COLOURS OF DATA

The word "colours" in our name is not chosen randomly, although it might seem so at first glance, because Colours of Data is a sexy name and the data itself is incredibly colourful and diverse. Today's world is changing rapidly, and any solid business requires diversity - diversity of customers, opinions and, ideally, diversity of culture. It's just great when people with different cultural backgrounds look at the same problem. A Czech will look at a Czech bank's problem differently and a Hungarian or a colleague from Ukraine will bring a different perspective and ideas. The key to being able to work well together in such a diverse and dynamic environment is to have a strong, well-composed team, where we can be open to each other and make the most out of our talents.

In Colours of Data one needs to be a self-starter, aware of how to plan everything, from his/her personal time up to the project delivery to the client. You won’t face micromanagement here, as all of us are driven by an entrepreneurial spirit. Trust and freedom belong to our highest priorities, as they raise a degree of personal responsibility and secure our autonomy. At the same time, if you ask the team for support, you will get all of it. CoD is the right place for bright talents who value trust, freedom and are happy to deliver the finest results to the clients.

By joining a freelance team, you commit to all your colleagues, in the sense that they can fully rely on you.

The advantage of having a small team of people, passionate about the same field of work, is that you don't have to deal with any hierarchy. From consultants to sales, we all know what we need to do, what our tasks and goals are. In CoD you will find no micromanagement and no meaningless assignments either. Nobody will trace you throughout your working day. The work setup is entirely up to us. On the other hand, we can react very quickly and fully support each other when someone needs help or if there is a problem that requires more attention. In CoD we are linked directly to our customers, which means there is no one else in charge of the client’s project, besides a person who is carrying out the job. No need to say, it is our strong advantage in front of big corporations. Additionally, most of our processes are in some way interconnected, which lets us be fast and agile. And all of us can still fit into one cottage in the mountains.

We can be defined by our honesty. We want to keep things fair. We talk to each other openly, even though it can sometimes be uncomfortable. We don't leave any feedback unspoken. We share, we grow.

Quarterly, Tomáš holds open talks about the results that we achieved as a team, about how we are doing financially, and walks us through all the important updates in Colours of Data. There is no gossip or backbiting. We are open, reliable and straightforward. These qualities are fundamentally important for us, and we invest a lot of effort to find and recruit like-minded people. A team that operates predominantly remotely can never be formed without trust and openness.

The core of the team was formed by the people, who were the first to join Tomáš at CoD. One of them was Petr Václavek, who lives and works in Šumperk. Location wise, it was logical to use a remote setup, as our primary way of cooperation. As new colleagues from different parts of the world were joining CoD team, we figured that our cooperation above the regional borders opens up plenty of business opportunities for COD, because in the countries where our colleagues are from we get them by default.

At the same time, such flexibility gives us freedom to work as per individual schedule and shape our lifestyle in the way we want. Let’s have a look. Do you want to work early in the morning, go on a stroll or meet friends in the afternoon and complete your work in the evening? You can do it. Wanna work from Dubai? You can do it. Do you want to work 10 hours in a row? You can do it. The way we organize our working schedule is up to us. Our goal is to deliver the finest results and this is our responsibility, not a fixed working schedule.

Of course, it is impossible for us to be fully remote. We need to meet occasionally for a whole day, go through strategies together, or just change the environment, see each other, have lunch together, and chat. Sometimes it's the best way to make progress on a project or tackle a challenging problem. And let's face it, team-building events are not feasible every month.

We started in the Opero co-working space, where we only had membership but no dedicated space. However, we've recently moved to Karlín, where we have a small office and share spaces with another company. On Mondays, we have an office day, which means anyone who can is with us in the office. Besides meetings, having lunch and coffee are taken for granted.

Despite the fact that we have a significant amount of work and might feel a certain pressure from demanding clients, there is always a harmonious atmosphere in the team, balance and comfort. It must have something to do with the type of personality of Tomáš as well as of those people working next to him in CoD. The fact that we work at our own comfortable pace and support each other contributes to that too, as well as it contributes to our inner well-being. So if you asked Agnes to describe our life in the team, she would tell you: “It’s happy, relaxed, chilled with challenging projects and clients”.

It might happen that you are at the point of time, when you start realizing an extra potential of your customers’ data. Like Denys, who used to work on one and the same task for a client in the past, but decided that it was time to look at the data in more detail from the new angle. He learned Python and quickly got into data analytics. Finding yourself in a similar scenario, you start looking for a job position that will allow you to dive deeper into data analysis. At this point, like Denys, you discover the magic of CoD with all the diversity of our projects.

With CoD you access the core of various companies from various industries, the companies of different sizes, located in different countries. This is incredibly rewarding because you gain new experience every day. Right now we, as a team, are at the stage, where almost every day we’re doing something that we’ve never done before. We are exploring new assignments and learning constantly.

All of us are motivated to learn new things and grow, what is more, we consider it our individual responsibility. We want to explore new things, try new approaches, test new technologies. Perhaps, we could easily say that learning is our common passion.

We don't want to go round in circles, while our business is constantly offering us a huge variety of possibilities. That’s why, if one doesn’t want to walk an extra mile, it would contradict our shared principles. If there is one thing that we really don’t like - it is stagnation. That’s why we are so focused on the successful transformation, which we are willing to bring about with our clients.