Project Management

Earl Toler

Email: **********@********.***

Address: ***** ***** ******** **

City: Prior Lake

State: MN

Zip: 55372

Country: USA

Phone: 757-***-****

Skill Level: Senior

Salary Range: > $250,000

Willing to Relocate

Primary Skills/Experience:

See Resume

Educational Background:

See Resume

Job History / Details:

EARL M. TOLER

14288 Wilds Overlook NW Prior Lake, MN 55372 Cell: 757-***-**** Home: 952-***-**** Email: **********@********.***

I.T. / Business Executive

IT / Business Executive providing a progressive 35 year Business and Technology career in the retail industry during employment with a Fortune 10 / 50 - $42/$60 billion retail and wholesale company and consulting services. Having laid an extensive Business career up front to include managing Stores, Districts and Regions then moving to Merchandising, Buying and Corporate Development it has allowed me to be a much more effective Business advocate within IT Leadership. Having an intimate understanding of the Business challenge has provided me unique insight into combining my business acumen and IT strategy to solve complex issues in a collaborative manner creating the trust and partnership approach so needed for successful implementations. Success is based on business driven expertise in IT project management, IT systems evaluation and improvements, IT contract negotiations, vendor and service provider management, systems testing, requirements gathering, technology business alignment, maintenance, all support tiers and professional service contract negotiations.

BUSINESS ROLES: REGION DIRECTOR DISTRICT MANAGER DIRECTOR OF CORPORATE DEVELOPMENT DIRECTOR OF WHOLESALE PROCUREMENT STORE DIRECTOR

Career Highlights:

Excelled at operation excellence through top line sales growth, total P & L accountabilities, customer satisfaction, conditions and resource management.

Recognized as a subject matter expert Retail and Merchandising technologies, schedule optimization, inventory shrink control, quality improvements, product presentation, staff management, and sales and profit improvements.

Providing reporting on initiatives as appropriate across the organization up to the "C" levels.

Responsible to understand and be current on technology changes and improvements that would improve the company performance and enhance the customer and associate experience.

Influenced a highly matrixed organization through understanding the business needs and promoting best in class or vertical (as required) applications to meet the business objectives.

Full application ownership from strategy, building consensus across the organization, managing the funding portfolio, development, testing, implementation as well as ongoing 24 x 7 support through tier 4.

Providing direction and leadership through the matixed organization to 800+ on and offshore associates.

Accustomed to leading teams working in Windows, UNIX, Linux, and client/server environments. Developed specialization in more than 15 technologies including POS, payments, time and attendance, schedule optimization, order entry, fuel and c-store, cashier monitoring, fresh product management, receiving, and many other systems.

Planned and effectively managed over 200 technology projects ranging from $100,000 to $50 million and involving 10 to 200 professionals on a single project. Projects focused on software and hardware upgrades, workforce management, labor optimization, new reward engines, optical recognition bottom of basket solutions, virtualized digital video recording technology, shrink control, shelf edge printing, access controls, and alarm monitoring. Multi-million dollar POS projects fully supported 4,000 corporate stores and 3,000 Independents.

Member of teams involved in Mergers & Acquisitions, and participated in due diligence activities.

IT Department and Staff Management IT Roadmap Development Build vs. Buy Decision Making IT Governance Hardware and Software Planning and Acquisition Risk Management IT Best Practices Business Continuity Plans Software Development and Leadership Budget Development and Management User Requirement Change Identification

IT Service Provider Management Sarbanes Oxley Compliance Internal and External Stakeholder Relationships Change Management

CAREER HISTORY

RETAIL 360 CONSULTING, CEO - Minneapolis, MN . June 2012 - Present

RETAIL STORE SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY CONSULTANT

Services and Expertise Include,

Systems Review - Understand the existing business processes and systems, and desired changes to add true value to the customer experience or client's every day work.

Evaluating IT systems and their ability to meet business requirements

Documenting the system's strengths and weaknesses and making recommendations for improvement

Systems Package Evaluation - Assess client's software packages options by:

Identifying system needs and evaluating packages to meet those needs

Preparing detailed cost estimates

Developing a comprehensive implementation plan

Preparing and making formal recommendations to client executive staff

Feasibility Study - Establish the business case for investment of client resources in an IT project by explaining the rationale for undertaking the project and analyzing its costs and benefits. This includes:

Evaluating system issues and researching alternatives

Preparing for and facilitating interviews and workshops with groups of stakeholders to validate an understanding of the business and gather additional information

Conducting a cost/benefit analysis and preparing a financial justification

Developing a detailed implementation plan to be executed by the client

Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) - As a member of a project team, work to assist and/or lead one or more of the following areas:

Gathering business and system requirements

Developing detailed technical design and specification documents

Overseeing the technical development (from both a software and hardware perspective)

Assisting in the planning and delivering of software training

Developing and executing implementation and cut-over plans

Final Cost / Benefit Review

Retail 360 maintains its independence from all software package, hardware, and outsourcing providers. This is unlike some consulting firms, which specialize in installing specific brands and skirt open consideration of all appropriate alternatives.

