Sales Customer
Resume:
Byron J Ferguson
Mobile: 210-***-****
Email: **************@***.***
Converse, TX 78109
LinkedIN Byron Ferguson
PROFESSIONAL PROFILE
Highly versatile IT leader with proven success across the entire development, sale, delivery and support life cycle for both Products and Services. Adept in evaluating enterprise needs to generate a portfolio of perfect-fit technology, services and tools. Outstanding infrastructure management capabilities with career experience of defining the architecture of enterprise-scale solutions for SMB through Fortune 500 organizations. Management of multi million-dollar Annual Operating Plans and projects, under budget and on schedule, played an instrumental role in revenue generation. Seamlessly managed local staff, geographically distributed personnel and off-shore development teams for 20+ years.
BACKGROUND SUMMARY
Enterprise Datacenter Design and Construction
Product Management / Development
Partner & Vendor Integration and Evaluation
Program Management & Business Development
Global Professional Services Management
Product Development & Engineering
Enterprise Datacenter Management
Services & Solution Development
Best Practice / Standard Operating Procedures
Geographically Dispersed Team Management
Policies & Procedures Development
Off-shore Developer / Delivery Management
Engineering, Delivery & User Training / Support
Resource Planning & Management
Critical Incident Management
Backup & Disaster Recovery Strategies
Global Client Relationship Management
Project Management
Technical Background includes:
Windows 7 / 8, VSphere 4.1, Red Hat Linux ES, Python, Perl, Ruby on Rails, LUA, Microsoft Office Suite
Technical Certifications Attained include:
CCENT, CCNA, CEH, CHFI, ECSA, Security+, MCDA–SQL Server, MCSE–Windows Server, MCSE + Security, and MCSE + Messaging
PROFESSIONAL ACCOMPLISHMENTS
Director, IT Operations and Program Management 2016-2017
Instor Solutions
Responsible for the design and delivery of Enterprise Datacenters for both domestic and international clients.
Some of the clients we serviced are Oracle, Apple, CoreSite Datacenters and Digital Realty Datacenters.
Manage and grow all aspects of service delivery. Define, create, and maintain service performance metrics that are used to analyze efficiency, identify areas for improvement along with the requisite plan(s) to execute. Established standardized SOW's and related artifacts to ensure global consistency of Instor’s Professional Services.
Developed a service portfolio for sales and support to ensure exemplary datacenter solution designs, implementation and ongoing support as needed. This was leveraged across all geographies for consistency and to exceed customer expectations.
Implemented new service offerings which included onsite consulting, advisory consultant for customer technology and innovation direction, helping them to define the best solution for the need today and tomorrow.
Director, IT Operations and Program Management 2015-2016
Methode Data Solutions
Responsible for the management and oversight of all aspects for assigned Global Key Accounts. These included RackSpace, WorldWide Technolgies and MasterCard. Included in my scope was to identify new material and professional service sales opportunities, the design and delivery of solutions, coaching on architecture and technology directions as well as oversight on significant customer support evolutions.
Tasked with identifying potential new business partner opportunities and to determine whether a partnership, an acquisition or other course was recommended. This process was standardized by utilizing a weighted scale to determine viability and fitness of the business relationship, culminating in a “Stop Light Style” dashboard for leadership and executive staff to analyze. The scale incorporated the technology platform used, development discipline / defect tracking / code management, customer support capability (24/7/365), delivery capability, sales capability, company fiscal stability and customer perception / rating.
Director, IT Operations and Program Management 2014-2015
Abacus Solutions Group
Responsible for the IT Operations of the company as well as the services personnel deployed in the field. Oversee the operations of our internal IT systems, applications and availability. Due to primarily government contracting operations, a functional DR plan and 24/7 availability of our systems is critical.
Provide Executive Sponsorship for priority customer support issues. Manage the Support Event with all engaged parties to ensure expectations are properly set and that clear and timely communications flow occurs. Provide consistent updates the executive staff of key players to keep them informed so critical business decisions can be made quickly if needed.
