IT Director
PEPSI
Total years of experience :20 years, 10 Months
Abdulhadi Abdullah Al-Qahtani & Sons Beverage Industry Ltd. (AQS) is part of Abdulhadi A. Al Qahtani Sons Group Holding Known as “Al Qahtani Holding” which is one of the largest industrial conglomerates in Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. AQS was established in 1982 and soon it became the franchised bottler of Pepsi Cola Inc., USA, supplying soft drinks to more than 4 million people in the southern region of Saudi Arabia with market share above 80%.
I am leading the building of state-of-the-art IT infrastructure that covers 1000+ employees, 8 geographical areas, 1 on-premise Datacenter, 30+ servers and successful migration of Oracle EBS Production Environments to Oracle IaaS/PaaS Cloud. Management, direction, and integration for Oracle EBS ERP and ITAC Sales Force Automation-SFA. Replicating the Datacenter servers to Microsoft Azure for Disaster Recovery. Creating reverse-backup from the Cloud servers to on-premise Datacenter. Working with VMWare & Veeam for backup & disaster recovery. Authoring, publishing, putting-to-use and enforcing the IT policies & procedures. Automating business processes to achieve paperless desk experience. Working toward AQS online store to achieve e-commerce along with other Omni-channel sales.
Managing all IT operations. Lead strategic IT investments & projects. Support the implementation of strategies set by upper management. Analyzing the business requirements of all departments to determine their technology needs. Manage procurement and vendors relationship; Inspect the use of technological equipment and software to ensure functionality and efficiency; Identify the need for upgrades, configurations or new systems and report to upper management; Control CapEx and OpEx budget and report on expenditure;
Communicates and coordinates with other Directors to ensure appropriate integration of processes and modules across the enterprise system. Oversees, defines and monitors critical path activities and resolves issues or escalates them to the appropriate Director as needed. Drive the design and implementation of new business processes with organizational structure and required ERP configuration.
Managing IT staff; assign priorities for /and coordinates the activities of IT staff.
Japan Tobacco International (JTI) was formed in 1999 when the parent company JT Group acquired the non-US operations of R.J. Reynolds. Since then, the international workforce has driven two decades of growth. Today, JTI have more than 45, 000 employees driving JTI success all over the world. JTI mission is to nurture the internationally recognized brand roster while leading the way in Reduced-Risk Products and new ways of doing business. JTI is committed to making the business not only the fastest growing of its kind, but also the most innovative and sustainably run.
JTI has IT infrastructure that is distributed in 130 countries serving 45, 000 employees. In Jordan, JTI has two legal entities in two geographical locations, one is Factory and the other is Management & Sales. With 450+ employees and two on-premise Datacenters. SAP Business One ERP, SAP ECC ERP and InVan Sales Force Automation-SFA.
I was responsible for maintaining technology strategies by defining, delivering and supporting strategic plans; Following global initiatives by the company IT department, and perform all required exercises; Verifying results by conducting system audits; Designing and implementing IT disaster recovery plans then integrating with business continuity plan, back-up procedures and security controls of the company; Initiating, coordinating, and enforcing systems, policies, and procedures of the company; Implementing full SAP Business One ERP modules integrated with cutting-edge Sales Force Automation solution (SFA).
Accomplishing financial objectives by forecasting requirements, preparing an annual budget, scheduling expenditures, analyzing variances and initiating corrective actions.
Maintains professional and technical knowledge by attending educational workshops, reviewing professional publications, establishing personal networks, benchmarking state-of-the-art practices, participating in professional societies and attending the annual IT conference of the region.
Managing IT staff by communicating job expectations, planning, monitoring, and appraising job results; coaching, counseling, and disciplining employees.
Oversee all IT functions for projects, managing and leading technical teams, vendors and clients relationship (Tendering, RFQ, RFP, EOI, RFI, RFT, As-Is Analyses, Case Study, Business Case, Technical Instructions, Technical Procedures, Assessments Reports, Manage Escalations, etc.), financial control, budget preparation for projects, annual work plan preparation and monitoring, attending or leading committees, reports & presentations and disaster recovery planning.
Datacenter & Infrastructure design:
- Author and write proposals or term of reference (ToR) for clients to design and build Tier 1, 2 and 3 datacenters; Design AD DS physical topology and DC placement strategy; Manage all procurements for IT & telecommunication hardware equipment (servers, switches, SAN & NAS, private automatic branch exchange - PBAX, etc.), software licensing, cabinets, leased line connectivity, Internet (ADSL, LLE, WiMAX, Fiber, Dedicated Internet Access (DIA - Microwave) etc.), electrical components, UPS, telecommunication systems, cooling systems, fire alarm systems, fire suppressing gas extinguishing systems, CCTV systems, temperature sensors systems and water leakage systems; Apply fault-tolerance N+1 for systems when possible.
- Design and manage implementation of physical specifications of the datacenter room, such as drop-down ceiling, raised floor, network trays, wiring to network cabinet and cooling vents installation (from ground, walls or ceiling); Everything is done on behalf of the client to his benefit, by following all procedures and policies the client use for tendering, premises access, dressing code, security check and clearance, etc.
