Two national firms of Chartered Surveyors had merged, creating a business with 250 staff across nine offices. It needed to redesign its management information systems to support a new management structure, and to replace two accounting systems with a new one. There was no capacity internally to undertake this work.
Paul Kelly joined the company full time for nearly a year to deliver this project from planning through implementation, going live and post-live tuning. This involved:
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reviewing existing systems and producing a requirements specification for the new system;
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reviewing package solutions and customisation options to meet those needs;
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managing hands-on the implementation and configuration of the new systems, including staff training.
The role was also widened to include performing a risk review on the company's IT department.
The benefits to the company were:
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the undivided attention of someone with a very good knowledge of the accounting and management information systems software market, and experience in systems implementation;
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a genuine search for the most suitable products, rather than the common approach of only considering the one or two best known products in the sector;
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a driving force to keep the project on time;
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practical advice on balancing insight and complexity in the new MIS;
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seamless co-ordination with the internal IT department and external support organisations;
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delivery of the project within budget and on time - operational from the first post-merger year end.
Paul's skills which achieved this are:
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project management experience;
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systems selection and implementation experience;
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strategic IT skills.