Manage the Professional Services organization with all field personnel (80+ nationwide) who are supporting, designing or delivering solutions to our customers. Responsible for managing the relationships with our customers and to ensure the highest level of satisfaction for our services.
Senior Director, Critical Situation Manager 2012-2014
Hitachi Data Systems
Expanding on the Customer Care Advocate role and formalizing the organization to increase coverage to 24/7/365 worldwide. Headcount assigned in all geographies to facilitate timely and precise customer recovery and ensure positive customer satisfaction. Leverage impeccable communication skills to foster relations among C-level decision-makers of diverse internal, customer, and partner organization to drive issue / incident resolution; defined policies and procedures for internal / external collaborations supporting customer engagements.
Feedback from customer base and internal organizations was exemplary. “A significant improvement in customer expectation, understanding and satisfaction, even during times of extreme duress due to a major outage or event.” The credibility of our support teams to rapidly care for our customer base in the face of disaster (either self-inflicted or other) was dramatically increased, resulting in net new business (15% @ $1.4M USD) and renewals (90% @ $9M USD) from many of those impacted. Hitachi Data Systems Customer Support ratings rose sharply year on year due to the increased focus, exceptional talent and extreme care provided to our customers.
Senior Director, Customer Care Advocate 2011-2012
Hitachi Data Systems
Selected for inaugural role leading sales support, service delivery and issue resolution for global accounts.
Defined the role and its responsibilities, including formalization of standard operating procedures (SOP) and definition of common deliverables; established a tiered support and escalation model and defined customer tiers for implementation in automated call center routing for preferred clients.
Fostered exceptional customer relations through a talent for understanding, distilling and communicating core customer needs, issues and concerns to all levels of engagement; from deep technical personnel to executive leadership. Received multiple company Awards and customer appreciation for managing the expectations and recovery of major global account outages. Organization was expanded and adopted across the Hitachi families worldwide.
Senior Director, Global Systems Engineering 2004-2011
Hitachi Data Systems
Expanded the previous position of PI&E to include global Services Development efforts. By leveraging the Cradle-to-College concept, worked closely with Product Management, Product Management-Innovation, Sales, Customer Support, Professional Services, our Partners and others to generate offerings that encompassed the entire solution requirement, which would later be made into repeatable solutions for other clients. The Weighted Scale Analysis tool was also leveraged in all aspects of external company engagements. (This is described in the PI&E position below.) This is inclusive of initial level of effort scoping, required coding, QA, pilot and early adoption delivery that may later result in a Managed Services solution with staff augmentation. Provide post-implementation sales, support, and training assistance, both internally and to the clients. Staff is located across (4) data centers (US, Australia, and UK) with additional off-shore teams performing sustaining engineering, new development and product / customer support (Mumbai & Kuala Lumpur). Managed $18.5M P&L for 80+ global personnel, Development / Test / Partner labs in each datacenter as well as the off-shore teams and their facilities.
Consistent, repeatable solutions that are far more conducive to selling. Increased Professional Services revenue and profitability due to documentation and training for sales, over 50% reduction delivery expense by leveraging remote delivery / support where able, an estimated 35% decreased time to market and revenue recognition by “seeding the field” with trained personnel. This model is now in use across multiple companies within Hitachi worldwide.
Director, Product Integration & Evaluation 2001-2004
Hitachi Data Systems
Conducted vendor and partner product / service evaluations for Product Management-Innovation (new external offerings) and created a Weighted Scale Analysis tool recommending acquisition, partnership or disengagement for the executive team, clearly enumerating any value propositions and risks. Managed $3.7M P&L for 30+ personnel in (2) geographies, Development / Test / Partner labs in (2) datacenters and their facilities.
The Weighted Scale took into account their development methods, tools, staffing for development, sustaining engineering, support, delivery, sales teams, etc. It also captured their documentation methodologies, their collaboration tools (StarTeam, SalesForce.com, and others) and their financial status (number of rounds of funding, privately owned, public, cash-debt ratio).
