systems implementation. Why Int4? As Mateusz recalls, after his adventure in the corporation as an IT support – he started looking for new opportunities for himself. – Recruitment at Int4? I do not want to sound trivial, but it was a coincidence. Initially, I wanted to program in Ruby on Rails, but the company that interested me – had no recruitment at that time. So I started looking for something that would connect the IT world with the business world. Honestly? I never wanted to work with SAP, the first meeting with ABAP effectively distracted me from it. The interview with the founders of Int4 changed my perception diametrically. The old fashion look of this system did no longer matter to me. I felt that here – I could become a part of something bigger – he recalls. However, the beginnings were not the easiest. – The language that I encountered here for me was utterly “exotic”. The names that came up during the onboarding process – sounded for me like from another world. Moreover, in the beginning, I had to pass two certificates confirming my competences. I was afraid then because I knew full well, I had no experience yet. Fortunately, thanks to the support of my mentors – I felt more and more confident from week to week – says Mateusz and then he points out:- You know very well that at Int4 we have the opportunity to work every day with experienced specialists who want to help you get the bug for continuous development. It’s not that you have to, every day you want to learn new things, discover new possibilities – to explore this world more and more. For the support I received here at the beginning – I will be grateful many more years.

Bottom line

I have shared the above career switches with you to encourage anyone having second thoughts whether to make a change in your life, whether it is the right time, I am too old, too young – we have a saying at Int4 that it is never too late, just have a plan in place and do it if you wish to.

Sources:

1. https://www.forbes.pl/kariera/praca-w-it-zawody-z-gwarancja-zatrudnienia-i-dobra-pensja/bs7025b
2. https://ads.google.com/intl/pl_pl/home/tools/keyword-planner/

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In this article, I will present

New interesting features to look up at our brand new website, including:

Reading time: 6 minutes

Let’s get started!

This is our previous website. It looks like a good old 2010′ website.

I mean, everything is fine there: it’s working and describing what we bring to the table, but let’s be frank – we’re more ambitious than that. We had to change something to get into 20’s in the right manner and… we made some huge changes (as you can see, obviously!).

Our primary goal was to provide you with the best experience possible and simplicity was our key, so we simplified this www. There’s more information about this philosophy in this piece of reading, written by Aleksandra Wykrota.

We also developed some cool features and now I’m going to show you our favorites!

1. New Int4 blog

You know us, we love writing for you! And the gut feeling analytics tools says that you love our blogs. That’s why we took the first step in designing proper Int4 blog functionalities to make the reading experience better for you. 

Grey TL;DR box

As you can see in the screenshot below, there’s a new grey area (hehe) at the beginning of every blog post. We added that, because we want you to know what to expect from the article, just after clicking the link. 

We value your time and if the blog doesn’t fit into your expectations or needs, you should know it, to avoid losing time on reading unrelated articles. 

Search options

If you didn’t find what you are looking for in a particular article – don’t worry about it. You can easily find any article by using different search options.

As you can see from the example above, you can find interesting topics with searching by:

Sharing is caring

If you find our content helpful or valuable and you want to share it, we made it much easier for you! Check it out:

One-click and done! Don’t forget to mention us in your post – we are always eager to interact and keep in touch with you 🙂

Don’t miss the updates!

We have the newsletter now and I pledge, as a guy who creates those, that I will never send you unreadable spammy BS (pardon my french!). I mean it, I will never send you annoying ads, promotional codes and other poor forms of advertising.

We respect you and your time and that’s why our newsletter will only contain:

Lights, camera, action!

We love cameras! We already did an openSAP training and many more!  If you enjoy watching videos, like we enjoy producing them – just head into the Videos section on our website.

Don’t worry! We plan to produce more videos soon. Stay tuned 🙂

2. New contact possibilities

We believe in relationships and the dialog is a vital part of every strong relationship. We want to make it easier for you and this is why we developed some interesting possibilities to reach us out.

