Business Analyst

TARIQ ALI B.Com, MCP 416-***-**** ******.***@*****.***

TARGET: BUSINESS CONSULTANT / BUSINESS ANALYST

Business Consultant Professional with 17+ years’ experience supporting complex IT, IVR, telecommunications and process improvement projects from initiation to close while providing effective leadership, guidance, and motivation to cross-functional project teams. Offers exceptional capabilities in gathering and translating business requirements into deployable technical solutions, combined with advanced training and certification in Business Analysis and Project Management. Advanced experience and expertise in the redesign and optimization of technical business processes earned at the head of numerous project teams as well as a solid track record delivering project completion within established timeline, budget, and SLA parameters. Brings exceptional skills in technical team leadership and end to end business analysis, reinforced with demonstrable skills in preparing in-depth requirements and process documentations, business process diagrams, documents-based test cases, and end user manuals.

CORE STRENGTHS & TECHNICAL SKILLS

Business Analysis

Business Process Improvement

Business Requirements

Business/Test Cases

Change Management

Continuous Improvements

Escalation Strategy

Impact Analysis

KPIs

Leadership & Collaboration

MS Office Suite

Policy/Procedure Development

Post-Launch Issue Tracking

Problem Solving

Process Analysis

Process Design

Product Roadmaps

Project Management

Requirement Gathering

Risk Mitigation

Solution Design & Implementation

Stakeholder Relationships

System Requirements

Technical Documentation & Reporting

Technical Writing

Traceability Matrix

EXPERIENCE

Senior Business Consultant (Contract) June 2015 - Present

CIBC and Simplii Financial, Toronto, ON

Contracted by CIBC to work as a Senior Business Consultant on an IVR project to lead Simplii Financial IVR platform changes to the new Genesis system. During different phases planned, gathered, defined, validated and managed business requirements, using proven Business Analysis methods, techniques and tools. Key facilitator and negotiator between multiple Business teams, technical teams and External Vendor teams to ensure effective elicitation of requirements and a thorough understanding of bank’s operating environments and future business needs. Lead ‘review & sign off processes’ of extensive Business Documentation, Implementation strategies and related project milestones.

Key Contributions:

Ensure right requirements gathering steps are followed during requirement gatherings.

Hands on experience in writing policies and procedures for requirements gathering frame work.

Delegate high level requirements and conceptual solution specs to the BAs.

Walk stake holders through the current state and future state IVR call flows.

Identify pain points and optimization opportunities and incorporated them into BRD (Business Requirement Document) and SRD (System Requirement Document).

Facilitate and Review UAT test plans and test cases and provide any required edits before securing Senior Management sign off.

Conduct JAD sessions and follow ups.

SME (Subject matter expert) for IVR and Routing call flows and related artifacts i.e. business rules, data elements, Change Tracker, IVR Messages, USC (User System Configuration) documents.

Write business cases and socialize them with senior management to get funding approved.

Ensure project alignment within the initial mandate and report weekly status update to Senior management.

Projects:

ECCO:

Enterprise Contact Centre Optimization Program (ECCO). This program refreshed the organization’s aging telephony and contact centre infrastructure and added enhanced business functionality that supported evolving from product-centric to client-centric. It determined and executed the optimal solution, delivery and support model and transformed the contact centre technology platform to achieve the strategic business objectives.

Supported successful completion of the project by providing expertise as a Senior Business Consultant in IVR new design and implementation across various CIBC lines of business.

Reviewed, compared and documented Legacy and Future IVR designs and captured all functionalities and enhancements.

Worked with Business and Technical teams and prepared BRD and SRD. Managed any follow ups and got sign off from all stakeholders.

Aligned project with initial mandate and delivered status reports to senior management on regular basis.

PALMA:

Contact Center rebranding project. Rebranded complete IVR and Contact Center Agent Desktops from “President’s Choice Financial” to “Simplii Financial”.

Served as a lead IVR and Agent Desktop Business Consultant, defined business and support requirements.

Managed workshops with CIBC (Simplii) and tech partner to communicate business impact of changes.

Worked with Business and Technical teams and prepared BRD and SRD. Managed any follow ups and got sign off from all stakeholders.

Coordinated testing of new IVR design and coordinate all issue resolution.

Supported go-live and handled post-deployment issues.

Simplii Financial Credit Card Launch:

Simplii Financial introduced their first Credit Card product in the market. Support was requested for this product in the IVR and through Contact Center.

Supported successful completion of the project by providing expertise as a Senior Business Consultant in Agent Desktop updates, IVR new design and implementation across various CIBC (Simplii Financial) lines of business.

Worked with Business and Technical teams and prepared BRD and SRD. Managed any follow ups and got sign off from all stakeholders.

