IT Strategy & Effectiveness Consultant

ALAN D. ARIEL

**** ****** ***** **. ****://www.linkedin.com/in/alanariel

Louisville, KY 40245 http://alanariel.blogspot.com

502-***-**** (Cell) *********@*****.***

Executive Profile

Information Technology – Strategic Planning – Process & Project Delivery

Transformational Leader who excels at developing high performance technology and service delivery teams. Strong

track record in reviving and completing stalled projects and process initiatives. Skilled at applying technology to solve

business problems, adept at translating business objectives into actionable goals for technical staff. Experienced in IT

organizational design, optimizing teams and IT leadership for business success.

Selected Accomplishments

• Performed IT assessment and developed IT strategy for $800M Medicaid payer to position them for future

competition under ACA. Provided high level roadmap for an IT strategy to support business objectives.

• Implemented regional call center approach for sales that reduced sales headcount by half while increasing sales

by 50%.

• Renegotiated carrier contract to avoid a $2M shortfall penalty and achieved $750K in savings over term of

contract.

• Implemented first service level management program for key high growth business area, driving IT services to

respond and scale to operational needs.

Professional Experience

IT Strategy and Effectiveness Consultant April 2012 – Present

Responsibilities: Technology and leadership consultant with skills in IT management, organizational design, process

development, infrastructure, operations, architecture, and application development management.

• Performed IT assessment and developed IT strategy for $800M Medicaid payer to position them for future competition under

ACA. Assessed IT organization, skills, architecture, applications, BI, and external technology services. Provided high level

roadmap for an IT strategy to support business objectives, including prioritization of TPA outsourcing contract transition.

• Performed IT assessment and developed IT strategy for equipment distribution client to position them for future growth.

Assessed core business applications such as order entry, web portal, inventory management and warehouse management

systems. Reviewed IT organization, skills, architecture, and external technology services. Recommended transition to

cloud/IaaS vendor and refocusing IT on business application (inventory/warehouse management) support.

• Performed telephony assessment and evaluated vendor offerings (Avaya/Cisco VOIP) for a museum (non-profit) seeking to

replace legacy telephone systems. Recommended voice circuit reengineering increased capability at an annual savings in excess

of $20,000.

Vice President, Customer Operations, Appriss October 2011 – April 2012

Responsibilities: Direct leadership of 78 associates in Customer Support/Help Desk, Technical Support, Network Operations, and

Victim Services across a nationwide portfolio of public safety products and services. Maintenance and support of a nationwide data

network of jail and law enforcement data feeds.

• Led fragmented operations team through transformation and reorganization activities, forming core teams focused on Customer

Service and Technical Support functions.

Humana, October 2007 – September 2011

Strategic Consultant IT Service Management

Responsibilities: Implementation and maturing of IT Service Management programs across the enterprise, directly leading 15

associates in Incident Management, Problem Management, Change Management, Configuration Management, and Asset

Management for a Fortune 100 Healthcare Insurance Company.

• Implemented first business Service Level Management program in IT for Humana Pharmacy Business Unit, a key high-growth

business area. Established base level availability metrics for business applications and services with weekly reporting. Program

was formalized, staffed, and expanded to other key business areas

• Completed complex upgrade to existing IT Service Management suite (CA Service Desk) on time and under-budget. Upgrade

project had been stalled for over a year, stifling IT operations and Service Management productivity.

• Developed daily major incident and problem reporting process for all IT areas. Process was matured into an ITIL based Incident

and Problem Management process for all of IT.

• Implemented IT self-service process and system in response to user feedback and need to reduce help desk call volume. System

replaces multiple individual request systems, reducing request time and streamlining user experience.

Strategic Consultant Technology Engagement

Responsibilities: Provide guidance and leadership for cross-functional technology issues across an IT organization of over 2000

associates, supporting a Fortune 100 Health Insurance company.

• Served as key coordination resource for urgent Data Center Migration effort. Over 1300 servers (Windows/AIX), telephony

equipment (Avaya/Nortel), storage, and IBM mainframe migrated to new data center under adverse conditions. Complex

migration was successfully completed in less than 10 weeks with minimum business service impact.

