Tell us about your personal background.
I grew up in a city in the eastern part of India called Calcutta, now Kolkata. I graduated as an Engineer and worked for a few years in Marketing and later moved into IT Operations/ Infrastructure management. For my work I moved around the country, Mumbai, Delhi and other places. Then I returned to Kolkata and by then I was ready for adventure! One fine day my wife and I and my daughter decided to do something different, go somewhere else. New Zealand appealed to us for many reasons, for the stunning scenery, lifestyle and standard of living – and also I found out there was a lot of opportunities for IT professionals.
Tell us about your role at Datamars.
For the last six years my role has been IT support specialist for Australia and New Zealand. It is a very busy role. I thoroughly enjoy my job and one big reason is that it is a people-focussed role for which I get the opportunity to interact with users across the organisation.
What is the main focus of your role—what does a day in the life look like?
My core job is working with people in Datamars across Australasia, resolving IT issues that come through the ticketing process. On any one day you might not find me at my desk. I like to walk down and talk to user rather than work across emails. Face to face is my preference and I like to interact with users to understand their specific requirements and provide tips to make their jobs easier. Of course, I also collaborate through Teams and use latest technologies for remote access.
What was it that attracted you to Datamars?
I was attracted to Datamars as a global company and the breadth of opportunity that it could provide. It also has high quality products and a good reputation. I love working with people so as a global company I was very interested in working with a wide mix of people from different nationalities and cultural backgrounds.
How do you experience the Datamars purpose to “make a measurable difference”?
I take pride in the type of job I do and that obviously reflects in my day-to-day performance.
Individually, I try my best to deliver the highest quality of IT support and service to the end users so that in turn they can also perform to the best of their abilities. In this way, collectively we can all be productive and work towards the benefit of the organisation.
Have you had the opportunity to work with Datamars employees and teams from other regions and countries? On what occasions and how did it go?
I have not travelled to other regions in my current role, but I have had a senior colleague from Switzerland come out to New Zealand for nine months. I really enjoyed working with him and know about his life back in his country. Earlier under Tru-Test I worked closely with the team in Texas in US and now work with people in New Zealand and Australia. Sometimes, I also remotely work with users from Thailand and China.
Outside of work-life, what’s one thing you have achieved that you are proud of?
Anyone who knows me will know that I am extremely passionate about photography. I started by taking photos during the weekends, then joined the Howick Photography Club and learnt more about photography through monthly competitions. I have won a few prizes and had one of my photographs published in the NZ Herald (national newspaper).
My favourite styles are landscape and creative work – and also family photography. It can be an expensive hobby, but I love photography so much that I started up a part time photography business and it is now a successful side hustle. You can see a few of my photos on the slideshow on this page. If you get time, you can also check my website with more of my photos at www.pankajbhakta.com.