I help organisations create business strategies as well as the detailed plans required to achieve their goals. Using my facilitation skills, I work closely with senior management teams the key people in your organisation to identify and agree on the long-term vision and goals for businesses. This is done in group workshops, as well as one-to-one interviews.I then use my analytical skills to understand where the business is today in relation to their long-term goals. This allows me to help clients create a business plan which sets out and prioritises the activities (projects and actions) that they need to take to move their business from where it is to where they want it to be, as well as creating a measurement system that will ensure that they stay on course.I am also able to help clients to implement their plans, either in a hands-on project management role or as a business analyst, ensuring that projects are delivering the intended outcomes and ensuring that the change that always comes from a strategic intervention is managed in a positive way.I believe that having a clear purpose, supported by strong values help to guide businesses and support their strategic plan. Done well this will motivate people and help them to focus on what’s important to help the business realise its full potential.I can help clients create, understand and communicate the purpose and values of their business to ensure that they are engaging people, both internally and externally.My expertise comes from over 24 years’ experience working in strategy development and implementation. Looking at my publications section, you will see I have co-authored two books on the strategy development technique called “Journey Making”. This is a highly participative process that helps make sense of the complexity that surrounds business strategy and planning.

2112 Direct Marketing helps clients of all sizes and across many industry sectors generate new business through our door-to-door distribution of leaflets and other marketing material in Glasgow and the West of Scotland.We provide a full range of Direct Marketing services, including customer analysis, demographic analysis, graphic design and printing services. This means that our clients have a one-stop-shop when developing and implementing their direct marketing campaigns. Achievements:- Over the years I have developed a large and diverse client base clients of all sizes, across a wide variety of industry sectors.- Created processes and procedures that enables the business to run without my input. This allows me to concentrate on our clients as well as business development.- Built and lead a team of experienced distributors with a focus on providing a quality service.- My project management skills have allowed me to manage multiple projects at the same time while always providing the highest level of client service, ensuring that jobs are completed on time and within budget.- I have used my systems analysis and design skills to create systems that help our clients to understand the demographic makeup of their customer base. This allows them to target their ideal audience, thus helping to improve response rates. These innovations gave us a competitive advantage in the marketplace. - Marketed the business through creating and maintaining the web site, using Google AdWords as well as Google Places and also developing personal relationships through networking.- Introduced systems and processes to ensure we deliver the highest quality of service. - Built relationships with trusted suppliers enabling us to offer a full range of Direct Marketing services.

For many years I had a desire to run my own business. I took the first step by leaving my role of Director and shareholder on Fitzpatricks (see below) to become a self-employed management consultant trading under the name Komita Management.I have helped numerous different organisations across a wide range of industry sectors create business strategies as well as the detailed plans required to achieve their goals. I started on a self-employed basis and now through BulueIce Business Development (T/A 2112 Consulting). Achievements:- Facilitated workshops and one-to-one discussions with senior management and stakeholders to identify and agree on the long-term vision and goals for their businesses. - Use my business analysis skills to understand where the business is today in relation to their long-term goals. - Created business plans and scoped projects, along with the deliverables required to move their business from where they were to where they wanted it to be.- Helped clients to implement their plans, ensuring projects were delivering the intended outcomes.- Helped manage the change that always comes from a strategic intervention.- Facilitated workshops to discover the organisation’s purpose and values, managed the project to clarify and communicate them and led the presentation to all stakeholders in the business.- Created and implement measurement systems to help monitor progress towards achieving their goals.- Provided project management training to help give people the skills to better manage their projects, thereby improving profitability and customer service as well as reducing their stress levels.- Provided coaching and mentoring to people at various levels in businesses, including the MD.- Helped companies audit their Intellectual Property and worked with them to resolve issues that I found.

I was Director of IT and Operations and was responsible for all of the IT, information services and other Operational aspects of the business.Key Achievements:- Having been responsible for the creation of the business plan for our MBO (see below), I retained responsibility for the continued development of the plans. This involved designing, planning and facilitating annual strategy review and business planning workshops with senior management and other stakeholders. - Successfully managed a major project from inception though to completion. This involved the repatriation of our head office in Glasgow. It included finding a new office, negotiation of terms, dealing with lawyers, surveyors and contractors. In addition, we had to undertake a full refit of the new offices, creating and IT infrastructure, ensuring the seamless of all of the contents from the old office to the new one. I lead the project team together, giving individuals responsibility for specific deliverables while I managed the overall project. This was all done in a very tight timescale. The project was completed on time and on budget. - Prepared papers for monthly board meetings reporting on the areas for which I was responsible.- Created project proposals and writing wrote business cases to justify investing in projects to improve systems, hardware, software etc.- Worked closely with the MD and department heads to identify areas where we could improve the operational efficiency of the company.- Introduced Process automation, using IT to integrate our various internal systems with Microsoft products, particularly Word. This resulted in an improvement in productivity and accuracy through the business.- Managed our rebranding project, working with all of the stakeholders in the company and with the external design agency. We successfully created our new brand which was approved by the board before being communicated to stakeholders, both internally and externally.

