BUSINESS PROCESS REVIEW
Service provided: Assigned by a large UK media company to work with their commissioned management consultancy on a company wide business process review.
Initially this was to review the commercial, production and selling activities of the advertising department.
Involvement was extended when success enabled the review to be progressed across the customer’s Enterprise.
BUSINESS PROCESS MANAGEMENT
Situation: An ecommerce organisation required there to be close management of processes and integration of additional workflows following the acquisition of another company.
The scope included processes, support systems and back office workflow systems.
Goal achievement: The activities involved data feeds and fast tracking of consultancy workflows. Design, testing, and evolution of self-service and site back-office tools. Implementation of production web tools.
CLIENT ACCOUNT MANAGEMENT
Service Provided: Account service management for an Ecommerce organisation.
M&A CONSULTANCY
Situation: An ecommerce organisation on two separate occasions sought technical consultancy in projects to acquire companies that might compliment it’s commercial online service offering.
Goal achievement: Led and concluded two technical due diligence exercises.
Carried out and delivered the production and user functionality assessment aspects.
BUSINESS START UP
Service Provided: Joined the management team of an internet start up at the very beginning (7 months prior to launch). This role on the Management Core Team continued until leaving the company.
CUSTOMER MANGEMENT
Service provided: Interacted with senior management and senior users across a large commercial Enterprise with regards to projects, systems support and demand management.
Established role of ‘Technical Business Partner’ within the team. Established a good rapport with business partners, whilst asserting budget limitations, transparency and the need for sponsored business cases.
SYSTEMS AND WORKFLOW INTEGRATION: ECOMMERCE
Situation: An ecommerce company required help with a number of initiatives.
Goal achievement: Initiative included:
Implementation of content management.
Workflow and data integration of a new partner plus also assistance with the transition following the purchase of a competitor.
SYSTEMS AND WORKFLOW INTEGRATION: PROCESS SCOPE EXPANSION
Situation: This large media publishing company required it’s digital production department to adopt more workflows from other areas of the business.
Goal achievement: Introduction of magazine product and copy chasing responsibilities to the department.
Integration of display advert scanning and placement. Implementation of digital receipt.
Management of improvements in digital workflow control and tracking.
Managed introduction of page planning and pagination for all printed products.
AUDIT LIAISON
Service provided: Key contact and IT point of responsibility for internal and external systems security audits for a large commercial Enterprise.
Included Finance and Commercial ERP systems, DBA responsibilities and post project review audits.
TEAM MANAGEMENT: PROJECT MANAGEMENT OFFICE
Situation: A large UK Media organisation required an Enterprise centre of excellence for progressing new projects.
Goal achievement: Design and formation of new department within a large IT Department incorporating a mix of Analyst and Architect roles.
Recruitment and on boarding of Enterprise Architect, Solutions Architect, Business Analyst, Technical Analyst, Project Analyst and Programme Support Office team members.
Escalation of engagement in business areas unaccustomed to Analyst and Architect intervention.
TEAM MANAGEMENT: BUSINESS SYSTEMS
Situation: A large commercial Enterprise needed four disparate departments responsible for systems development to be merged into a single more effective internal service.
Intervention: Operational and people management of four sub-teams: Oracle Applications Support team, DBA team, Commercial Systems Development team, Projects Team of analysts plus external contractors.
Objective setting, appraisals, progress monitoring, reviewing and supporting.
Results: Sub-teams were enabled to work together and collaborate better.
Department was equipped with better group working skills and to engage better with the Enterprise.
TEAM MANAGEMENT: DEVELOPMENT TEAM
Situation: A large commercial Enterprise required their IT development specialists across the organisation to share understanding of the Enterprise architecture and work collaboratively on future developments.
Goal achievement: Formed and chaired a Technical Design Group, which consisted of senior Enterprise IT staff,
Scope included development processes, team collaboration, better practices and technical architecture direction.
Established new role of Project Support Office with new responsibilities for request and Delivery tracking, tech ops communication, admin and coordination around IT deliveries.
TEAM MANAGEMENT: PUBLISHING PRODUCTION TEAM
Situation: Following recommendations from an external consultant, a large publishing company sought to merge its Ad Production teams under one department.
Goal achievement: Management of a team of Fifty (inc. five managers). Team activities included ad design and ad production, page planning, copy chasing, classified page pagination, ad booking/workflow management system development and training.
Team responsibilities covered sixty weekly deadlines across 23 products.
CRM SYSTEMS OPERATIONS
Situation: An ecommerce company required CRM systems ownership to include development to deliver Financial Reporting, Management Accounting and Workflow Management.
Goal achievement: Management of this key project, which included merging CRM data with an outsourced cold calling operation.
TEAM MANAGEMENT: DESIGN TEAM
Service Provided: Operational management of the Design Team within an ecommerce Enterprise.
Team activities included production and design of advertising and corporate careers sites.
Introduced accessibility and DDA compliancy.
TEAM MANAGEMENT: FULFILMENT TEAM
Service Provided: Formation of Production Department and processes within an ecommerce company.
Included recruitment of Design and Production start up team.
RECRUITMENT
Service Provided: Led all IT recruitment activities throughout the duration of this assignment for this large commercial Enterprise. Activities including the interview and selection process.
Updated and enhanced Job Descriptions to support department evolution.
HR CONSULTANCY
Service Provided: Operated throughout duration of this exercise for this large commercial Enterprise as a member of the IT management team and associate of HR department with a dotted line report to HR Director.
Helped re-engineer the IT organisational structure through change management.
Handled specific issues: retirements, maternity cover, disciplinary process, and long-term sickness.
MANAGEMENT COACHING
Situation: The IT Department within a large commercial Enterprise required it’s management team members to increase their levels of responsibility to enable the Senior Managers to take on more of a leadership role.
Service provided: Developed self-sufficiency of department manager tier through mentoring, supporting and developing the team.
Chaired a weekly management meeting. Agenda was focussed on issues and decision-making outside of day-to-day technical operational activities.
Instigated areas of career development including external training and campaigning for budgets for longer term staff development.
OUTSOURCED SERVICE MANAGEMENT
Service provided: Managed provision of support and development services from third parties for a number of different large commercial Enterprises.
ORGANISATION RENEWAL
Service provided: Consultancy provided through membership of a Technology Organisational Renewal team, tasked with redesigning and centralising the Technology function within a large commercial Enterprise.
SYSTEMS OPERATIONAL MANAGEMENT
Service provided: Ownership of development and operational support of commercial systems within a large media Enterprise:
Oracle e-business suite (AR, AP, GL, HR, Payroll), Advertising systems, Rights Management, Syndication, Analytical CRM, Circulation, Reporting (Business Objects), Management Information System.
Responsibility for tracking and review of support issue pipeline.
