Mihaela Bortoș: The Story of a Successful Career at Konica Minolta

In a captivating interview, Mihaela Bortos, a member of the Global Major Account team at Konica Minolta, reveals her impressive professional journey, from her beginnings in economic press to her current role in coordinating global clients. With a career marked by perseverance, innovation, and adaptability, Mihaela shares her life and business principles, offering valuable advice for young people starting out. She also explores the advanced document management solutions offered by Konica Minolta, reflecting on the evolution of the company and her team over the years.

C&B: What does your professional evolution story sound like? Tell us about your career path and your current role.

Mihaela Bortos: I started working at Konica Minolta in 2003, the same year that the two entities, Konica and Minolta, announced their merger. I came from a background in sales of software applications, and transitioning to hardware sales required a readjustment in the way I had been working with clients. Later on, it proved that my background in software sales was very useful because, starting in 2004, the company’s business strategy aimed to introduce the first software solutions into the portfolio, significantly developing in this segment over the following years.

At that time, the sales team was only made up of men, and for many years, I continued to be the only woman on the team. I learned a lot from my colleagues, adopting various work methods from each of them, which helped me manage in front of procurement teams that were also male-dominated.

I started with small projects, and soon I realized that if I wanted to stay in this field, I needed to focus on larger projects. After several years, the Global Major Account team was formed worldwide, and I was lucky enough to be part of it. Today, I am still in this team, coordinating numerous global clients and even managing to generate various global contracts from the local level. The portfolio offered to current clients has diversified significantly, covering both printing equipment and associated software applications, and more. Currently, Konica Minolta offers a comprehensive and competitive portfolio of document management solutions, from contract and invoice management applications, electronic registry, electronic signature, workflow automation, to human resource document management solutions.

C&B: What was the moment when you decided to switch from a career in the press, on the other side of the barricade, to a global organization?

Mihaela Bortos: I worked in the press for three years. I started during college as a reporter at “Nine O’Clock,” a Romanian English-language publication. It was an unusual and extremely useful experience. I had the opportunity to engage with the economic environment of that time, experiencing the period of major privatizations and attending press conferences where these were announced. I had the chance to meet numerous Romanian and foreign managers from the financial-banking field and other industries. Through my job as a journalist, I had the opportunity to switch sides right after graduating, following an interview with the General Manager of an IT company, who proposed I work for his company.

C&B: What are your life principles? And business principles?

Mihaela Bortos: The basic principle that has guided me and continues to guide me is seriousness. I have clients of 10-15 years who know they can rely on me and that whenever they need something, I am there and strive to help them each time. These are people with whom I have formed friendships over time based on respect and trust.

I believe that life principles also reflect in the business area. The two areas – personal and professional – are very closely linked, with the professional part being an important and essential component of everyone’s life.

C&B: What advice do you have for those starting their career or undecided?

Mihaela Bortos: I never saw myself capable of doing sales. I was rather a withdrawn and shy person. I was never the type of salesperson with a “speech.” By interacting with so many people, you have the great advantage of “taking” something from each one. I think for me, as a person, this was the great advantage of the job, managing to learn something from every situation the life of a salesperson brought me into.

For those just starting, I would advise them to try to learn something from everything life brings their way. You can start with something small, but if you have values, the desire to learn, and are open to what lies ahead, you have a good chance that one day you will realize that your place is exactly where you are and that what you do is the result of who you are.

C&B: We all remember the famous Minolta advertisement from the early ’90s. How are the “Minolta people” today?

Mihaela Bortos: In 2003 and for many years after, we were greeted everywhere in the market with this phrase, which remained in the memory of many for a long time. The team of people at Minolta is very steady. I have many colleagues with over 15-20 years of tenure in the company, and that says a lot about us as a team. Today’s team, like the one back then, is like a family. At the team level, there is a responsibility for work well done, just as there is a pleasant atmosphere where people feel good, and I think these things are visible and transparent in our relationship with clients.

C&B: The most important resource of an organization is its people. However, managing employee document files can be a challenge for any company, especially from the perspective of the human resources department. Konica Minolta has a solution for HR document management in its portfolio. What can you tell us about it?

Mihaela Bortos: In HR departments, the work requires clear records, activities involving many documents associated with each employee, secure access to documents, and our company’s experience in working with documents comes with a great advantage – understanding the specific needs and requirements of this department. When you can respond with an adaptable solution to such needs, you have already solved over 70-80% of the problem.

HR documents pose a very special challenge, given their volume and frequency, the variety of types, and special legislative requirements. The changes brought by the pandemic in the way each of us works have also impacted this field, and we currently offer solutions for automating the flows of remote completion and electronic signing of employment contracts, solutions for organized storage of employee document folders, so that they are easy to find by both the employee and the employer, leave request management, and last but not least, digitizing old physical archives. This last area is the one we receive the most requests for lately, given the obligation for long-term retention of documents, but also the constraints related to the physical space needed to store physical documents, increasingly larger and more expensive spaces.