Topology Overview

Complex Solution Ben-ABC (Actual Solution )Customer Profile – BEN-ABC

Ben-ABC is an offshoot company of a major Canadian mortgage insurance firm. They have been speaking to different industry providers to house about 7 applications in a DC.

High level Business drivers

Although a long standing profitable business in a booming demand era

data flow efficiencies are still bound by use of unreliable fax machines and disparate legacy application. Additionally time to sell is heavily based on internal time consuming business and approval process.

• Wants to reduce administration overhead, sales cost and time to sell.

• Be efficient and accurate about risk and finance assessments.

• Streamline business processes and align control workflow.

• Wants to Expand business - deal with larger insurance agencies, brokerage firms, mortgage lenders and have compliances challenges.

·

Legacy Business Process - SummaryNon automated, Large overhead and Manual approval

Critical Success factors

Design, implement and maintain

“IP Application” as a service for BEN-ABC

Reinvent the wheel for us

Existing Business process will

remain in place

Fax (core business driver)

Automated but needs to remain the only Broker

tool

Controlled business

processes and archiving for

business compliance.

Easier to use (novice user base).

Business process Automation

Better ROI and Lower TCO (compared to in-

house). Cheaper!

Proposed Business Process Summary–Automated and Less over head

Approved only process

Reject O

nly P

rocess

Ap

pro

val p

roce

ss

Strategy

• Focus on business challenge. Not just infrastructure. End to end approach

• Lack of overall ownership and internal skill set Identified as key deficiency. Momentum move in to take ownership.

• Close the knowledge gap against our competitions. Meet application vendor, Infiltrate stakeholder domain and propagate value.

• Maintain apparent cost baseline. Defer sticker shock with Phased approach.

• Consolidate where possible – Simplify where needed

• Late to the table! Start drawing differences between Momentum and other service provider.

• Price to sell.. Build back margin in future phase.

Hierarchy and Omar’s engagement

Discovery, Negotiations and Communication with Key internal and external stakeholders

CIO and C-Level Executive Communication, Negotiation and Challenges

• Credibility issues. Standardization and Ease of use high on the list. Comfort zone with other vendors

Got face time in a proposal discussion meeting. Elevated the conversation above the isolated managed services component to Business challenge discussion. Impressed with higher understanding and

Offered myself as the “operation manager”

• Lead with 2 page RFP, Engaged as us a last effort to reduce cost. Already set on price due to interactions with commodity space competitors

Change the measuring criteria. Help Management understand , We are the only vendor to perform detailed discovery, Cost model and determine Business scope. No comparison applies.

• No internal budget shared or financial parameters to justify this undertaking. Wants to go live end of October. (less than 5 months).

• A draft architecture and recommended services portfolio was put in place within 2 weeks. That will allow to set the stage for realistic cost and price negotiation

Internal Communication, Negotiation and Challenges

• Complex solution This required me to overtake tasks i.e. Risk assessment (PM), data flow design (App vendor), DB Design (SQL Expert) draft work/technology recommendation and estimates normally carried out by SME in other business segments.

• Customer hesitance to discuss budget on a potentially high price project – negatively affected the internal probability estimates. Quickly become high visibility, low probability with smaller deals taking precedence for resource and time allocation.

• BEN-ABC in shopping mode. Management was not willing to dedicate precious pre-sales cycles based on 2 page RFP. This remains a challenge through out the project. We were working with little to no buy in.

• This level of hand holding is not a normal practice for Momentum target customer space. After negotiating a strict time to disengage time table. Management approved my T&E and ran the first three month of the discovery as a Pilot program.

Quote "...I’d Like to eat my words.. But BEN-ABC will never close”Omar’s Boss around 2 months before SOW signatures/Close

Topology Overview

BEN-ABC will never close?

All in good humour!

Technology Delivered

IP Application. App’s delivered as service

FoIP – Fax over IP using RightFax T.38 gateway

Automated business processes with SQL BI and MOSS 07

SSO. Single sign-on and consolidated user authentication.

2 tier architecture with secure DMZ and DB layer.

Virtualized and Consolidated UET and Dev environment.

Mission Critical application have redundant/failover capability built in

Pre-MPLS Site to site connectivity . SSL VPN w/Multiple DSL terminated on ASA5505 HA

Full Managed Infrastructure, Applications and Network. App’s and Service

Personal Take away’s/Lessons learnt

• Once again enforced the importance of Engaging early – allows you to be a trusted advisor, shorten sales cycles and guide requirements.

• All stake holders are potential risk to the project. They should all be brought to the table for discussions.

• Along with objectives, risks, challenges, opportunity potential – A Win strategy should be laid out and communicated clearly . This helps motivates through turbulent times.

• Such times truly are a test for relations with Account team. Understand what drives your sales partners, management and your customer and work towards a Win/Win situation.

• Important to keep your management/stake holders in-tune and updated with the progress of your project.

• Rise above the product/services portfolio. Focus on business challenge.

Feedback

• “In the last 11 years that I have been working at Dell. Omar is one the best TSRs that I had the pleasure working with”.....”He is team player and fun working with”.

Babak Farid, Systems Consultant, DELL

worked directly with Omar at Dell Canada

• “He is a team player with integrity and strong technical knowledge.”Mark Lewis, CISA, CISSP, Sr. Systems Engineer, Channels at Symantec (Canada) Corporation

worked directly with Omar at Dell Canada

• “Omar's ability to work with vendors allowed him to contribute to the team's bottom line. He secured cost effective solutions to meet and exceed customer needs. I would recommend Omar to any organization.”

Mark Gadzala,, GE IT Solutions

worked directly with Omar at General Electric. IT Solutions

• “Omar has displayed superior skills in recognizing the technical needs of clients and recommending comprehensive and efficient solutions. I have worked with many Technical Architects over my 12 years in this industry and have never seen anyone who addresses issues and provides solutions as well as Omar. There is a saying "choose your associates as you would choose those who you would stand beside in battle" I would choose Omar Amjad as he has proven countless times that he is a trusted colleague and a person that always goes the extra mile in any situation.”

Joseph Carbonetto, Business Development Manager, Infrastructure Management/Data Centre Services,

worked directly with Omar at Momentum Advanced Solutions

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