The finalists in the Business Analyst and IT Service Manager of
the Year categories of the BCS IT Professional Awards
Continuing our series of articles profiling the finalists in the
BCS IT Professional Awards, this week we feature the shortlists for
the IT Service Manager of the Year sponsored by The Marval Group
and the Business Analyst of the Year.
The finalists for the Marval IT Service Manager of the Year award
are:
Ann Davies, Zurich Financial Services
Brendan McDermott, Liverpool Direct
Graham Downes, Royal Bank of Scotland Group
Roger Bannister, Retail Assist.
Providing ongoing service management, whether in-house or
outsourced is an important and often stressful task. The award aims
to recognise a service manager or leader who has been able to
demonstrate consistently high levels of service delivery through
well-motivated and highly competent staff. Evidence of swift
reaction to challenges and innovation was also important, as was
the measurement of results and customer satisfaction.
"IT service management is an important, and often underrated,
activity to ensure that the business achieves the desired benefits
from its operational IT. The panel sought evidence that candidates
were able to react swiftly and pragmatically to incidents and
challenges, implement a process-driven approach, while delivering
high levels of customer satisfaction - all of which are essential
qualities in a service manager," said Maggie Kneller, chairman of
the judging panel.
The finalists for Business Analyst of the Year Award are:
Alex Black, Royal Bank of Scotland Group
Mark Jessop, McDonald's Restaurants
Ian Milburn, Royal Bank of Scotland Group.
Finalists had to show that they had identified the system
requirements and demonstrated solutions that made a positive impact
on performance, such as growth, cost saving, accessibility and
improved functionality. The judges were also keen to see innovation
and problem solving ability.
The winners of all of the individual categories in the BCS IT
Professional Awards will be announced alongside the technology and
business achievement awards. These will be presented before an
audience of more than 700 IT professionals and VIP guests on
Wednesday 24 September at the Hilton Park Lane Hotel in
London.
For more information about the awards, contact Nisha Mukhey
020-7234 8711
Nisha.Mukhey@quest-media.com
www.bcs.org/awards/professional/
What the judges said about the finalists for the IT
Service Manager of the Year award
Ann Davies, Zurich Financial Services
As an IT service manager supporting 16,000 internal customers, Ann
Davies focuses on the quality of relationships with her customers
and has developed a successful "working in partnership" model.
Davies is dedicated to constantly improving service and the
customer experience of dealing with the IT division.
Graham Downes, Royal Bank of Scotland
As the Royal Bank of Scotland's integration of NatWest reached its
peak, Graham Downes led a series of 12 projects assuring
operational readiness of the new environment. Downes successfully
delivered an ITIL-based approach across key service management and
operational management disciplines, ensuring that the group could
run, support and deliver service on the new target applications and
infrastructure to its 18 million customers.
Alex Black, Royal Bank of Scotland
Alex Black worked on the NatWest/ Royal Bank of Scotland merger
in the loan migration area. His niche was the fixed-rate loan
market, which accounted for 800,000 loans and £5bn in business.
Problems delayed work by six months and increased costs
substantially. Black's solution was to split loan balances so that
the migration was successfully handled on the migration
weekend.
Mark Jessop, McDonald's
Mark Jessop worked to sell more burgers through his Euromission
and Plan to Win campaigns. The challenge was to implement
centralised reporting of customer feedback and outlet responses.
The number of reports was reduced from seven to three. His latest
McDrive project is a suite of reports which to date has saved £1.3m
and has been extended to 12 countries.
Roger Bannister, Retail Assist
At Retail Assist, Roger Bannister managed the successful
integration of a pan-European support contract for Burberry and
enabled the provision of out-of-hours support for 2,100 Thresher
Group stores. A recent client satisfaction survey proved the
success of Bannister's robust service model - 96% of clients polled
had a good overall impression of support provided by the
helpdesk.
Brendan McDermott, Liverpool Direct
Brendan McDermott has been the key driver in changing IT services
at Liverpool City Council, ensuring that the IT portfolio reached
Beacon status earlier this year. McDermott's approach was
underpinned with a performance framework that he created, which
addressed both people issues and result-based objectives.
Ian Milburn, Royal Bank of Scotland
Ian Milburn worked on the NatWest/Royal Bank of Scotland
integration project for two years. His area of expertise was
voucher processing clearing systems within and between banks. These
varied greatly and were designed to avoid fraud. His work earned
him a team excellence award and two personal excellence awards.