Solutions Manager, GCC & Middle East
Iskraemeco
Total years of experience :14 years, 11 Months
I am currently leading the design & the delivery of solutions that solve our customers pains within the energy sector. My motivation is to add value to energy utilities by digitizing their business processes and optimizing their cost. My aspiration is to derive more value by integrating IoT-based devices with interconnected services that consume and process data for more sustainable solutions. My mission is to support the growth of my company’s revenue and profitability by being part of the following functions:
• Presales: helping customers define the requirements and formulate the right solutions to solve their problems.
• Architecting Solutions: integrating building-blocks, building and testing different solutions and documenting design constraints.
• Bid-related: production of solution description documents and technical submittals with high level of quality and according to standards.
• Solution Delivery: co-defining the solution delivery milestones and executing key activities to achieve solution delivery within budget and on-time
• After-sales support: leading the team responsible for executing maintenance contracts and after-sales technical support within agreed SLAs up to customer satisfaction.
• Steering bidding projects for complex energy solutions and turnkey projects delivery.
- Analyzing tenders’ requirements & Iskraemeco position relative to competition.
- Specifying the response strategy in line with the strategy of the company (price and cost objectives, choice of products, technical solutions, action plans, industrial arrangements and partnerships, if any).
- Drawing and following-up the tender submittals (PQs, technical proposal, cost calculation, etc.).
• Supporting key business development and marketing initiatives in the region.
- Assisting pre-sales activities (solution demos, requirements gathering, solution promotions, etc.) and negotiation with the clients (partnerships, due diligence, MoUs, NDAs, etc.).
- Providing insight and analysis of forthcoming opportunities, sales channels and leads.
- Working proactively with customers in writing tenders’ specifications (ghost-writing, consultative selling ...).
- Lobbying with key technical enablers and representing the company in technological initiatives.
• Providing leadership for the “Solutions Architecture and Bid Management” team in the Middle East and Africa region.
- Developing team skills and capacity to increase team’s responsiveness to customer needs.
- Transferring technical knowledge to team members & building up a diversified skills matrix in the team.
- Scaling service delivery management capabilities and growing the company’s potential.
Iskraemeco (www.iskraemeco.com) is an electricity meter producer & smart meter solution provider that is ranked 3rd in Europe and 7th worldwide and is based in Slovenia. The company has been recently acquired by Elsewedy Electric group; a leading integrated electricity solutions provider in the MEA region.
My achievements during this job are:
• Coordinating the bidding activities across different departments for complex tenders (1M to 10M USD)
- Preparing the business case and system design specifications resulting in the technical & commercial offer.
- Coordinating the bid (Go/No-Go, planning, story-boarding, responsibility matrices, follow-ups, tracking, design, verification and release) with partner companies in the consortium presenting the final offer.
• • Designed the AMI Solution Architecture and complete System Integration activities for AMI largescale projects (for example: Egypt: 50+K RSM/ICG/Street lighting, Zambia: 31K Grid/RSM, Morocco: 15+K Grid Meters, Nigeria: 50K ICG/RSM) in addition to small projects across the region (i.e. shopping complexes, gated communities, etc.)
• Delivered presentations on AMI systems for utilities & customers in 11+ countries across the MEA region. This developed new business opportunities and helped spot new technology trends & market demands in the domain.
• Currently responding to RFIs & RFQs and providing technical offers and services’ prices (25+ system quotations).
• Coordinated with system integrators and third party suppliers to deliver integrated end-to-end solutions.
• Lead the writing of the Iskraemeco’s SLA, AMI Projects Implementation Manual, System Training documents in addition to designing a standard technical offer template that covers a wide range of the company’s solutions.
• Managed several projects and customer profiles; 2 of which from planning to go-live (Global Energy - Egypt / AL-Kharafi National - Kuwait / Plumbelec - Mauritius / Emar Misr - Egypt):
- Held several meetings with the clients to manage the billing system business requirements.
- Performed technical support & maintenance activities; both infield and remotely to the server hosting our solutions. These activities led to solving many issues in the running projects.
- Recommended using alternative methods and different parts of the solution in order to optimize the solution to the customer needs.
- Presented the SEP2W System, Iskraemeco’s MDM (Meter Data Management) solution, explaining how it fits the client requirements.
- Provided technical clarifications about the existing functionalities in SEP2W system
• Developed a “Billing Software” using Microsoft .net platform technologies and MSSQL2005 server. This software depends on the monthly meter reading extracted from SEP2W system and issues invoices for the customers. The system is built as redistributable win-forms application that supports a web-portal enabling customers to remotely log-in to the system and review their consumption and view their invoices. A third-party module can be plugged into the system to enable online payments using credit cards.
• Delivered several presentations and trainings on SEP2W System to clients and ISKRAEMECO Egypt Sales Team. These trainings and presentations varied in depth, time and in perspective (technical, sales, or client point-of-view of the system).
AUC (www.aucegypt.edu) is the region’s premier English-language university. It is an independent, nonprofit, apolitical, non-sectarian and equal-opportunity institution, fully accredited in Egypt and the United States. AUC’s academic program is rooted in liberal education.
As a Web Developer Intern at the University Academic Computing Technologies (UACT), I achieved the following:
• Designed and implemented a conference web system that automates the process of creating and publishing a conference website. The website manages the process of authors and attendees’ registration, the submission and review of papers, and the progress of the conference events and sessions. The web system was implemented using ASP.Net, C# and Ajax.
• Interpreted the user and business requirements, and responded to many changes in requirements.
• Designed the system database using MS SQL Server 2005.
Introduction to Computer Science with C++: (Spring 09 - fall 09)
• Introduced freshman students to the basics of problem solving techniques and methodologies.
• Assisted students get a hands-on experience of C++ programming language.
Design of Web-Based Systems: (Fall 09)
• Emphasized students understanding of good design and software engineering practices by designing and implementing a university registrar's website.
• Trained students on various technologies used to develop web-based systems
Thesis Project: Designed and implemented an alternative secure system that replaces Smart Card systems. Wallet-IT is a system that enables users to utilize their Bluetooth enabled mobile phones instead of using smart cards as their IDs, credit cards or debit cards. Hence, users would be able to access certain privileged areas and purchase different items from various outlets within the same premise, all while only using their mobile phones. - Designed and implemented the core library that manages a Session-Oriented Bluetooth connection between two endpoints (PC/mobile) utilizing “32Feet” library. - Designed a library implementing a security protocol to mutually authenticate the two endpoints utilizing the core library and using certificates issued to certify the identity of the two endpoints. - Implemented a secure Bluetooth chatting application to demonstrate the above libraries.