• Needing assistance in setting up in a new country
• Embarking on a new package installation
• Developing a new IT strategy and process
• Wanting advice on hardware or software strategy
• Selecting new software or improving its WAN or LAN infrastructure
• Needing assistance in managing potential suppliers
• Requiring advice regarding its voice communications

For the last 23 years I have been employed by [snip], initially as IT Manager then subsequently as IT Director. [snip] is a major processed meat manufacturer selling about 2000 ton of product each week to food retailers and food service customers in UK, Hungary and Germany.

When I started the company had revenue of £50m operating out of 1 site, it now has a turnover of £450m with manufacturing and sales operations in 3 countries. Its product portfolio has diversified tremendously. From that 1 site beginning it now has 5 major manufacturing sites across the 3 countries.

In my role as the Group IT Director I am responsible for IT across all our European subsidiaries. This includes all business system selection and implementation as well as hardware and network infrastructure and all voice communication. I have developed IT strategy and led the IT function through significant company growth and diversification, as well as through the huge technological change that has affected IT over the last 20 years.

The UK Company now is totally dependent upon IT for all supply chain activities which involves EDI and web based order capture from customers, in addition EDI with third party distributors and suppliers. The speed and volume is such that I introduced a high availability computing environment, so that in the event of any outage on our main site, our IT is not affected. We operate a large scale ERP solution based on PRISM and JDE software. This is supported by a large scale shop floor system which includes RFID, hand held scanners and touch sensitive screens so that product traceability is fully captured.

I have implemented a modern IT infrastructure based on IBM iSeries servers for major business applications with Windows based servers for data warehousing, document management, network access control (DNS Servers) and Network Appliance file servers. Our LANs are based on Cisco equipment and our WAN is an MPLS based network outsourced to BT who also manage our firewalls. This entire infrastructure has been installed in the last 3 to 4 years. As the budget holder I have been the final decision maker with a spend on this infrastructure in excess of £3m. This network is now supplying videoconferencing and soon will be providing voice over IP services.

The company’s European growth strategy has involved me in setting up IT operations in 3 European countries, Hungary, Germany and France. The Hungarian subsidiary is now a £120m company and when it was bought it had almost no IT. It now operates the same high availability environment as the UK, operating the same software infrastructure as the UK.

In addition I have led a significant number of projects / system implementations including: -

• Telesales and Finished Goods Inventory;
• PRISM ERP and JDE Financials UK, Hungary and Germany;
• Essbase Data Warehousing – providing cut and slice capability for sales, agricultural and payroll information;
• Asset Management – providing usage and cost information on all our processing machinery including maintenance management functions;
• Large scale bespoke software system to provide functions to manage all our turkey farms, over 80, and hatcheries and to provide performance and costing information;
• Van sales and stock system for 80 vans using handheld scanners using wireless for communication via 7 networked depots;
• On-line purchase invoice authorisation of scanned invoices;
• Lotus Notes e-mail implementation for over 1500 users
• Numerous hardware conversion projects;
• Migration from Novell to Windows networking;
• Large-scale telephone switch installation;
• Managing a conversion from 3 software packages covering asset management, feed ordering and stock control company wide purchasing to PRISM and Avantis thus rationalising from 4 packages to 2.

I have also previous IT Management experience with a large American multinational, a European multinational and a British computer manufacturer.

If you believe you would benefit from consultancy support in any of the above areas I have outlined please do not hesitate to contact me.