RETALIX, Prior Lake, MN 2011 to April 2012

SENIOR ACCOUNT EXECUTIVE

Joined a global provider of innovative software and services that supports retailers and distributors which work with supermarkets, convenience and fuel stores, drugstores, department stores, and other organizations. Hired based on vast knowledge of retail IT technologies, proven ability to work successfully at high levels of corporations, and existing relationships with Retalix executives.

Act as a trusted advisor and strategist, and collaborate with Fortune 10 (Target) leadership during the implementation of a sophisticated POS/self-checkout and payment system for 2,000 national and Canadian stores. Serve as a technical liaison among multiple stakeholders (SAP, JDA & Accenture) to ensure project is extremely successful. Also focus on customer relations, technology strategies, new opportunity development, multi-disciplined team and third party integrator collaboration, and problem solving.

Integral member of team that has delivered each project phase on time and exceeded expectations. Project is moving into the tactical, testing, pilot, and deployment and support stages.

SUPERVALU - Eden Prairie, MN

SENIOR DIRECTOR, SUPERVALU RETAIL SYSTEMS (2001 to 2011)

Staff; 110+, Direct Reports; 12 - Director, Senior Project Managers, Architects, Requirements Analysts, Business System Analysts, Support Analyst, Developers, Permanent Specialized Contractors

Selected by the Vice President of Retail Operations to manage an IT portfolio for a $45 billion retail and wholesale organization with 4,000 retail locations and 3,000 independent customers and 37 Distribution Centers with 200,000 + employees. Chosen for role based on previous experience in store management, knowledge of mission-critical business applications, and ability to align technology with business needs.

Demanding role involved department management, IT roadmap development, IT project management, program oversight, IT governance and best practices, IT and Sarbanes Oxley compliance strategies, and new technology evaluation and adoption. Furthermore, oversaw technology vendor negotiations, IT asset acquisition and management, IT planning, project prioritization and approval, technology committee chairmanship, IT staff development and mentoring, and multi-disciplined staff collaboration. Provided a cross channel support organization with staff in Minneapolis, Salt Lake City, Boise, Chicago, Boston and India.

Successfully led a $50 million project and team that built a standardized front-end system which included self-checkout features and a payment engine which supported 4,000 stores and over 100,000+ cashiers. Significant project streamlined a technology environment from six to one single POS system.

Managed a $9 million encryption solution to support customer payment activities and ensure alignment with PCI guidelines which affected 2,000 stores. Avoided business problems by circumventing any rogue software from being installed in the technology system which would collect confidential customer information. Project sustained the corporate brand image and maintained outstanding customer relationships.

Presided over a $5 million project, and led high-caliber IT Team that initiated a thin client standardized time and attendance application which boosted time and attendance and scheduling for 600 stores and 35,000 end-users.

Steered a $3 million project which involved a task management solution, and strengthened communication between all stores and corporate locations. Project provided a framework for customer surveys, task assignments, and compliance among 1,200 stores and 3,000 end-users.

Orchestrated a new fully integrated fuel controller and convenience store POS system and a new infrastructure which supported more than 100 corporate owned fuel centers.

Planned and managed a $3 million project to transition 1,200 stores to a thin client food safety recall system. Critical project was needed to protect consumers and safeguard company against any possible liabilities.

VICE PRESIDENT, INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY (1999 to 2001)

Staff: 37 Direct Reports; 6 - Director, Managers, Analysts, Programmers, Mainframe Engineer and Operators, Support Staff, Help Desk Professionals

Tapped to direct a team that supported Farm Fresh, Shoppers Food Warehouse, and Metro Foods which generated a total of $100 million in annual sales. Directed team that operated a data center and internal applications that helped sustain accounts payables, accounts receivables, payroll, human resources, pharmacy systems, and other business functions.

Contributed to the technology group through proactive leadership in IT project planning and management, technology contract negotiations, IT strategy execution, IT infrastructure analysis and improvements, roadmap development, software development, application development and support, network design, and POS systems management. Also accomplished in disaster recovery plans, data processing management, technology evaluations, ROI analysis, IT asset management, IT department management, staff recruiting, and budget management.

Planned and coordinated a $5 million technology project that totally upgraded a POS system, involved new hardware, upgraded codes, and improved payment systems used by 40 stores.

Accomplished in deploying a $2 million cashier monitoring system that enabled decision makers leading 100 stores to identify cashiers who not meeting business requirements and contributing to business issues.

Supervised teams that created multiple websites which provided potential and existing customers with key corporate information such as store locations, weekly promotions, and food recipes.

Other technology projects entailed a $1 million online shopping and store pickup solution as well as a scan based trading solution.

DIRECTOR OF RETAIL TECHNOLOGY (1997 to 1999)

Recognized need to start up a new retail support call center, and acquired $500,000 in technology systems to support 15 call center employees.

Participated in Y2K remediation activities which affected all corporate and retail systems.

DIRECTOR OF PRODUCTIVITY, WORK METHODS & BUDGETING (1992 to 1997)

Greatly improved efficiency at the employee and store level through productivity analysis and process improvement ideas.

Boosted customer service levels and store performance by pinpointing robust technology which contributed to total efficiency improvements.

Oversaw several industrial engineering time studies, configured an application, authored training materials, and integrated program into the company's annual planning process.

PROFESSIONAL TRAINING

Old Dominion University Norfolk VA - Hillsdale College Hillsdale, MI

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