mike.cook@bcs.org's Profile at ZDNet.co.uk Community

Professional Biography

Over 15 years experience in IT, with the last six in management. I have a proven record of developing and managing a close team of people to deliver value-for-money IT services. I am currently undergoing the ITIL Service Management Managers training course with a view to sit exams on Service Delivery and Service Support in January 2008. I am in the process of promoting a quality led continual service improvement programme within the department based on ITIL V2 standards.

The added advantage of a strong accounting background demonstrates that I understand the importance of cost control and budgetary procedures. The ability to see the bigger picture and understand the objectives of an organisation, and how technology can assist and support these aims, will give benefits to those choosing to employ me, and enable me to continue building on the solid foundation of technical and management experience I have developed so far.

 Successfully implemented the transition and development of web hosting from external provider to internal clustered servers.
 Successfully managed the implementation of a new Sunsystems 5 ERP system with Proactis purchase order processing.
 Successfully managed the implementation of new ticketing application, (Audience View), including online ticket sales for the Sheffield Ticketing Network, (Hallam FM Arena, Sheffield City Hall, Crucible & Lyceum Theatres.) Hosted and supported in-house.
 Successfully developed a continual rolling programme of equipment refreshment over a 4-year cycle for the replacement of desktops and a partial replacement of servers, including supplier and financing negotiations.
 Successfully managed the implementation of ICT elements of a £12 million refurbishment of Sheffield City Hall, a Grade 2 listed building.
 Successfully managed the implementation of ICT elements of a £16 million greenfield site development, (IceSheffield).
 Work regularly with television and radio broadcasters and production companies for major sporting events held at SIV facilities, including Endemol for Channel 4’s “The Games” for 4 seasons.
 Contract negotiations with third party service providers and maintainers.
 Development of the corporate ICT strategy, including policy development.
 Chairperson for the AV User Forum UK & Ireland, a national user group set up by me to bring together all UK users of the Audience View ticketing application, for the purposes of product development and the strengthening of strategic relationships with the product vendor.
 Responsible for performance review (staff appraisals) and training & development plans for all ICT staff.

 Managing a team of 9 to provide:
 IT & telecoms support services to 600 users, across 19 sites
 Database administration and development on a 2TB SAN with clustered SQL 2000 servers using Veritas High Availability Storage Foundation for Windows.
 Systems administration of Windows 2000 domain (currently developing plan for 2003 domain upgrade), including asset management, network performance monitoring, access control and security
 Web development (internet, intranet, extranet – all internally hosted) and web-based application front ends.
 Remote access using VPN technology through Checkpoint Secure Client and Citrix Secure Access Gateway.
 LAN, WAN and WLAN technologies– currently rolling out for wireless WAN to act as failover to support primary 100Mb LES circuits between sites.
 Positive contribution to the organisations bottom-line, through more efficient use of ICT and selling ICT services to the company’s external clients.
 Co-ordination of ICT training across the organisation in partnership with Company Training Manager.

 Current projects include:
 Implementation of ITIL framework within the department – early planning phase for Change, Incident, Problem, Release and Configuration management.
 Replacement of the organisations telephone system with Cisco Call Manager IPT with IPFX, £500,000 project budget, in partnership with BT iNet.
 Planning and managing the implementation of ICT elements of a £1.3 million refurbishment project of a major sporting & leisure venue, including co-ordination of an office move for 30 personnel, including the whole ICT department.
 Online Credit and Debit card authorisation through existing EPOS application and centralised payment gateway
 PCI compliance (Level 2)