Building strong client relationships crucial to project success

Meet Maria Gauld, Business Analyst & Requirements Specialist at AFRY

For Maria, working with clients with an environmental focus and commitment is a driving force. She believes that good cooperation contributes to common development and understanding. Creating a strong and well-functioning AFRY team is also the key.

Maria has a background as a business controller. At AFRY her role is to plan and lead projects and to understand and map clients’ requirements and needs. “I am personally very structured and organized, which helps me to see the bigger picture”, says Maria.

To see the big picture, she likes to work closely with end users to understand the processes, the solution and the work area. In her daily job she is involved in all phases from requirements collection to implementation and management of solutions.

Focus on sustainability

Currently, Maria is on an assignment at TMR (Tailor-Made Responsibility). TMR has a great sustainability focus, when it comes to recycling packages, and they work towards different customer groups. They help companies selling packaged goods in Sweden to understand and fulfill the requirements of the law regarding producer responsibility. TMR also offers support to municipalities and households. They have a nationwide easily accessible collection system that makes it easier for Swedish households to sort their packaging at source, and the packages are picked up at the doorstep. TMR is a great example of a company that contributes to achieve the Swedish goals for recycling and a circular future.

Maria joined the TMR team in November 2020. Quite soon she became AFRY’s main contact towards the client with a close working relationship. Maria transitioned to project lead, including all tasks of being a product owner.

“I was chosen due to having the experience and background to quickly and easily fill the role’s needs at a fast pace”, Maria explains.

The challenge

The main challenge, with one of their customer groups, was that TMR had a lot of information saved in different places, and stored in Excel. The communication between TMR and their customers was via email and phone. TMR had to spend a lot of time compiling client data in their documentation, and also entering the data manually into their financial system for invoicing and accounting.

TMR needed an internal system with their client's data, but also an external system for their clients to report package volume to TMR. This data is then handled in the internal system integrated with their economy system for further processing.

Working together

Maria leads both agile and traditional teams, with close client relations. Reporting and follow-up has been of great importance both as a business controller and in projects.

“TMR is a very exciting client to work with due to their environmental focus, but also due to their engagement in the project”, she says.

“TMR is a company involved in recycling packaging and the systems AFRY developed will help them to improve service towards their clients, streamline processes and hence be able to focus even more on sustainability, where their core expertise lies”, Maria concludes.