ISP Business Systems – SAP
City of Bradford Metropolitan District Council
Total years of experience :24 years, 10 Months
Working on contract my responsibilities are:
Maintain an understanding of advances in the relevant technology environment and be able to deliver expert advice while looking at ways that new technology can be implemented to deliver service improvements.
Collaborate with colleagues to identify and investigate problems in systems and services throughout the Organisation. Assist with the implementation of remedies and preventative measures.
Where required, supervise specialist external technical consultancy.
SAP Production User Access Management, SAP Support, User Security and Audits.
Managing ICT Starters, Mover and Leavers Processes along with supporting the day to day activities to help with the general running of SAP Support for the Council.
Where required by line manager, support, maintain, configure or develop business systems to meet and/or exceed agreed service levels.
Support the continuous development and enhancement of the service, and ensure that customer care and service excellence are established as core values.
Follow service management processes to ensure consistency and effectiveness of the service and contribute to continuous process improvement.
Use agreed IT service management tools to accurately capture data relating to ITIL processes. Ensure service related documentation is accurate and relevant.
Provide specialist guidance and advice to less experienced colleagues to ensure best use is made of available assets, and to maintain or improve service delivery.
Manage the access to highly confidential, personal, financial, political and commercially sensitive information; to ensure compliance with appropriate legislation e.g. DPA, FOI, Child Protection Act, etc., the un-authorised disclosure of which would prejudice the interests of the Council.
Ensure compliance with appropriate policies, procedures and guidelines.
Deputise for the Senior ISP or line manager as required.
Al Yamamah is a leading steel manufacturer in Saudi Arabia. During 2 year fixed term contract my responsibilities and some of the achievements were:
Spearheaded Company’s IT operations including data centres, servers, SAP and communications networks, which include 2 data centres (primary & DR), 40+ servers, SAP landscape, email, file storage, active directory, SQL database, DHCP, time attendance system, CCTV, domain controller, proxy server etc.
Successfully managed two major projects, network infrastructure development and SAP support, managing teams of in house and offshore consultants.
Established and managed disaster recovery site where business critical applications like SAP synchronise in real time to DR servers.
Initiated maintenance plan for companywide networks (LAN / WAN / VPN / Voice), infrastructure, servers, desktops, laptops, printers etc.
Established ITIL based IT Helpdesk using SpiceWorks, increasing visibility into recurring issues and implementing permanent fixes.
Designed, installed and managed biometric time attendance system thus automating SAP payroll updating.
Devised and conducted end user trainings for new employees.
Initiated weekly / monthly meetings with service providers to discuss status and timely resolution of pending raised issues.
Continually directed company-wide development projects to upgrade infrastructure, hardware, applications to align with business objectives.
Hired, trained and established IT team to manage network and desktop support.
Conducted requirement gathering, business blueprint, user training, unit acceptance testing and signoff with SAP implementation consultants.
Managed companywide SAP support, coordinating with business users and offshore consultants to communicate requirements in terms of configuration changes, improvements in existing reports and developing new reports. Follow up with offshore consultants for timely resolution of issues raised by business users.
Responsibilities include but not limited to:
- Taking full responsibility for ensuring the IT environment, communications network and IT infrastructure are stable and managed efficiently.
- Constantly review and refine the strategic evolution of the IT services portfolio to ensure the achievement of short, medium and long-term business objectives.
- Identify and eliminate non value-added services /activities at every level within IT services operation.
- Continually direct company-wide projects to upgrade the infrastructure, hardware, applications to align with the business objective.
- Offer thought leadership and creative solutions to respond to current and future needs of business.
- Deliver services based on defined KPIs and SLAs for both in house and outsourced services.
- Analysed business requirements and evaluating ERP solutions including SAP Business One, CRM Dynamics and Sage to implement in near future replacing bespoke CRM database.
- Analysed, restructured and implemented network infrastructure, servers, desktops and laptops.
- Oversee maintenance of the company wide and local area networks (WAN / LAN); manage local and remote connectivity infrastructure.
- Maintain, track, and document software licensing and manage IT Asset risk register.
- Train staff on functionality and IT personnel on repair / maintenance issues.
- Developed and implemented Information Security policies, disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity plans (BCP) in line with ISO27001, achieving certification.
- Introducing and improving IT governance, making recommendations for Service Improvement.
- Introducing changes and new services and manage technical integrations, as appropriate.
- Managing IT Service Operations annual budget for the Group.
- Have a broad and significant knowledge of the Organisations technology stack, application, data, application infrastructure, and business architecture.
