I can help you acheive your goals faster with the right technology strategy and implementation. Giving you the flexibility and value you need from your technology to enable your vision.
"As CTO Mike did an excellent job of supporting me and my colleagues to deliver a wide-ranging business and technology integration programme. Mike is hard working, solution orientated and committed to delivering the right technology to solve business problems." - Terry Sweeney, Divisional Director at Wilmington plc
When innovation stalls, you risk irrelevance fast. A lack of fresh approaches, for example in AI, and efficient technologies can lead to outdated products and services that fail to meet evolving customer demands. Getting back on track shouldn't require a full technology reset. Speed to market through iterative improvements can transform your business.
Companies can fall behind competitors who leverage modern tools to enhance efficiency and customer experience, increasing their market share and brand value. A technology operationg plan that enables business goals, with incremental delivery to solve the most important customer problems, and gaining on-going competitve advantage.
An organisation unable to scale its technology infrastructure may struggle to support growth, leading to bottlenecks and limited operational capacity. Process automation and removing blockers for key staff and delivery teams, can increase cadence and getting back to growth.
A lack of technology skills or leadership can hamper delivering to evolving customer needs. This talent gap creates challenges in executing complex technical projects and staying competitive in a knowledge-driven industry. Filling the gaps can be through assessing the existing team, collaborative ways of working and process improvements.
When technology systems are outdated or overly complex, they can slow down execution and responsiveness to market needs. Complete replacement of your technology stack may not be the answer, with upgrading via incremental change seeing faster results and not impacting stable parts of the existing solution.
Poor data and cybersecurity practices can expose your company to risks of data breaches, cyberattacks, and regulatory fines. Accreditations like Cyber Essentials and ISO 27001 can help give cyber focus in your company and credibility with customers. A strong security framework is essential to protect sensitive information, maintain customer trust, and ensure business continuity.
"Mike and I have worked closely on the transformation of our London offices, working practices and business integration. My Executive Team colleagues and I have enjoyed working with Mike over the last three years: he’s reliable, driven, solution focussed and always professional." - Tony Bainbridge, HR Director at Wilmington plc
i.) Changed technology leadership group, introduced new software engineers, and restructured Infrastructure & Support.
ii.) Provided clear roles & responsibilities, ways of working (SCRUM & ITIL), and professional development (SFIA) for a team with enthusiasm but lacked direction.
iii.) Set-up product management split by Product Strategy (market & customer needs) and Product Owners (user needs), with new processes & training for cross-company working.
i.) Launched DNA-based service, GenoCells, by extending microservice architecture, significantly reducing turn-around time for farmers, by testing milk herd, rather than individual animal but with same results.
ii.)Introduced e-commerce for B2B SaaS, opening in a new territory (USA) providing instant access on purchase.
iii.) Led IT due dilligence, integration & synergies on 6 acquistions & 3 divestments
i.) Delivered the innovative common job advertising platform for 14 businesses, using natural language processing (NLP) for CV analysis, job matching and candidate matching; significantly reducing time to market for enhancements & enabling material increase in revenue (more than doubled 7-figure revenue), whilst winning “Best Technology of the Year”.
ii.) Using IBM's Watson Discovery (using NLP), automatically summarised Annual Reports for FTSE 100 and S&P 500 companies.
i.) Introduced marketing automation (Marketo) for personalised lead nurturing for four Wilmington businesses.
ii.) Moved off spreadsheets and implemented PowerBI for business intelligence and weekly sales reports, showing detailed analysis of inventory utilisation, course and college performance.
iii.) Set-up activity-based working for hybrid working reducing costs and increasing collaboration.
iv.) Launched new finance system using Dynamics365, with electronic invoicing, automating purchase to pay with approval workflow for better cost control.
i.) Migrated PropertyLink to a third-party platform for property search best practice, ensuring user engagement increased through KPI's like Enquiries per Property, a key for competitive advantage.
ii.) Re-platformed and outsourced editorial systems for two brands, increasing publishing speed and reducing digital product costs by 80% (from £1M to £200k per annum).
iii.) Introduced agile working practices for transparency in progress and increased speed to market.
iv.) After >20 years of development in silos with little reuse, self-service, or automation, introduced new product architecture, moving to microservices with DevOps (CI/CD) & shared platforms by user group.
i.)Led GDPR implementation for 32 UK entities, covering supplier due diligence, data retention, data governance, incident management processes and the appointment of the Data Protection Officer.
ii.) Appointed after major cyber attack, conducted cybersecurity assessment against ISO 27001, with retirement of unsupported servers, moving to zero trust network and co-lo hosting facility with on-premise and Azure.
I help organisations in setting their technology strategy, aligned to business goals, and oversee execution, having had experience of running product & technology teams of 10 through to 100.
With over 20 years in IT, mostly in leadership positions as CTO, and worked in a variety of industries from telecommunications to manufacturing to media to compliance to education and agriculture.