Why I gave up my freedom as an entrepreneur for a ‘regular’ job

When people heard I was starting a new chapter in my life as an employee, many of them expressed their surprise. Therefore, I’d like to share my journey with you so you don’t think I’ve gone nuts! I have split the story into three parts. Today, I outline the reasons why I chose to take my working life in a different direction. Since I score highly on ‘result orientation’ and ‘focus’, it was a matter of making the best use of my talents.

But let me first set the scene by looking back at the past two years of my career.

 Last year, my company LibRT celebrated its 20th anniversary. Supporting enterprise clients and governments in creating adaptable decision support systems provided enough of an intellectual challenge for my ‘analytical’ personality type. However, I also have a ‘commander’ personality type. So following the sale of my business rules management platform RuleXpress, and after finishing my MBA (I can definitely recommend the OneMBA program in Rotterdam, by the way!),

I was looking for something to fulfill my need for strategic thinking.

Rather than starting a new enterprise of my own, and in view of my experience in product software, I decided to look for a scale-up with proven results that is ready to grow. To demonstrate my commitment to the employees and founders, I wanted to join as an employee, be part of the team and help them to become the 1 out of 10 enterprises that secure market leadership.

Two industries particularly interested me: healthcare and supply chain.

Although I don’t have any specific experience in either industry, I believe they both face similar challenges due to rising demands and outdated IT support. Better use of data and decision support systems in these industries could potentially improve the quality of life of countless people around the world.

As it turned out, I chose a company in the supply chain industry: Simacan.

Users of Simacan’s solution are already achieving demonstrable efficiency gains and contributing to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For example, the number of kilometers per journey is minimized, waiting times are reduced by 15%, there is a 50% improvement in delivery performance and planning productivity is boosted by 25%. These figures will become even more impressive as Simacan obtains more data and increases its market share. And I love metrics, so I will be keeping a close eye on these and other numbers!

I am thrilled to join Simacan as program manager for the European expansion project. This is a ready-to-scale start-up – with ‘green’ numbers and backed by a Horizon2020 grant – that can use my international business experience, passion for product development and knowledge of decision support systems to become market leader in in-cabin information for the transport sector.

Simacan, the Dutch cloud platform for digital collaboration in transport and logistics, is the best candidate to support the industry in optimizing the supply chain. The Simacan solution has already revolutionized the Dutch market for transport management in the fast-moving consumer goods sector. Over the past five years, the platform has acquired a very large market share among leading retailers and transport companies in the Netherlands. As a result, 55% of the replenishment deliveries to Dutch supermarkets and 80% of the country’s grocery home deliveries are now optimized using Simacan software.

So now it is time for both Simacan and myself to spread our wings abroad.

In the next part of this story, I will tell you how we are creating a learning organization to help us grow. Follow me to make sure you don’t miss the next part!