Senior IT Consultant
Jumia Algeria
Total years of experience :35 years, 4 Months
Freelance Consultancy job
Lead operation of an Information Technology outsourcing company with multiple outsourcing offerings like IT support, Network support and Educational services as well as HR outsourcing services.
- Leading a team of IT professionals to support IT operation and demand (17 reports) in 3 domains, End User Support, Applications and Infrastructure.
- Responsible to help managing the new group SAP based Business Model implementation in Algeria for 3 cement plants, 30 Ready Mix plants, a bags factory, a dry mortar factory, 2 quarries, a retail business "Batistore", and a research center.
- A related objective is to reorganize the IT department to better fit within the group's IT global and regional organization and to better support the new business model once implemented.
- Team Lead a hub based twin team of highly skilled professional in SAP different modules and in Lafarge business processes per domain (commercial, CRM, finance, operations, logistic, dispatch, P2P, reporting, AFR \[Alternative Fuels\], BCMix/LABMix concrete dispatch and mix systems)
- Duration of first project in Morocco was exceptionally 6 months and was successfully implemented on time on 1 Jan 2017. Normally each project wave lasts 12 months like the Egypt implementation which went live on 1 Aug 2017.
- During my position as Lead in the MENA hub I gained a solid experience in managing SAP implementations using a proven solid methodology with all additional integrations to other local or cloud based solutions like payroll, Call center, Customer portals, Workday, Bravo, etc...
- Another major requirement of this project is to manage the transformation undergone by the business unit which involves a lot of engagement with top management, stakeholders and the user community as a whole.
- Change management, change impact assessments, risk assessment, business impact assessment,
and other tools were used successfully to manage this transformation as part of a complete project methodology.
• Manage IT Operation and project across Lafarge Cluster (UAE, Qatar, KSA, Oman, Kuwait)
• Ensure Oracle EBS ERP and JDE ERP Applications Support is well managed and performed
• Leading a team of IT operations in 40 locations including 38 Ready Mix plants, 2 Cement Plants, 6 Country Head Offices and numerous sales offices, and ensuring IT support is timely and of highest level and in compliance to ITIL standards.
• Promote Health And Safety culture (conduct H&S training for staff at Head office and site plant)
• Accountable to lead the team in all Group IT projects on time and within budget while adhering to Group standards, and maintaining Health and Safety awareness.
In charge of IT Operation in 3 Locations including Head Office and Cement Plant.
- Ensure that JDE ERP Oracle based application support is operational efficiently and to users and management satisfaction.
- Ensure all support activities are as per internally established SLA levels and in compliance to ITIL standards.
- Report to business on capability of IT infrastructure and services and where new opportunities to improve in favor of the business.
- Assess continuously risks to the business and mitigate or eliminate them.
- Manage audit compliance of group standards for all IT standards and ensure all corrective measure are implemented. Ensure yearly audit reports and proof of compliance are totally delivered.
- In charge of project managing all global, regional, and local IT and IT related projects for Lafarge Cement Syria
- In charge of contract negotiations and supplier evaluation for Hardware purchases and hardware service
- Part of Lafarge Regional IT team to implement Global and regional IT initiatives for the benefit of the corporation.
- In charge of Budget preparation and Budget management/monitoring
Main Achievements:
- Managed Implementation of JDE oracle ERP at the company for all 3 integrated modules, P2P, R2R and O2C.
- Performed start-up of IT infrastructure of company, including the cement plant and Head Office IP telephony, Data network, Data communications, and IT systems, including Data Centers setup.
- Evolved the communications system at the plant in view of interrupted services in order to obtain an independent, reliable and redundant communication system with IPSec VPN tunnneling as main connector to our group and our Head office.
IT Director in charge of total IT Operation for both technical support and Software development of in-house solutions.
Main duty:
- Perform IT risk assessment for business and deliver a report with recommendations including risk classification and immediate actions.
- Manage implementation of new container management system in coordination with group in Philippines. -
- Reporting weekly to CEO on all progress.
