Flexmanager - Executive Consultant

Executive Consultant

Work Experience

2001 – 2002 KPMG Consulting London, UK
Worked as Executive Consultant within the Customer Care & Billing Segment, responsible for the architecture and delivery of best of breed solutions within the OSS/BSS environment for major Telecom clients within the mobile, wireline and IP environments.
Covered all aspects of large scale business and systems integration and development; programme and project management; systems management, analysis, design and development; procedures, policies, methods and control; change management; studies; and overall business and systems strategies, primarily focusing on revenue assurance and maximisation, and streamlining workflow.
Notable contributions include introduction of £350M business opportunities for the practice, as well as, the development of carefully architected, cost efficient and future ready responses for winning bids – primarily as BSS lead. This involves responding to RFI’s and RFP’s supported by fully compliant (where possible) matrices and approach strategies. Main systems recommended include Geneva and Portal billing platforms, supported by XACCT, BGw, P-Cube, Comptel, Siebel, Remedy, Oracle Financials, Crystal Reprts, Concorde, Orchestream, Micromuse and TIBCO.
Succesfully conducted end to end systems and process studies for a major Telco client, focusing on a consolidated view of the organisation targeting primarily on business and systems integration; customer, product and process rationilastion; developing cross selling and up selling strategies; identifying revenue generating and cost saving opportunities for the client, and leading to new business opportunities for the practice such as data warehousing.
1992 – 2001 Saudi Telecom Company Riyadh, KSA
Senior Billing Consultant assuming a variety of roles as detailed below:
Subject Matter Expert (SME) & Business Analyst: providing business functionality, parameters and practices, customization, integration, and phased implementation of services and systems, as well as, pursuing information flow and operational synergy via the adoption of Standards and Conventions. This included involvement in the Functional & Data Conversion, Migration, Business Procedures, Development, Implementation, Decision Support, Parameter Definition, Data Cleanup, Interfaces, Integration, Rollout and Program Management Groups.
Comprehensively supported the implementation and mapping of services in the current and new Billers for TEP-6/GSM, TEP-7, Y2K, and Ericsson GSM-1M projects (ongoing). Deployed Desktop, Private Cabins, Prepaid Calling Card, Smartcard, ERMES, Flex, as well as, GMPS - Inmarsat, Iridium, VSAT and Global Star. Additionally, participated with ICO and Thurraiyah, Siemens ISDN and Intelligent Network (IN), ATM, Video Conferencing and Frame Relay. Active in the development of STC as an ISP - Successfully deployed Intranet and Extranet services. This involved full understanding, awareness and diagnosis of interfaces from MSC’s / Switches via Mediation Devices through to Provisioning, Call Processing, Invoice Generation and Collection.
Some notable consultancy achievements and activities include the following:
· Transfer of Information, Knowledge and Expertise to Migrate and Rollout from Legacy to New Systems.
· Develop revenue-generating projects, maximizing existing potentials with nil or minimal cost.
· Deliver IS/IT and Business presentations of studies and proposals focused on Privatisation.
· Develop implementation, commercial and business strategies for new services and 2 large-scale billing systems. Demonstrate pros and cons of the service enhancements for STC.
· Advise and support Deputy Ministers, Executives, Management, Advisors, Team, Vendors and Sub-contractors. Attend project meetings with consultants – TELSTRA, DATASAD, NSA, LTII, SBM, BAH, PWC, JPM, as well as, various regional and local vendors.
· Analyse, develop, co-ordinate and support the implementation of management objectives.
· Ascertain business requirements and outline new procedures and practices within IS/IT.
· Analyse and manage risks and develop mitigation strategies including impact analysis.
Systems Analyst: encompassing all Services, Provisioning, Billing and Payments systems. Principal function involved trouble-shooting problems, specifying modifications, enhancements, and issuing maintenance instructions for all development and maintenance teams.
Projects Coordinator: for services and facilities enhancements to the Mediation Devices, Billing, and various Payments Collection Systems. Possess good understanding of networking. Specified, procured and deployed a 50 user LAN and implemented Bank Link (Blink) Solution and Cash Payment System (CPS) for invoice payments transactions using Connect Direct – Network Data Mover (NDM) – interfacing with 11 banks and the monetary agency SAMA.
· Providing end-to-end support and guidance to line operation.
· Defining system and business requirements for integration and interfaces.
· Preparation of business and technical specifications and documentation.
· Validating specifications and procedures for system enhancements.
· Preparing test data and test result and promote systems to production.
· Responsible for all departmental hardware, software and networks.
Other Key Assignments / Activities
· Evaluate, approve and support Customer Specification Document (CSD) and Workflow documents for business and systems definitions.
· Participate in the Corporate Review Model of SaudiTel - MoPTT.
· Assist in documenting the Present Mode of Operation (PMO) for SaudiTel - MoPTT.
· Outline Future Operating Environment (FOE).
· Define Work -Flow Requirements (WFR).
· Conceptualize and develop business area think tanks.
· Attend technical seminars and recommend technological developments.
· Conduct training need analysis and recommend formal training.
· Interface with users to outline requirements and troubleshoot problems.
· Advise peers on forward planning.
· Identify and support timely improvements and business decisions.
1989 – 1991 Niki Hotels Ltd. London, UK
Group Business & Computing Manager
· Automated the manual procedures and improved customer/client service and overall group productivity via targeted sales and marketing techniques in the hotel industry. Established partnerships and supervised group expansion, mergers and conversion with strict financial and administrative control, astute vendor contracts and financial management and always worked within the budgeted complement.
· Implemented new procedures and practices increasing sales.
· Significantly increased group turnover.
· Deployed HORES — An integrated hotel management system.
· Developed business strategies and implemented management objectives.
· Expanded the group via acquisition and mergers - Increased profitability.
· Extensive contract and financial management and marketing.
1987 – 1989 Bank of Credit & Commerce International Karachi, PAK
Computer Officer
· Good working knowledge systems operations. Have been instrumental in increasing performance by streamlining mainframe operations, effecting environment changes and providing quality user support.
· NCR 8545 Mainframe operations.
· Ensured problem free runs of the FALCON application suite.
· Run month-end, quarterly, half yearly and end of year reports & totals.
· Team member first commercial online network in Pakistan and installed first ATM machine.
· Member integration team – Converted Minicomputer applications at 3 major sites to Mainframe.
· Provided Mainframe and PC help-desk support to all three business centers.
· Reduced FALCON processing by 2 hours per day at Pakistan and by over 3 hours for Columbia.

