Ahsan Ahmed Farooqui

Urbacon Trading And Contracting a leading construction company group in Qatar with international operations .The holding group has interest in Construction and Non Construction segment with more than 50 sisters concerns and affiliated companies.
Responsible for IT strategy, strategic alignment of IT with business, IT investments, compliance, resource management and performance management .
With over 20, 000 plus employees and over 4500 IT users managing ERP services 1000 plus users including Oracle Fusion HCM, Taleo, Financial, Supply Chain Project, Oracle eBS R12 .2.24, T Payroll & Oracle time and Labor, EAM, Manufacturing, Supply Chain and Finance
Managing Microsoft AX for Retails and other construction related segments
Managing the Hybrid Cloud and On-premises architecture
IT Infrastructure & Communication for more than 40 plus locations/project sites locally and abroad providing end to Microsoft-emails exchange, office, AutoCAD, BIMS, Security, Project management, Primovera, Candy and other construction related specific software services.
Managing a team of 30+ resources.

Achievements
Rollout Oracle Fusion for Urbacon including Taleo, Taleo Learn, HCM, Payroll, Finance, Supply Chains and Projects modules .
Oracle R12 for Union Iron and Steal Abu Dhabi with Finance, Supply Chain and Manufacturing modules.
Microsoft AX for Retail segments including restaurants and retails chains

Group IT Manager
Al-Ghurair Investment L.L.C
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Member of AL-Ghurair Senior Leadership Team
Conglomerate with multi billion Dollar turnovers having over 7000 + employees and Strategic interest in over 20 countries worldwide across
Al-Ghurair Group is very diversified (Resources, Consumer Foods, Constructions(Ready mix, Foundation, Aluminium, Marble, Concerete Products), Real Estate, properties, Printing, Retials, Oil and energy
To lead Group IT department by developing IT Strategy, Architecture, managing IT Program/Project Management, business Continuity and budget & Investment, resource development and negotiation with vendors/service provider/partners by ensuring compliance with internal control and external regulatory requirement Management
1. Develop IT strategy, planning, policies and procedures in order to deliver IT services to business units based on their business strategies.

2.Develop IT architecture responsive to changing business requirements
in order to optimize design, development and maintenance cost across
Al-ghurair group companies.
3. Manage IT Program/Projects for in order to delivers new IT initiatives /services for business units across Al-ghurair group.
4. Manage IT Financial (budget and investment) based on business case in order to ensure IT Value Creation for business units.

5. Ensure compliance with Internal policies &Procedures and External regulatory authority in order to reduce IT risks across business processes.

6.Manage IT Risks including disaster recovery, business continuity systems and procedures in order to recover IT services for business units based on their agreed Service Level Agreement (SLA's)

7. Negotiates with Vendors in order to procure Software Licensing, Products /Value added -Services, implementation, consultancy and project management services for business units.

8. Develop IT resources based on existing and new skills set requirement in order to improve overall IT services productivity for Business units.

Managing team of 40 plus members in infrastructure and application division.
1300 plus IT users, 400 plus Oracle E-business suite users, 50 Oracle Hyperion users, 75 JDEdward users, 100+ SIMMA(Ready mix ) users, 50 plus Microsoft AX dynamics, 100 Shuttleworth (Printing Industry) and 25 Triple Point (Commodity Trading) users in Highly centralized Tier-3 Data Center environment with 25 plus offices/locations connected from GCC, middle east and North Africa and Asia region.

Developing IT strategy for the Group.
Developed complete IT Policies and Procedure approved by the GCEO
IT Risk Registers for all the areas and mitigation plan
IT Configuration and Change management system
Support business group in business case for selection and implementation of various Vertical applications based on their requirements
Triple Point Commodity and Trading Risk Management(CTRM) -Resources
SIMMA -Production, Inventory and delivery for Readymix in UAE, KSA and Qatar
Replacement of Retail Pro with Microsoft AX Dynamics for Retail Fashion Division UAE and across GCC Region
Infrastructure Upgrades-Next Generation Para Alto Firewall &EMC Enterprise storage box and Induction of new Overseas sites(KSA, Sudan, Qatar, Pakistan etc) into Al-ghurair Network
In-House Implementation of Oracle-business suites modules (financial, Supply chain, Project, Business Intelligence, HR and Payroll for all the business groups
Implementation Microsoft AX dynamics for AL-Ghurair Retails with 60 outlets within GCC region
Support for Implementation of Shared Service for Finance, HR, Legal, Procurement across Group Companies.
2complete cycles of IT Audits
Oracle Hyperion-Financial Management for the Group.

Head of IT/Projects reporting to GCEO
Habib Gulzar International L.L.C
Dubai, United Arab Emirates
Conglomerate with multi millions Dollars Turn over and 500+ employees having Manufacturing and Distribution of Fortune 100 companies products in Duty Free/Duty Paid market of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Kyrgyzstan and U.A.E.
50 Million USD Coca Cola Bottling Plants, Philip Morris International, Kraft Foods, Unilever, Toyota Motor Distribution and 3S Service, ICI, Danone, Japan Tobacco International, Packages Paper Products

Additional Designations:
1. Member of Planning and Budgeting Group.
2. Member of the Sales &Supply Chain Planning & Forecasting Group
3. Member of Information Security and Business Continuity Committee.