- Escalation of issues and liaising with suppliers / 3rd Party outsourced providers.
My responsibilities included:
- Involved in functional and user requirement specifications for SAP FI creating blueprint documents based on discussions with client core teams.
- Successfully carried out integration testing and suitability checks as per agreed user requirement.
- Monitored and reported SAP application performance and daily health check.
- Managed SAP user roles and authorization administration and routine database backup activities.
- Part of Global SAP Security Implementation, Governance, Risk and Compliance team.
- Provided technical support and guidance using professional concepts, company policies and procedures to solve variety of issues.
- Analysed and identified causes and applied fixes using number of tools like Netmeeting, DRA, HTool, Active Directory etc. These include information security, OS, applications, software/hardware installations, remote access service (VPN, Citrix), handheld devices and other issues.
- Leading teams, train, coach and assess new starters through mentoring.
- Meet strict SLAs, tight targets and ensure internal procedures adhered.
- Identify invalid solutions to make appropriate updates in available tools.
- Develop and update training material as necessary.
- Interact with clients and support teams to ensure timely delivery of solutions for business critical and security issues.
- Information Security Incident handling, analysis, advise accordingly or escalate issues for further action, interact with clients and support teams to ensure timely delivery of solutions.
- Maintaining Information Security Training database, generating reports related to eLearning Information Security (eLIS), Vulnerability Management of assets and Application assessment using tools like eLIS, LAL2/VMS, ASAT II and MyBill.
My responsibilities were to:
- Part of business requirement gathering core teams for FI, MM, SD and HR.
- Created functional and user requirement specifications.
- Created business blueprint documents based on discussions and business requirement.
- Created master data for SAP FI - chart of accounts and GL master records.
- Successfully carried out integration tests to check suitability of solutions as per user’s requirement.
- Managed SAP users, authorization administration using Profile Generator.
- Prepared/analysed monthly project performance reports against allocated budgets, making sure projects running on-time and within budget.
- Analysed application performance, fine-tuned and performed daily health checks.
- Conducted reviews to track gaps in IT processes using Six Sigma methodology, designed and implemented solutions to fill those gaps, improving efficiency and saving cost.
- Managed complex infrastructure comprising of UNIX, Windows NT 4.0/2000/2003 and geographically distributed locations including production facility.
- Successfully deployed and managed Lotus Notes Domino R4.0/5.0.
- Provided support to more than 400 desktop and laptop users in seven regional offices.
- Managed VPN connectivity for users and clients, assisted migration/up-gradation of Windows NT to 2000 servers and client to Win XP Pro.
- Installation/configuration and troubleshooting of laptops, desktops, printers & servers.
- Maintained backups and IT asset register.
- Provided training to users at all levels for applications like SAP, MS Office, Lotus Notes etc.
- Developed and managed BCP and DRP of IT systems.
- Provided IT support for implementation of Hyperion, reviewed effectiveness of internal controls for financial reporting in compliance with the SOX requirements.
- Overhauled server room and maintained software licensing agreements.
My main responsibilities were:
- Managing UNIX and Windows NT 4.0/2000 infrastructure including production facility.
- Installation, configuration, maintenance and support for laptops, desktops, printers & servers.
- Designing and implementing LAN infrastructure.
- Designed, developed and deployed a FoxPro database in UNIX environment, including sales order processing, cash collection, production and stock maintenance.
- Designed Regional Sales Reports in Quattro Pro and MS Excel providing reliable, accurate and timely information to the management for decision making.
- Made software & hardware Y2K compliant.
- Maintaining backups, IT asset register and license agreements.
- Supervised 24/7 operation of online Sales Information System generating orders for cash collection and shipping orders during shifts with a team of 20 staff.
- Collecting and uploading daily sales into reports designed in Quattro Pro and MS - Excel.
- Designing report formats as required using MS - Excel and distribution of sales reports to the management.
- Creating staff assignments, giving direction and monitoring progress in on-going activities and reviewing work produced to ensure technical excellence.
EDUCATION & CERTIFICATIONS • ITIL Foundation. • PRINCE2 Foundation. • Certified Information Systems Auditor (CISA) from ISACA, USA. • MBA - Management Information Systems (MIS) • Post Graduate Diploma - System Analysis & Design. TRAINING & MEMBERSHIPS • ISO 27001 implementation guide. • Managers Guide to Project Management, preparation for PMP. • Transactional Six-Sigma Green Belt. • Finance for Non-Finance Managers.