- Personal ambition is to propose, design and build Tier 4 datacenter with full fault-tolerance and more than one delivery path.
Systems Design, Implementation & Configuration:
- Design, implement, configure and manage: 1Windows servers installations (AD DS, DNS, DHCP, FS, , IPAM, GPO Strategy); 2Database servers (SQL, MySQL, Oracle, DB2, Teradata); 3Webhosting solutions (IIS, Apache tomcat); 4System Center (SCOM, SCCM); 5Automatic deployment servers (ADS, SUS, WSUS, SMS); 6Internet gateway (ISA, TMG); 7Mail solutions (MS Exchange, IBM Domino); 8Document library solution (SharePoint); 9Virtualization (MS Hyper-V, VMware vSphere 5 & ESXi 5).
- Plan and implement storage, file services, data backup, disaster recovery (ARCserv, Symantec backup Exec, Acronis, Hirens, ARD), network access services and network protection;
- Author and write technical instructions, technical procedures and policies to serve as a reference for Systems Administrators or Technical Services Officers.
Application development:
- Follow Agile manifesto (SCRUM development model), and apply Project Management Institution (PMI) PMBOK guidelines, or Application Development Applied Methodology (ADAM) to plan, implement, test, document and maintain the develop applications; Operate as SCRUM master to deliver sprints for client; Development environment is built on MS Visual Studio 2010, and is controlled by Team Foundation server 2010; Enforce Microsoft 3-Tier and N-Tier architecture for coding standards, stored procedures, SSIS, SQL jobs and SQL replication.
Responsible for managing expansion of the IT infrastructure (the company’s board decided to open new branches in Jordan); Building new Tier-2 datacenter at headquarter and Tier-1 datacenters at branches; Manage cabling for IT, telecom and electric infrastructure; installation of CCTV surveillance, infrared security and hybrid (CO, Digital & IP) telephone exchange (Nortel PBAX); Managing hardware and software (license purchase and setup); Design, implement, configure, test and manage servers, switches, routers, VPN tunnels (to the branches); Manage IT local inventory, procurement and local vendors relationship with the IT department (RFQ, RFP, RFI).
Notable accomplishments:
- Alleviated and soothed IT infrastructure, using top-of-the-line HP technologies which allowed for optimum availability for servers, systems, network and storage area network (SAN) (KPI for 2010 =99.75%); Backup system for all type of files and system states on all servers.
- Detailed documentation for the IT department (new IT procedures, third-party helpdesk tickets, defined data and network security strategies, policies, password protection instructions, network traffic monitoring, recommended necessary upgrades, inventory of all equipment, accessories and licenses, etc.), this developed to become the IT department internal portal accessible by the employees of the company.
- Connect all branches using VPN tunnels which allowed for unified IP schema, phone sets extension and file sharing, it was both site to site, and client to site; Manage contracts with telecom companies, create backup internet lines for redundancy.
- Ensure availability of “industry specific services” such as tickets reservation systems (Galileo, Amadeus, etc.), taking into consideration sizing for hardware, network, bandwidth and security for each system.
- Negotiate old support, maintenance and outsourcing agreements signed by the company for the telephone systems, photocopy machines, time attendance system, surveillance system and printers saving the company more than 30% of the value for the contracts; Manage vendor relationship with the company for ERP and Accounting software.
- Plan, implement, test, document, maintain and develop in-house applications that are used by the staff using Microsoft .NET and SQL server technologies; Administer all databases used by the company, website and hosting; Build IT capacity internally by providing training to the staff.
Responsible for the project IT infrastructure, support the project staff, vendors relationship management both in Jordan and USA; Design, implement, configure and manage Infrastructure for the segments of the project, installations of labs for schools, installations and upgrading of MoE datacenter during the project life cycle; Provide technical support for the project; Application development for the ministry of education (MoE); Financial control and budget preparation.
Notable accomplishments:
- Troubleshoot and maintain internet connectivity, email delivery, network bandwidth usage monitor, recommend upgrades as needed, defined data and network security strategies and policies, password protection as needed, manage local inventory for IT equipment, accessories and licenses, regularly update ESP website.
- Receive shipments of IT devices from the US and update local inventory, physically have the shipments moved to ESP store for further processing; Building IT capacity internally by providing training to the staff.
- Work with MoE, Jordan Telecom (JT) and Microsoft to create and deploy servers to the project using SMS/AD in order to connect all project-targeted schools using one intranet; Manage, distribute and install donations of IT equipment; Assist in the development of MIS school capacity (hardware, software, applications); Install and configure any IT devices bought by AED/ESP for external sites.
- Manage procurement and vendors relationship with the IT department (RFQ, RFP, RFI, PO, Memos of justification, Technical-Financial Evaluation); Sign contracts and annual maintenance agreements.
IT Consultant
Head of IT and Product Development Department
IT Consultant
IT Service Management
The training was in Amman, Jordan
International English Language Testing System - IELTS
Average ( 78 % ) Very Good
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