Responsibilities:
• Development of IT/IS strategy fully aligned with business strategy of the group
•Coordinate all IT/IS activities across all business departments to prepare short and long range IT/IS plans and detailed policies.
• Analyze requirements, develop / design solutions, assess effort, develop estimates, configure and customize integration with HGI systems or 3rd party supplier systems, progress against IT Projects
•Ensuring compliance with all the IT/IS policies and Procedures through out the organization
•Maintain effective communication with customers and manage suppliers to meet agreed upon Service Level Agreement (SLA’s).
•Managing Enterprise wide all the IT Infrastructure, Communication, Application Development & Delivery Projects
• Provide Service Support for all ongoing IT operations including applications, Network and Infrastructure
•Enterprise wide IT Budgets planning and management.
• Development & evaluation of the IT team of 15 individuals (Dubai based head office& HGI operating countries.)

Highlights:
• Implemented U-Tracks Finished Goods Tracking system for Philip Morris International Products at Jabel Ali Warehouse. Integration project with PMI IT systems.
• Coca Cola IT Projects-Including complete IT infrastructure(LAN, WAN, Servers, Applications, Security, Mail, PABX, IVR, Monitoring and Disaster recovery) Communication Networking and Oracle ERP systems including sales and Distribution as per Coca Cola International requirement
• B2B Integration of \oracle
ERP system with Coca Cola SAP for Financial Shared Services system for Purchasing and account payable
•Successfully migrated PMI and Unilever manual systems to full scale IT systems.
• Creates awareness among top management and gets their commitments for all the IT related initiatives.

Unilever Pakistan is the subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch Unilever PLC UK .Having Household& Personal Care, Beverages, Cooking Fats& Spread, Frozen Foods Ice Cream, Rafhan Best foods product line with over 50 Billion Pak rupees turnover and more than 7000 permanent & contractual employees.
Responsibilities
• The development and driving of IT strategy to support the objectives, strategies and processes of the business and the integration of IT into business plans, balancing demand with resources.
• The support of the redesign of business processes and structures utilising the potential of IT.
. •The promotion and enhancement of the skills and knowledge needed to use IT effectively.
•The sustenance and enhancement of the business knowledge base. To ensure the information required by the business is available at the right place, at the right time to the right audience.
•The support of data owners to assess, manage and structure data (including data, images, video, sound, objects) so it is coherent, available, maintainable and secure to meet the needs of the business. The co-ordination of the development and installation of database technology.
•To ensure the cost-effective reliable operation of hardware, software and communications for internal and external customers.
•The investigation and analysis of specific business requirements and user needs, to establish the suitability of an IT solution. The delivery of hardware /software solutions, to agreed specifications, that add value to products, services and the processes of the business.
•IT Security in their domain and DRP Planning and implementation of their IT systems
1. Polka Acquisition-1997 (Invoicing, AR and MRP)
Part of IT team under IT Manager, responsible for migrating Sales and Invoicing legacy system 36 to MFG/Pro/ESAP
2.BrookBond Merger 1998(Invoicing, AR and MRP)
Part of IT team under IT Manager, responsible for smooth migration of Sales and Invoices from AS 400 to Local ERP MFG/Pro/ESAP.
6.Project Alliance-2001/2002 Payroll, HRMS and HR Services Portal Project Manager responsible for integrating 25 different systems used for payroll, Appraisal and HR training processing into single web based solution. Including Self service HR portal
This project had won cost saving and simplification & manpower saving reward from Unilever for this project.
7.Bestfood Consolidation-2002(Invoicing, AR, Planning, MRP, Depot Mgmt) Leading IT team in consolidating Best foods Business with Unilever. It includes merging existing BPCS IT systems with MFG/PRO/ESAP Unilever ERP system like Sales and Distribution, Replenishment Planning, Invoicing, Customer Claims management, 8 depots operations.
8. Project Genesis SAP-Advanced Planner and optimizer (APO) 2002/03 Demand Planner (DP) successful implementation. This is a regional (South East Asia)project with Pakistan as the implementation site for phase -1 SAP-APO-DP followed by SAP-APO-Supply Network Planner (SNP) and Production Planning Module (PPM). This module is used by demand and supply planner along with marketing and sales trade category and channel manager.
9. Project Synchronize /Depots On line 2003(Depot Mgmt, planning /Outsourcing)
Successfully Re-engineered Unilever depots system with centralized MFG/PRO ERP system along with Distribution Replenishment Systems providing centralize real-time processing.
This project provides high cost saving by Outsourcing it’s operation to 3P .
10.Dalda Divesture-2004-(Invoicing, AR, Payment Outsourcing Service) IT lead for divested Cooking Fat business called Dalda.In this project UPL was providing distribution services to Dalda Group. My role includes setting up completely new IT process to support Dalda distribution, Sales, Invoicing and Payments. This project generates direct revenue for UPL.

-SYSTEM ANALYSIS AND DESIGN USING SDLC CYCLE
-WORKING FOR HOUSEHOLD PERSONAL CARE AND EDIBLE OIL BUSINESS
-CUSTOMIZING ERP SYSTEM FOR LOCAL NEEDS
-ERP SYSTEM IMPLEMENTATION

-PROGRAMMING IN PROGRESS AND ORACLE
-BUILDING IT SYSTEM FOR BEVERAGE AND ICE CREAM BUSINESS
-MIS REPORTING
-DATA BASE INTEGRATION B/W CENTRALIZE AND DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM

-PROJECT MANAGEMENT
-PLC PROGRAMMING
-PROJECT REPORTING
-PROJECT MIS

COMPUTER HARDWARE INTERFACING, DIGITAL ELECTRONICS, ASSEMBLY LANGUAGE ETC