Contact us page

Now, by using our Contact page, you can specify a type of inquiry. It seems to be a small addition to a typical contact form, but what does it mean for you – your mail comes directly to the right person. Small addon, but it helps us to reach you out in a shorter time. Time is money, isn’t it?

Direct contact

If you are more into personal contact, forget about this form and scroll down the page. As you can see, there’s a More Contacts section waiting for you. Choose the department, click the button and reach us in person.

Book an Int4 IFTT demo

Int4 IFTT is our pride, no doubt. After all, it’s the only such automated, SAP-certified testing tool and we are happy to show you its capabilities. Do you want us to present you with a demo? Nada es imposible! Just head into the Int4 IFTT page and scroll down to the bottom. Two columns are waiting for you: contact form on the right side and booking tool on the left side.

Booking tool is really simple to use. That simple:

When you know how to easily reach us out, let’s discuss some other interesting capabilities.

3. Partnership with Int4

Together we can achieve more, especially now, during the pandemic. I elaborated more on it in our COVID-19 Manifesto. If you are familiar with our “why”, let’s focus now on “how”.

First things first: we gathered together all of the important information about partnership possibilities with Int4 on the dedicated section. Just head into Company -> Partnership and you are there!

Now you can easily extend your services portfolio and accelerate your business with Int4.

As you can see, this section contains every information you need, to consider a partnership with us. You will find there some helpful details like:

It’s a ton of useful information and if it’s not enough – you already know how to contact us!

Small hint:

When it comes to partnership, whisper a word to Tadeusz. He is the best person to give you guidance on partnership with Int4.

4. Int4 IFTT trial application

This is the big one!

We have enabled the application for a free Int4 IFTT trial. Now you can apply for trial in only a few clicks. Just click the Int4 IFTT Trial button and do the following steps:

1. 1. Fill the form with your actual data: your full name, business email address (no Hotmails, Gmails, etc., sorry!) and the company name.
   2. Click on the hyperlink below and read our General Terms and Conditions for free trial of Int4 IFTT – this is an important step, so don’t skip it. After reading the document carefully, mark the checkbox and you are good to go!
   3. Last step – mark the CAPTCHA checkbox. We need to know that you’re not a robot 😉
   4. Click “Send” and that’s it!

After submitting the form and considering your application, our sales team will contact you and deliver further information.

5. Careers at Int4

Last, but not least:Careers pages!

We’ve decided to build a complete HR-related information hub for everyone interested in joining us.

Meet us…

…and let us show you who we are.

Grow with us…

…because we are all about personal growth. This section will show you how we ensure our personal development. We also present some of our favorite success stories. 

Job offers

No more mails!

You can apply for a job without leaving the website, from now on. Use the application form, which is included in every job offer, and send us your CV! Don’t have one? No worries, just paste your LinkedIn profile and we’re fine! 

Recruitment FAQ

Any questions? Of course, you have some! Head into the last tab: FAQ and find the answers there! We’ve decided to sum up and answer all your common questions in this neat recruitment FAQ. 

In case you won’t find what you’re looking for, just use the form below and reach our HR department out. We are always eager to speak with you! 

Enough is enough!

That’s all folks! 

There are plenty more features to look up, but these are my favorites. I encourage you to browse through our website and find out even more interesting functionalities. I can assure you that there is more to see and learn.

Thank you for spending these few minutes with me. I hope you enjoy this piece of reading. If yes, show us the love by sharing it on social media 🙂 Also, don’t forget to tag us in your post – we love to interact with you on social media! 

Cheers!

The post 5 new features to look up at Int4 website appeared first on INT4.

10-year long journey

It’s hard to believe but this year Int4 is celebrating its 10th anniversary! 

During this exciting journey, we’ve met a lot of inspiring people (almost 50 of them are our teammates now), visited many, beautiful places and successfully completed over 115 consulting projects. We’re proud of what we’ve achieved so far and thanks to the knowledge and experience gained by this decade, we’re ready for future challenges and opportunities. 

