01732 759725 INTERVIEW 20 Wendy Sharp, Operations Director at Parallel Office and Document Solutions shares her experiences over the past decade, what she’s learned, and the highs and the lows of our unique and challenging industry A decade in print 2022 which was a great achievement for myself and my team. Then unexpectedly, Gavin Auckland (Managing Director at Parallel) approached me. He said that he’d love me to join the business, but as a new start up he wasn’t in a position to make an offer at that time. He promised he’d get back in touch when the time was right. PITR: What has been the high point of the decade? WS: This ties in with my answer to my proudest moment – it was joining Parallel in September last year. I feel very lucky to work here and that Gavin gave me the opportunity to hold the position I have here. He is great to work with, consults me on everything and the difference between working for a large organisation where you are one of many, to be an integral part of a smaller team and really have an impact is incredible. PITR: And the low point? WS: For me personally, it was when my former employer Direct-tec sold to Apogee. PITR: What (or who) has had the greatest impact in the sector in the last 10 years? WS: The pandemic I think has had a massive, long lasting impact on the industry. It’s created a new status quo where work from home is the norm. Having people in the same room sharing ideas was a big thing in our industry and that’s gone – perhaps forever. There is a new generation entering the workplace now and their mind-set is very different, they are much more forward about setting out their expectations and demands, and ensuring they are met. PITR: If you could change one thing about the last decade, what would it be? WS: I suppose COVID is the obvious answer (again), but negativity aside, the one good thing to come out of it was that it did bring people closer together. I think we’ve all been guilty of taking people for granted but during the pandemic, we all had to pull together to keep everyone safe and keep business ticking over. PITR: What has been your proudest moment of the past 10 years? WS: Getting a call from Gavin to say he hadn’t forgotten his promise to follow up on his offer to me, and now that he was in a position to move forward, he wanted to invite me to join him at Parallel as his Operations Director. A great honour and I am very excited to see where we can take Parallel in the coming years. PITR: Sum up the decade in three words. WS: Exciting. Challenging. Non-dimensional. https://parallel-group.co.uk PrintIT Reseller (PITR): You’ve been working in the print and IT industry for more than ten years. What led you to enter the sector? Wendy Sharp (WS): I was working as an Admin Manager at Bupa when a patient asked me if I enjoyed my job. He said that he was looking for someone to recruit who could look at internal processes, streamline them and create a more efficient, cost-effective way of working and was I interested. It was a fairly new print dealership, so I went to see him, we hit it off and he offered me a job. I was there for 16 years before they sold to Danwood. PITR: Tell me about your career in print? WS: My first job in the print sector, as mentioned earlier was at KPS. I was charged with working really closely with the Operations Director to help streamline systems to give the business owners far better visibility of the company’s performance along with a far more efficient set of processes. After they sold to Danwood, despite headcount cuts, I was kept on and within six months I was promoted to Head of Admin for the entire group. My knowledge across the sector increased dramatically whilst I was there, being involved with areas of the business that I had not been party to until I had worked my way up through the ranks. I built relationships across the sector that have stood me in great stead through the years. I worked really closely with our funding partners which helped leverage my position as my career progressed. I then spent a few years at Apogee, moved to Direct-tec, who ironically sold to Apogee, so I ended up back there. Apogee, now owned by HP, are leaders in their field, I embarked upon a project that had never been seen before in Apogee, the introduction of a lease desk which won special recognition awards in Wendy Sharp
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