Little Oakley, England, United Kingdom
Personal Profile A seasoned professional with broad experience of the IT industry and long running involvement with application systems development and systems integration, matching the needs of the business to an appropriate technology. My career has encompassed IT department management in the retail sector: buying and contract negotiation for the provision of equipment, maintenance, software, consumables and staff; management application development, operations, and end user support. A hands-on player who is comfortable working within or leading a team; is goal oriented, resourceful and cost conscious; has progressed with the technology over the years; and has managed projects from inception to completion on a number of occasions impacting all major areas of business application systems. I am very comfortable working with all levels of personnel in the company and with external suppliers. Having worked in all types of retail I am very aware of what makes a successful business. Specialties: data warehousing, eft pos, epos, lan, meeting facilitation, migration,retail, servers, specification, stock control, project management, upgrades, voip,
Brought into the business to review the current systems and IT infrastructure, thereby identifying the need for a new retail application system, warehouse system, EFTPOS tills and significant infrastructure changes to provide a sound platform to support the growth of the business Re-negotiated all the IT Service and Supply Agreements Managed the fitting out of a server room with rack-mount servers and upgrading of the head office LAN Worked very closely with the eventual users so they would not feel alienated and would end up with a system that took their ideas into consideration, thereby avoiding some of the potential problems. Was involved in all specification meetings to ensure the bespoke elements were precisely what Hughes required. Acted as project manager along side the chosen software houses in the implementation of the Retail System, Warehouse System, EFTPOS and Time & Attendance.
Brief was to take control of all aspects of the business at the H/O. Brought into the business to put the IT department back on track. Re-negotiated the terms with all suppliers and moved all support for IT to alternative provider. Over saw the successful migration from traditional telephony to VOIP. Project managed the migration from old accounts to the Coda Dream Package. Brought about staff savings with the introduction of interfaces directly into the accounts. Responsible for the development of the in-store procedures covering stock control, stock taking, shrinkage control, price management, promotion performance analysis, daily takings analysis, cash book and banking
Initially employed on a contract to prove the merits of a computerised retail system After 3 months was employed on a full time basis, where I was constructive in proving the benefits of EPOS and subsequently ordered £3 million of EPOS tills. I was responsible for the in-house training on EPOS and point of sale within H/O. This involved interfacing to accounts (Dream) and the development of a data warehouse (Galaxy). I managed the rollout of the 2500 EPOS tills then brought the Birthdays acquisition into line. This included training on the use of the systems and at times even installing EPOS in the stores if and when required.
Lifestyle purchased the Pennine NOVA suite of software and my brief was to help with the implementation of this new system. I trained the users on all aspects of NOVA including stock system, point of sale, EPOS and accounts.
A variety of contracts with retailers who had purchased new retail systems etc and required support to get the best out the systems quickly and efficiently The list of clients included