Field Services Manager - North UK
Mouchel
Total years of experience :27 years, 2 Months
October 2012 to Present - Mouchel, Field Services Manager - North UK
As Field Services Manager for Mouchel Technology Group, I am responsible for the delivery of end user IT support to approximately 1500 Mouchel users across twenty nine offices throughout the North of England, Scotland and Northern Ireland and approximately 7000 public sector employees supported by a Mouchel contract.
I have direct management responsibility for site based and field based technicians and supervisors and my areas of responsibility include the following:-
• Planning / Scheduling
• Maintaining both internal and external SLA's by use of effective monitoring and reporting.
• Coordinate internal / external technical resource to provide support for project activity
• Management of the Field Services Team, planning capacity and availability in line planned activity / project requirement and BAU reactive IT support.
• Build and maintain relationships with both internal / external clients and 3rd party suppliers.
• Recruitment, Training and Staff appraisal.
• Continual Process review and Improvement. Responsible for the delivery of services within the SLAs and KPIs.
• Ensure that systems, processes and methodologies as specified are followed to ensure effective monitoring, control and support of service delivery.
• Attend client service review meetings; areas covered will include performance reports, service improvements, quality and processes.
April 2012 to September 2012- Service Delivery Manager, Tandem Solutions Group, Bourne, Lincolnshire.
Service Delivery Manager at TSG, a small but successful IT service provider which has a large portfolio of owner managed clients throughout the east midlands. Reporting to the Directors, my role involved the management of the Technical department which consists of both field based and desk based support engineers handling 50-60 calls per day.
At Tandem, in addition to the day to day technical management, I was responsible for building structure into the existing team and the implementation of internal processes and practises designed to maximise the productivity of the team in order to increase efficiency and customer satisfaction. I was also been responsible for the introduction of KPI's, management and customer reporting systems and the implementation of HR processes to the technical team such as PPA's which has helped the company achieve Investors in People status.
December 2011 to March 2012 - IT Contractor, Nottingham Health Informatics Service, Kings Mill Hospital, Mansfield.
During this period, I worked with the NHS on a short term contract maintaining the IT and Network facilities at Kings Mill Hospital Mansfield, a large and very busy general hospital.
My role here was to work with the existing NHS IT staff in providing reactive support to medical staff that experienced issues with hardware, application, network or communications equipment or facilities across all departments and clinical areas of the hospital.
This was a very interesting role and one which has provided me with much valued experience of working within the public sector in sensitive environment.
January 2011 to November 2011 -Desktop and Application Support Team Leader - The Oval Group, Nottingham.
From January of this year, I had been employed full time as the team leader of a very busy, 1st/2nd line IT Support team providing 24/7/365 cover to The Oval Group, a large financial business based in Nottingham.
Within my role here at Oval, I was responsible for the improvement and development of the service desk support function into an efficient, well-motivated and target driven team which consistently exceeded its targets and excelled within its projects and primary functions
Whilst managing this team of four 1st line analysts, six 2nd line analysts and two administrators, I also held responsibility for the change control process and was designated as the incident manager for all IT related major incidents, ensuring seamless IT Operations were maintained and all systems and applications remained available and effective and communication to affected business units was frequent and accurate.
Routine/ Daily tasks include:-
1 Day to day management of the team
1 Resource planning
1 Building and developing relationships with third party vendors and suppliers
1 SLAs/OLA Management
1 Providing scheduled and ad hoc management reports
1 Point of escalation / problem manager
1 Access Control management
1 Liaison with our 3rd party suppliers and partners
1 Provision of 'round the clock' reactive incident management.
I am fully conversant with ITIL Best Practises and about to gain ITIL V3.
Unfortunately, the decision was taken to relocate the 1st / 2nd line / service desk function to our office in Huddersfield and whilst I had been asked to relocate with an improved package, I decided to explore new opportunities closer to the East Midlands area.
October 2010 to January 2011 - Seeking a new Challenge.
During this period, I was in search of a new position within the Support / Field Support area of IT.
January 2010 to October 2010 - Field Technical Support - A+O Systems and Services.
My role with A+0 was based in the field, providing 2nd / 3rd line support to major clients throughout the UK
Very much a hands on role, my this position involved the support of a wide range of site based equipment ranging from office IT systems and printers, through to Server installations, Data centres and network support centres. I also formed part of A+O's cover for the out of hour's rotas, providing emergency support to major clients such as Nokia and Ministry of Justice and Dept. of Work and Pensions and the Ministry of Defence.
I deeply enjoyed this role as it has allowed me to refresh my hands on technical and customer handling skills.
May 2009 to January 2010- Technical Client Consultant - Red Vista Ltd.
My role at Red Vista involved working with, advising and supporting clients who were currently engaged in infrastructure changes from minor office moves to total data centre relocation.
My role was to advise on and plan solutions for our clients from concept through to delivery. Customer projects of significance included:- 1 Northern Rock
1 MOD Police
1 Astra Zeneca
Whilst employed at RV, I was also responsible for the administration of all internal IT systems. This included server maintenance routines (user profiles, security updates, software installations, etc), workstation support and problem solving, local backups, Active Directory, user account handling, phone system local support and electronic archive
Whilst seeking this new challenge, I filled my time by working towards certifications in:- 1 MCITP MS SBS 2008
1 CISCO CCNA
February 2002 to July 2008 - Technical Support Team Leader, Computerland UK
I was employed with Computerland UK at their Nottingham Head office.