Education

Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) - 1987
Major in Computer Systems Management (CSM)
Schiller International University, London, UK

Member, Institute of Electrical & Electronic Engineers (IEEE)

Skills

· 14 Years experience in the IS/IT function with over 10 years in Telecommunications; of which 9 years in consulting and advisory roles working with major business and systems integrators
· Proficient in the development, response and mangement of large scale initiatives; specialist solutions architect within the BSS and OSS elements
· Tactical visionary and corporate strategist with sharp change control
· Expert at resource maximistaion with nil, minimal or virtual costs
· Excellent leadership with sensitive people management and strong interpersonal talents
· Good contact base in industry and a proven track record in multinational environments
· Adept programme and project management
Systems, Hardware, Platforms & Software Used
· Integrated Customer Management System (ICMS)
· Customer Services Integrated System (CSIS) – Legacy
· Customer Accounts Billing System (CABS)
· Telex and X.25 Billers
· Financial Accounting Linked to Computer Online Network (FALCON)
· IBM S390 and NCR 8545 Mainframe, AS/400 and DEC Alpha Mini, PC workstations & servers.
· MVS, TSO, VRX, VMS, OS2 v2.1 and Warp, Windows 9x and 2000, NT V3.5 and V4.0, Netware V4.1
· DB2, ORACLE 7.x, IMS, VSAM, QMF
· ADW using Navigator methodology and Designer 2000 CASE Tools for systems and business process re-engineering, HIPO Methodology
· Basic, C, COBOL, FORTRAN, Pascal, and SQL
· Microsoft Office Suite, Lotus Notes & Smartsuite and various other PC packages and utilities.
Possess good understanding of the following systems and platforms:
· ADC, Geneva, Portal Infranet and Calculus Opera Billing Systems
· TIBCO Message bus
· Siebel, E-Point and Remedy CRM and Fault Management Systems
· XACCT and BGw Mediation Platforms
· SOG and Comptel Provisioning Platforms
· P-Cube, Concorde, Orchestream, Micromuse – Network Management systems
· Oracle Financials
· Business Objects and Crystal Reports

Languages

English, Urdu, Basic Arabic

Other

Nationality Pakistani – Settled in the UK
Marritul Status Married – No children
Driving Licence Full clean driving licence
Extra Activities Actively pursue information and knowledge
Enjoy meditation, walking and indoor and outdoor team sports
References Available on request