- Member of Executive committee. Excom meets weekly where I report and make recommendation to keep IT projects aligned with business objectives and ensure with other Directors that IT initiatives are being well taken advantage of in all areas.
Additional duties:
Managing a team of technical support and software development engineers.
- Contract negotiations with suppliers and client organizations.
- Project manage special company projects to improve IT services utilization, reduce IT cost and increase level of service from suppliers.
- IT Budget preparation and monitoring.
Dual role as GM of ePro solutions, one of Abu Issa holdings companies, and IT Director of the Group.
As IT Director of the group:
In charge of total company IT operation and service delivery.
- Manage training and performance of IT staff
- Setting group IT strategy
- IT business Risk assessment for group and implementing corrective actions or setting up mitigation plans for all group companies.
- Monitoring suppliers service delivery and efficiency and creating opportunities for saving and improving service levels for the group.
- Manage special projects for the group
As GM of ePro:
- Closely manage operation and product ordering of our Apple Store and liaise closely with Apple HO in France and regional office in Dubai.
- Setting marketing and sales strategy for our main brands, Apple, IBM, HP, Riverbed, Data Domain, Trend Micro, and Aruba Wireless,
- Managing software development for our Oracle ERP system and ongoing improvements as per business requirements.
- Managing IT support to our group of about 20 sister companies and especially our flagship "Blue Salon" retail business with its over 50 retail outlets and main showroom.
- IT budget management
- Contract negotiations with suppliers
- Liaisons and management with our main brand representatives.
- Closely worked with sales department for Bbds preparation, management and presentation.
Main Achievements:
- Re-aligned IT service contracts for all group companies thereby obtaining better service levels and a saving of 1.5 Million QAR annually from Qtel our main communications provider.
- Revived stalled negotiations with Apple for an Apple Authorized Dealer store and Service center. The store and service center were open within 60 days from that point.
- Reviewed and managed relationship with Trend Micro where previous to 2007 there were no sales as brand was neglected. rend Micro was then aggressively marketed culminating in many projects.
- Successfully marketed the Riverbed brand with my sales team to Qatar market culminating in major projects to Qatar Petroleum and other major companies. ePro received Business of the year award from Riverbed in 2009
- Project management of major implementations (most notably a SSL secure remote access system to all banks applications and systems to mitigate any DR scenario whereby staff cannot reach bank)
- 2nd level Technical Support of Microsoft Windows server 2003 (HP servers based) infrastructure in a large banking environment.
- Implemented LAN based solutions in MS Windows environment including: Active Directory, Exchange server, SMS, Citrix Metaframe, SQL server, clustering solutions, high availability SANs, and Disaster Recovery.
- Guide and manage junior IT staff in projects.
- Experience with Cisco routers, switches and hubs.
- Experience with security products and infrastructure, firewalls, mail sweepers, proxy appliances.
- Experience with Unix operating systems (Sun Solaris, Linux).
- Familiar with website development using Dreamweaver, php scripts.
- User support on application systems
- Liasing with IT software development dept. on new projects
- Quality assurance for application systems, systems procedures
- Business process re-engineering projects.
- Software development projects
- LAN support management and implementation
- Manage Support, Operation, and application development on IBM AS/400 based kingdom wide network.
- Managed support, implementation and maintenace of the DEALERMAN/400 Automobile integrated system (parts mgmt, vehicle sales, vehicle maintenance)
- Also manage operation and support for Novel based LAN.
- Liaise with the department heads on IT issues and requirements for parts sales, vehicles sales, and vehicle maintenance, especially for hardware and software.
- Align company business goals with technical capabilities and offerings.
- Systems Analyst for IBM AS/400 based applications, especially for communications application.
- Software development for systems applications
2nd/3rd level Systems support and operations support for IBM AS/400 Kingdom wide network.
- Support for kingdom wide Lotus Notes servers network, for email and 3rd party Notes based quality assurance application (EQS).
New Managers 5 days Training Program
Master of Science in Computer Science with emphasis in Software Engineering.
BS In Computer Science with emphasis in Software Engineering