Here my major responsibility involved the supervisory management of a team of Technical Specialists involved in the screening and call progression of all hardware and software related calls logged by clients and the support of our field based engineering force. As part of my role I was required to act as first point of escalation for problem issues and to take the role of problem manager for protracted and SLA critical incidents. This role routinely required 'Hand's on' involvement with escalated issues with in depth research of each issue, liaison with other internal departments, equipment manufactures / suppliers and the management of third party contractors in order to formulate effective solutions for our customers.
Site visits in support of field engineers requiring specialist assistance were also a regular occurrence. Key Skills included:-
1 Oversee a team of 8 Technical Support Engineers.
2 Effective technical issue / escalation handling and management
1 Ability to liaise with and manage effectively internal and third party agencies
1 Ability to effectively communicate often complex technical information to all levels of personnel from Director to non-technical staff.
1 Ability to Plan and prioritize my own work and other people's.
1 Able to motivate individuals and manage performance through KPI and one on one mentoring.
1 Managed the communication to the business of unplanned outages or significant events
1 System Monitoring and internal reporting
September 1999 to February 2002 - Field Technical Team Leader, Fujitsu UK
I joined Fujitsu from Unisys as the result of a contract acquisition and transferred as part of that agreement as I was one of the two 'experts' in this area. Initially employed as a Field Service Engineer with my primary focus being the newly acquired contract, my role then became that of a field based trainer eventually leading to the role of Field Based Team Leader of the midlands region with a large amount of roll out and project based tasks involving EPOS, Desktop and Servers. Eventually I was asked to move to the Support department at Fujitsu's technical centre in Stevenage and did this to up-skill and gain valuable experience. I deeply enjoyed my time with Fujitsu and left only after the birth of my daughter when a move nearer to home became available, which I took with Computerland UK.
July 1997 to September 1999 - Customer Service Engineer, Unisys UK
Having recently left the armed forces, I was employed by Unisys in a Customer Service Engineering role. This role involved working as a rota based, pro-active engineer dealing with customer issues throughout the UK. This was a varied and interesting position as the equipment and customer base was vast and ranged from fault diagnosis and rectification on anything from EPOS equipment, Desktop PC's, Laptops and Printers right through to managed networks and Server installations. There was also frequent opportunity to be involved with installation and project work, this is something I was trained for and specialised in during my time with the RAF and I enjoyed putting my skills to use.
December 1986 to July 1997 - Electronic Engineering Technician, Royal Air Force.
I joined the RAF straight from school fulfilling my ambition to join this service in the role of my choice. After completing my training at No1 Radio School, RAF Locking, I was promoted and posted to a number of airfields in order to gain operational experience. My last resident posting was in 1992 as a member of the Ground Electronics Installation Squadron based in Bedfordshire. This unit was responsible for the installation and commissioning of all ground based electronic equipment employed by the RAF worldwide. This included new installs of airfield / airport systems as well as the 3rd line repair to component level of these systems should local fault rectification prove unsuccessful. This was an incredibly rewarding role that required technical skills to be of the highest order and allowed me to gain invaluable experience on a variety of electronic equipment from telephone and IT systems through to passenger handling / airport operations equipment and radar to complex communications and data handling systems. During my time with this unit I also attended courses in the installation of structured cabling, Fibre optics, working at Heights and a PCB repair course with NASA
IT Accreditations - ITIL V3 CompTia Server+ Accredited Engineer HP Accredited Platform Specialist - Proliant and Blade Servers Dell Accredited Systems Expert (DCSE) IBM Accredited 'X' Series Specialist HP Storage works MSA's and Tape Libraries Dell Accredited Desktop Engineer Dell Accredited Laptop Engineer HP Accredited Desktop Engineer IBM Accredited Desktop and Laptops Hornbill Supportworks Administrator Currently Studying - MCITP MS Windows 7 Cisco CCNA Microsoft MSCE Path Windows 2003 Server All modules of the above certification path completed on individual instructor led courses. Strong Experience of working with:- SAN, WAN, LAN, MPLS, HP Mid /High-end Storage products (XP/EVA/VA), HP Alpha Servers, Toshiba Desktops and Laptops, Cisco, Allied Telesyn, Nortel, Acer, BT, All Major Manufacturers and Models of printers, Kasaya, Hornbill Supportworks, Autotask, Windows 7, XP, Vista, Windows 2003/2010 Server, Active Directory, MS Exchange 2003/2008, MS Office 2007, UNIX, VMware ESX, GoToAssist, Teamviewer, SkyBos, Sophos, Norton AV, Kaspersky AV, McAfee AV, VERITAS, MS Backup, Net Backup, Citrix Presentation Server, Sophos AV and Web filtering, HP SIM, Rapid Deployment Pack, HP PSP, iLo and iLo II installation and testing, Fully conversant with ITIL Best Practises. Major Clients I have worked with:- Astra Zenica, O2, Experian, NSK, AON Insurance, Comet, Dixons, GlaxoSmithKline, House of Fraser, Sainsbury's, Warwickshire Police, Nottingham County Council, IKEA, Capital One, Strathclyde Fire & Rescue Service, NHS, UK and Foreign Military, Nottinghamshire Police, Dell, Barclays Bank, RBSG, Dept of Work and Pensions, Ministry of Justice, Rolls Royce, Elior UK Services, Imperial, 3663, Nokia, BCG Lightspeed (Canary Wharf), Toyota, The Oval Group, SSP, Lincolnshire County Council, Lincolnshire Fire and Rescue, Lincolnshire Police Educational Qualification: - Maths, English Language, English Literature, Technology, Physics, Chemistry and German. City and Guilds in Electronic Engineering Other Interests and Hobbies:- I am a serving Retained Fire-fighter with Nottinghamshire Fire and Rescue Service.