Once approved, I was tasked with generating a pilot offering that matched the scope of the evolution. This is a concept I call “Cradle-to-College”. In essence, take a requirement that may be unique in the industry, match that with external and internal technology and generate a solution that addresses the use case. Take the pilot and refine it for repeatability; document the selling model, the support model, design procedures and delivery procedures. Train personnel and transition the new offering to core organizations, then reset for the next evolution. The solution is now ‘off to college’. While we were still available for urgent support, it was mainly the responsibility of the core organizations.
Provided a consistent model for sound recommendations to our executive committee that included both fiscal and validated technical data. This resulted in the acquisition of several companies, partnering with many as well as disengagement from others. This model is in use in multiple companies across Hitachi worldwide.
By centralizing the delivery material, content management and collaboration effort for new offerings that are not part of the company’s core knowledge, we were able to provide development and engineering efforts much more efficiently, provide comprehensive training to more personnel effectively, be far more successful with early adopter programs and subsequently moving the offering into our standard portfolio with long-term revenue generation capabilities.
Pioneered an innovative practice of rotating resources (sales, delivery, product management and others.) through the Cradle-to-College engineering effort which increased expertise on all teams for the unfamiliar complex products and solution deliverables. This tangibly reduced time to market, markedly improved customer satisfaction and their confidence in our ability as a solution provider. Perhaps most importantly, this resonated within our company, instilling confidence and trust in our sales and support teams, generating a desire to leverage the “New and Unknown” offerings rather than focusing on the comfortable products they knew.
Director, Global Technical Services 1999-2001
Hitachi Data Systems
Selected for inaugural role, to create and launch the Hitachi Data Systems services organization from the ground up; defined end-to-end engagement model and all workforce / technology resource requirements with a focus on service delivery, repeatability and profitability. Established cross-functional technical teams to support the sales organization with the unfamiliar task of selling services vs storage or mainframe products.
Generated the 1st open systems practice (mainframe only prior). By leveraging our storage platforms and new partners, built a business from zero to a $34M profit in 24 months with a global presence of over 80 personnel. This included staff augmentation, solutions for banking, medical, a new Microsoft Solution practice focused on messaging and collaboration tools, as well an Oracle solutions practice. This is now a $1B annual business unit.
EMPLOYMENT HISTORY
Instor Solutions
Director, Global Professional Services
2016-2017
Methode Data Solutions, Dallas, TX
Director, IT Operations and Program Management
2015-2016
Manage and oversee all aspects of assigned Global Key Accounts
Identify potential new business partner opportunities, determine whether partnership, acquisition or other is recommended.
Abacus Solutions Group, San Antonio, TX
Director, IT Operations and Program Management
2014-2015
Oversight of IT operations, Customer Support and Satisfaction, Program Management of Professional Services business, Proposal response, personnel staffing and deployment operations.
Hitachi Data Systems, San Antonio, TX (Remote Office)
Sr. Director, Critical Situation Management
2012-2014
Formalized CCA role into global organization responsible for Premier Global Account’s satisfaction and support.
Hitachi Data Systems, San Antonio, TX (Remote Office)
Sr, Director, Customer Care Advocate
2011-2012
Inaugural role responsible for Premier Global Account’s satisfaction and support.
Hitachi Data Systems, San Antonio, TX (Remote Office)
Sr. Director, Global Services Engineering
2004-2011
Responsible new Product Innovation and Solutions development worldwide.
Hitachi Data Systems, San Antonio, TX (Remote Office)
Director, Product Integration & Evaluation
2001-2004
Responsible for new Product Innovation development and evaluating the potential of partners and vendors.
Hitachi Data Systems, St. Louis, MO (Remote Office)
Director, Professional Services
1999-2001
Inaugural role in launching the Professional Services arm, with focus on an Open Systems portfolio.
Rose International, St. Louis, MO
Master Consultant
1996-1999
Responsible for technical oversight & engagement of major contracts; NAVAIR, Pentagon, SBC and others.
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