Customer Project Manager

CAREER OBJECTIVE

To work in an organization that provides me an opportunity to utilize my business and project management skills and diverse technology experience to make a positive impact on society.

PROFESSIONAL SUMMARY

• 6+ years of overall experience, with 3+ years in project management across Middle East and Asia.

• Certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and Ericsson Experienced Customer Project Manager (EPM) in the Consulting & Systems Integration domain.

• Extensive experience in managing systems integration projects from pre-sales to final delivery.

• Experience in managing cross-functional teams from different regions and cultures.

• Excellent interpersonal skills in communications, client relations, and negotiation with proven capabilities to communicate with C-level executives.

EXPERIENCE

February 2009 to Present Customer Project Manager (CPM) – Systems Integration (SI) with Ericsson, India

• Delivered 12+ complex projects with cumulative budget in excess of $ 70M as per PMI and Ericsson’s PROPS-C guidelines.

• Complete adherence to CPM@Ericsson KPI targets for time, cost and billing plans.

• Generated sales leads to the tune of $ 3M based on scope creeps and new opportunity scanning.

• Single point of contact for 40+ CPMs within Ericsson for management and operational related issues.

• Mentoring and inductions for the newly joined CPMs.

• Selecting and managing 3PP vendors for outsourced activities.

Achievements:

• Letter of appreciation from Ericsson India MD for flawless GPRS implementation projects and maintaining 100% footprint in Vodafone.

• Winner of several trophies and cash awards for demonstrating good team and project management capabilities.

• Nominated for Excellerate and Silicon Valley Innovator fast track leadership programs within Ericsson.

Key Projects Handled

1. Data Charging (SACC – Service Aware Charging and Control) Project

• This project, worth $ 5M, entailed the introduction of Ericsson’s SACC solution based on GGSN 2010A, SAPC 2010A and SASN 2010A nodes. The solution entailed introduction of more 100 parent data plans and 4 services packages, 2 volume add-ons and 2 service add-ons, thereby offering a combination of 834 use cases to Vodafone’s 110 million subscribers.

• Managed a team of 43 resources that included individuals from 3 different continents. I was responsible for end to end management of this project, starting from pre-sales to delivery and executed this project in the form of an EoT model.

• The project had several challenges, most notably being late hardware deliveries, lack of competent resources, high attrition rate, complex and new product technologies, changing business requirements and an overall solution that was rated as one of the complex in the world by Ericsson PLM. I overcame these challenges through clear and concise communication with all stakeholders, having regular steering meetings with the top management, keeping in constant touch with the PLM, mentoring and coaching the new members of the SACC team. In addition, I followed a rigorous change management process to ensure that the triple constraints and managed in line with any approved change.

The project was delivered successfully within a budget of $ 5M and duration of 13 months.

2. GPRS Expansion Programme (Phases I, II, III, IV)

• This project, worth $ 20M, was expansion and topology migrations of the Vodafone GPRS network across India. High level work included: new packet core nodes roll-out, migrating MPBN networks from Juniper to Smart Edge routers, law intercept integration, DNS migration from Solaris Bind to IPworks and firewall migration.

• Managed a team of 15 resources and was responsible for pre-sales, contract management, bare-bone scoping, developing project schedule, preparing and tracking budget, planning resources, developing and managing project team, risk management and scheduled weekly review meetings.

• The project was marked with challenges since day 1 due to introduction new MPBN R7 solution with Smart Edge products and the existing complex network. I played a key role to manage expectations of the stakeholders through detailed risk analysis and regular communication.

The overall program was delivered successfully within a budget of $ 18.8M and duration of 27 months.

3. Dynamic Discounting Solution

• This project, worth $ 1.25M, was the first ever DDS2.0 deployment in the world that entailed launching of the service directly for 400k subscribers of Vodafone

• Key responsibilities included end to end project delivery by conducting regular risk workshops with all stakeholders, mitigating, analysing and communicating risks, communicating for input gathering and status updates with C level executives across Vodafone and top/line management within Ericsson, interacting with 3PP vendors to freeze and review SLAs and tracking planned vs. actual cost burn

• Despite several product related issues, the service was made live as per the planned launch date. The project was hailed as a major success and was featured on the cover page of Ericsson’s In Touch magazine.

The project was delivered successfully within a budget of $ 1.2M and duration of 5 months.

3. Project: OSS Implementation Project

• This project, worth $ 1.2M was to implement a NOC for the GPRS network of Vodafone India.

• The project scope was to integrate all GPRS nodes of Vodafone India into a single NOC that can be used for alarms and performance monitoring.

• With over a 100 nodes of packet core and MPBN to be integrated, the project entailed leading a team of experts from multiple network domains such as firewalls, routers, switches, etc. and making all focus towards a common goal.

• The project had been under constant time constraints due to the unavailability of resources with the right competence and the wide geographical spread (resources from India, Italy, Australia & Ireland) of the team. I overcame these challenges through a robust communication plan and clear roles and responsibilities’ assignments. This ensured that the team assumed collective responsibility and worked towards a shared vision.

The project was successfully completed within the budget and time frame. It was the first ever integration of GPRS nodes with OSS and was used as a business case by Ericsson for others worldwide.

December 2005 to June 2007 GPRS & IMS Technical Consultant with Ericsson, Muscat, Oman

Projects Handled

• GPRS network swap from Siemens to Ericsson infrastructure for Oman Mobile

• Multimedia Messaging Center installation for Nawras Telecom

• Implementation of Service Aware Charging and Control and GPRS Gateway Support Node across 4 sites for STC, Saudi Arabia

• IP Multimedia Subsystem Push to Talk service setup for Oman Mobile

Achievements:

• Successfully conducted GPRS network migration from Omantel to Oman Mobile, resulting in savings of USD 22,000 for the operator.

• Played a key role in securing USD 1.2M SACC implementation contract from STC, Saudi Arabia

• Adjudged Best Performing Consultant by Oman Mobile.

Aug 2004 to Dec 2005 Value Added Services Engineer with Vodafone, Mumbai, India

Responsibilities:

• Operations management of VAS nodes such as SMSC, Prepaid, GPRS, WAP, MMS, etc.

• Administration of VAS LAN network and pan India WAN network.

Achievements:

• Managed conflicts with roaming marketing and testing teams for IR.35 testing related issues.

• Developed an NMS program that allows the remote monitoring of VAS nodes, thereby significantly minimizing outage periods.

• Nominated for the ‘Employee of the Year’ award for single handedly managing the Hutchison Value Added Services Network during the July 2005 floods in Mumbai.

EDUCATION & TRAINING

2011 Ericsson Certified Experienced Customer Project Manager (EPM) in Consulting &

Systems Integration (C&SI)

2009 PMI Project Management Professional (PMP) certified

2009 Ericsson PROPS-C Project Management Certification

2008 MBA in Finance, Asian Institute of Management (AIM), Manila, Philippines and Indian Institute of Management (IIMB), Bangalore (India)

2004 Bachelor of Engineering, Information Technology, Mumbai University, India

Achievements:

• In top 10% of the MBA 2008 batch (Dean’s Lister)

PERSONAL INFORMATION

Date of birth Sept. 23, 1982

Passport No. J5472243

Nationality Indian

Marital status Married

Languages Known English (Fluent), Hindi (Mother Tongue)

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