• Process and coordination resource for major server virtualization (VMWare) project. Led efforts to develop migration and

testing approach with infrastructure and application teams.

• Participated as systems architecture resource in major legacy CRM system (n-tier, core mainframe, DB/2) review and high

availability analysis engagement with IBM Center of Excellence. Provided analysis and recommendations on future actions to

senior IT leadership.

• Provided leadership in problem analysis and system architecture for multiple issues and platforms including mainframe, web

services architecture, middleware components, databases, servers, and infrastructure.

Assistant Vice President, Networks, Rollins, September 1999 – September 2007

Responsibilities: Support and Infrastructure leader for a premier consumer services company with over 3000 field service

technicians and 400 branch locations geographically dispersed throughout the United States and Canada.($900M annual revenue)

Responsible for 45 associates, $5M in direct budget and $10M in service contracts.

• Developed and implemented regional call center strategy which employed a cross-functional business and technology team to

tailor business processes and technology for best results. Utilized Avaya voice technologies and carrier hosted Genesys platform

to manage call traffic on a nationwide basis. As a result, regions were able to achieve a 50% increase in sales leads while

reducing regional sales staff by half.

• Served as executive leader on Mobile Field Service Application development project. Provided design and architecture

guidance to application and infrastructure teams for portable Windows Mobile application and Symbol handheld devices.

• Developed and implemented strategy for Rollins Human Resources Service Center (HRSC). HRSC operates as a Human

Resources Help Desk with full telephony support, using recognized service center business processes, software tools, and

management metrics implemented in Remedy ARS. HRSC has significantly improved employee access to HR, Payroll, and

Benefits support across the enterprise.

• Served as subject matter expert on team to develop requirements for and to select a field service scheduling and routing system.

Requirements and selection criteria included affected business processes, technical approach, system architecture, and

evaluation of the optimization and scheduling algorithms presented. Recommended solution had potential to significantly

transform and improve field service and customer support activities.

• Developed and nurtured effective and responsive IT support teams. All teams improved internal customer satisfaction scores by

over 60% and were viewed as true partners who support business and operational objectives. All teams have achieved Level 2

on IT Service CMM evaluations.

• Reorganized a myriad of poor vendor relationships into strong partnerships with a few key strategic vendors, allowing company

to leverage vendor expertise without compromising ownership or accountability for success. Negotiated multiple vendor

contracts, including carrier voice and data services for the enterprise, achieving significant rate reductions and savings each

time.

ALLTEL Information Services, Telecom Division September 1995 – September 1999

Network Architect/Manager, Architecture Operations

Responsibilities: Network Architect supporting Client/Server Architecture Team. Manage requirements and plans for Electronic

Commerce Product Development. Includes Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment, Electronic Catalog, and other interfaces to

existing billing and customer care systems.

• Responsible for initial Electronic Bill Presentation and Payment (EBPP) engagement with first client. Evaluated EBPP

architecture options, including integration of third party presentment, payment, catalog, and server suites.

Internal Support Manager

Responsibilities: Development Tools (Source Code Management/Versioning), Operational Tools (Remedy ARS, Lotus Notes

Development), Web/Intranet Support and Operations, Voice Services, UNIX/PC/Network Equipment Purchasing, all servicing

Client/Server development and 24/7 support.

• Managed Annual Budget of $14M covering UNIX Production Assets, UNIX Development Assets, Development Support,

Network and PBX Infrastructure, and 18 Support Personnel. Included bill back responsibilities to division cost centers for

expenses and services.

Military Service

LCDR/O-4, U.S. Navy

Surface Operations Department Head, Qualified for Command at Sea

Veteran of Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm (First Gulf War)

Education/Professional Development

Leadership Development Program, July 2005

Center for Creative Leadership (CCL), Greensboro, NC (www.ccl.org)

ITIL Foundations, Certified January 2008

M.S. Operations Research, Naval Postgraduate School

- Concentration in Computational Methods, Optimization, Simulation, and Data Analysis.

B.S. Information and Computer Science, Georgia Institute of Technology

- Concentration in Data Communications, Systems Architecture, Compilers, and Operating Systems.

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