Designed the new IVR options and menus using MS Visio. Merged the new IVR menus in the existing IVR menus and prepared the full design diagram with all the required details i.e. Business Rules and Routing Strategies etc.

Hosted review sessions with Business and the technology partners to discuss the requirements, IVR design and implementation.

Liaison between Business and technology teams and prepared Contact Center Agent Desktop requirements and documented them to the BRD and SRD.

Aligned project with initial mandate and delivered status reports to senior management on regular basis.

Senior Business Analyst (Contract) Aug 2013 – Jun 2015

Cogeco Cable, Burlington, ON

Hired under contract by this telecommunications and media company to gather business requirements and maintain business processes on complex multi-million dollar projects. Collaborated cross-functionally with multi-disciplinary technical teams, stakeholders, and various other project personnel to meet set deadlines.

Served as a Lead BA for these projects:

Genesis (Aug 2013-Mar 2014)

Video Back Office Replacement (Jan 2015 to Jun 2015)

TiVo Launch Ontario (Apr 2014 to Feb 2015)

TiVo Launch Quebec (Nov 2014 to Apr 2015)

Delivered in projects during different phases i.e. Definition, Implementation, Field Trial and Rollout:

Business Requirements

Cost Assessment

Impact Analysis

Process Gap Analysis

High Level Test Strategy

Process Updates

Process Validation Strategy & Tracking

KPIs and Reporting

Field Trial Readiness

Ops & Support Transition & Guide

Escalation Strategy

Post Launch Issue Tracking

Lessons Learned

Enhanced knowledge of end-users, administrators, support specialists and subject experts by writing technical documentation including online guides, white papers, and tutorials.

Ensured seamless project changes by handling review, investigation, approval, publishing, follow-up, and closure in addition to technical process documentation.

Aided effective disaster recovery testing between Ontario and Quebec by creating detailed processes with all shareholders and managing resources during exercise to complete test.

Contributed to successful launch of TiVo in Ontario and Quebec over a year by identifying process, functional, technical, and organizational requirements while supporting process development.

Generated cost savings and cut process time through process validation tracking to remove redundant steps while facilitating proper integration of process into system with no negative impact.

Served as primary business analyst on Video on Demand (VOD) back office replacement project, collaborating with various departments to gather business requirements.

Business Analyst (Contract), IBM CANADA LTD, Toronto, ON Mar 2013 - Jul 2013

Bank of Nova Scotia

Audited data-sensitive equipment for bank and collected and updated asset information held in high-security locations. Updated inventory of secure equipment to existing database of over 250K assets using Excel and internal database tools.

Business Analyst, Call Center Management Aug 2003 – Dec 2012

Hewlett Packard Canada Ltd, Toronto, ON

Led a series of projects as well as engaged as channel partner account representative charged with building partner relationships and providing solutions to consumer service providers. Improved quality of customer care by creating system functions. Reduced labor budget by 75% and cut headcount of third-party vendors from 25 to 5. Served as business analyst to lead change processes during global restructuring.

Led the upgrade of all 3rd party vendor computer systems to Windows 7 to align with new HP IT standards across 5 global call centres with over 5000 users affected.

HP North American IVR Redesign Project: Managed telecom and reporting requirements and testing to identify areas to improve IVR response, dropping handle times from 3.5 to 1 minute with 5% YOY increase in satisfaction data.

HP Canada Geo Mix Project: This project was to plan a good Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Plan for HP North American call centers. Completed the project by switching support of HP Notebooks, Desktops, Printers and other accessories to different global call center vendors while managing the telecom and reporting changes and implementation.

HP Canada Accessibility Support Line Implementation: Led data planning and reconciliation and collaborated with IT and Telecom to coordinate an accessible program and new support phone number with the reporting option.

HP North American Invoice Reconciliation project: Spearheaded the implementation of an audit layer of reporting to enable more efficient and accurate audits of invoices from all call center vendors.

HP Call Directors Training and Process Adherence: Led project to improve the efficiency of call routing and created a training program which produced an increase in adherence to processes and met and exceeded CSAT goals.

Analysed call centers performance and score cards daily i.e. CSAT, DSAT, Service levels, AHT, Abandon Rate, ASA etc. by running reports using BRIO and MS Excel.

Additional Experience includes Support Analyst (2000 – 2002) with CGI Group Inc.

EDUCATION & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Project Management (2011) University of Toronto Microsoft Certified Professional (MCP) (2001) Microsoft Corp.

Computer Network Specialist (Honors) Diploma (1999) Shaw College Bachelor of Commerce (1998) University of Karachi

TECHNICAL PROFICIENCIES

Microsoft Office Suites (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Access, Outlook, Visio, Project etc.) Microsoft Operating Systems MS SharePoint Google Drive Google Docs

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