Journey milestones:

Time of changes

Continuous development is an integral part of our journey. We could tell you about numerous, significant changes we’ve been going through during these 10 years but that’s not the topic of this article. Let’s focus on the latest steps that we’ve taken. 

Over the last few months, a lot of evolutions and so much growth have taken place at Int4. Within only half a year the Sales, Marketing and Human Resources departments were established. We’ve also welcomed the second SAP Mentor – Eng Swee Yeoh on board, published a new SAP Press book: ‘Mapping with BRFplus Decision Tables and SAP AIF‘ by the 8th SAP Press author in our company, and opened the second office in Warsaw.

At the turn of the decades, we felt it was the right time for the next, important change – new visual identity.

“Start with WHY”

The company’s branding should represent its character and beliefs. Before making new design decisions, we’ve asked ourselves WHY we do what we do.

At Int4 our mission is to impact through automation. We strive to provide the SAP Community with valuable, educational content, innovative solutions, and practical tips. We strongly believe that by sharing our knowledge and experience we can make a huge difference in the area of SAP Integration and SAP Automation. We can make it easier and much more effective. This is why we exist. And this is what our visual identity should express. 

Int4 brand

As I mentioned above, with the new design we want to represent what is most important for the Int4 team. As a thought leader in the SAP Integration area, we aim to spread our knowledge and experience. We’re aware of the limited time and information overload that you – our clients and partners face every day. That’s why we want to make it fast and easy to find the crucial information and solutions that you need.

1. New website

As a result, we’ve created a new Int4 website. We did our best to make it as user-friendly as possible. An essential part of “easy to use” is intuitiveness. Our website’s goal is to help you  find what you’re looking for. That’s why we use different alignments and contrast in color and size.

Thanks to that, you will save your time and get the answers you need quickly. 

As you can see, we also use a new color palette. Accordingly to the rule “less is more”, our new design emphasizes minimalism. It is based on 3 main colors:

We wanted to make it simple, clear and devoid of pointless decorations that could cause distraction.

Our new website is designed to support you. We care about our users’ experience and you can be sure that we will make every effort to improve it.

Next week we’ll also publish the article about new features to look up at Int4 website, so  stay tuned!

2. Refreshed educational and marketing materials

The website is not the only thing that has changed. We’ve also refreshed our educational and marketing materials that we use to provide you with our knowledge and important information.

Of course, valuable content is still the most important here. It’s just presented in a much more attractive and readable way now. Our materials are coherent with a new visual identity. They are also designed in a way that helps you find crucial information and save your time.

3.  Int4 and Int4 IFTT logos

Last but not least, we’ve refreshed our company’s logo and created the new logo for the Int4 IFTT tool.

Firstly, let’s have a look at a comparison of the old Int4 logo and its new version.

Our new logo is simple and functional. It’s easy to remember and expressive. The geometric shapes and vivid colors attract attention. The blue color represents professionalism, confidence, and knowledge. Which are extremely significant for our organization.

We’re happy that Int4 IFTT – our one-step solution for testing all your SAP integration scenarios, has its own logo now. With Int4 IFTT you can test and automate any process effortlessly, fast and secure. It makes SAP integration simple and independent. 

The parachute represents the soft landing in the SAP testing area that our tool provides. It’s a symbol of safety and support. The minimalist, modern format images innovation and modernity which are attributes of our product. 

The logo is a major part of representing a brand. It should communicate the company’s values and the brand’s or product’s essence. We’re glad that we managed to present it. 

It’s just the beginning!

The designing process may be over but we’re really just getting started! 

It’s going to involve a lot of effort, content creation, and consistency to make sure that the Int4 brand responds to all your needs but we’re motivated and thrilled to work hard for you!

Effective communication and building lasting relationships are our priorities. We’re open to your opinions and changes so let’s keep in touch! 

We’re always ready to discuss:

Read also:

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