I was promoted to manage the renewals department which had previously been as a separate entity based in our Monaco office. The renewal of Intellectual Property was an essential part of the business. It is a highly regulated area of Intellectual Property management and dealing with varying compliance requirements in virtually every country in the world is critical. Managing the inherent risks relating to compliance was a critical part of the job.During this time, I continued in my role of head of the Records and IT departments. Key Achievements:- Successfully managed a project to repatriate the Renewals business from Monaco to Glasgow. This has to be done in a seamless manner, ensuring that the business continued to operate during the transfer and making sure that nothing 'fell between the cracks'.- Improved their IT systems. This included elements of process automation, as well as adding levels of security, and safety checks.- Improved the processes, eliminating unnecessary and duplicated tasks and streamlining other areas of the process. - Managed the change required to partially integrate the Renewals and Records teams. I achieved this by introducing cross-training and empowering people in each team to undertake some of the work from the other team. This meant that we had cover for holidays and were able to cope with fluctuations in workload. - Managed a mixed team of people, supporting their growth and development through mentoring, coaching and training. I also developed a performance management and review system which I refined over time to meet our changing needs.- The changes that I introduced made the entire operation much more efficient. This meant that over time we were able to reduce the number of staff from six people down to 1.5 people. This resulted in a significant reduction in costs, making it a highly profitable part of the business.

I joined Fitzpatricks as IT Manager and held this role through all of my 17+ years at the company, even as my role was extended to include other , more diverse, responsibilities (see above). I was responsible for all of the IT aspects of the business, working with key stakeholders to ensure the software and hardware infrastructure was fit for purpose. Key achievements:- Built a strong IT department from scratch. This involved recruiting the correct people with the correct skills and were a good fit for our culture and industry.- Lead project management on a multitude of complex projects from inception through to implementation. Many of these projects were business critical and time sensitive.- Used systems analysis, design and project management skills create a new Records System. This was a business-critical system that was essential for the smooth running of the business.- Used my leadership and communication skills to ensure that all stakeholders were involved in the process of developing, testing and implementing software as it was being developed. - Introduced processes to enable users to make requests for amendments and additions to existing software systems.- Created an effective IT infrastructure which evolved over time as we kept up with changes to technology, ensuring we always had the most efficient and effective infrastructure.- Designed, project managed and implemented what at the time were highly innovative systems. These included a distributed processing system, the integration of our systems with Microsoft software, including Word and Dynamics.- Analysed requirements, wrote detailed systems specifications, managed projects and dealt with suppliers for the purchase, installation and integration of key third-party systems, including accounts and time recording. - Negotiated with various suppliers to ensure that we not only got the best value for money but to also ensure that their products (hardware & software) were fit for purpose.

I joined Fitzpatricks as IT Manager and held this role though all of my 17+ years at the company, even as my role was extended to include other , more diverse, responsibilities (see above). I was responsible for all of the IT aspects of the business, working with key stakeholders to ensure the software and hardware infrastructure was fit for purpose. Key achievements:- Built a strong IT department from scratch. This involved recruiting the correct people with the correct skills and were a good fit for our culture and industry.- Lead project management on a multitude of complex projects from inception through to implementation. Many of these projects were business critical and time sensitive.- Used systems analysis, design and project management skills create a new Records System. This was a business-critical system that was essential for the smooth running of the business.- Used my leadership and communication skills to ensure that all stakeholders were involved in the process of developing, testing and implementing software as it was being developed. - Introduced processes to enable users to make requests for amendments and additions to existing software systems.- Created an effective IT infrastructure which evolved over time as we kept up with changes to technology, ensuring we always had the most efficient and effective infrastructure.- Designed, project managed and implemented what at the time were highly innovative systems. These included a distributed processing system, the integration of our systems with Microsoft software, including Word and Dynamics.- Analysed requirements, wrote detailed systems specifications, managed projects and dealt with suppliers for the purchase, installation and integration of key third-party systems, including accounts and time recording. - Negotiated with various suppliers to ensure that we not only got the best value for money but to also ensure that their products (hardware & software) were fit for purpose.

The owner of the business decided he wanted to retire and since he had no family who were interested in taking it on, he asked selected members of the management team if they would be interested in buying it. I was proud to be one of those he asked since it showed a great deal of confidence in my ability to manage the business. At the time I had been introduced to the Journey Making strategy development methodology as part of my MBA. I had used it a few times in my own teams with great success so I suggested that I could help create strategic plan as well as the business plan for the MBO. My proposal was agreed my everyone involved.The Journey- Conducted one-to-one discussions with all of the people involved with the MBO, as well as other senior staff. This elicited their ideas, opinions and reservations about the future of the business.- Gained an understanding of where the business was in relation to the goals. This helped identify what needed to be done to move from where we were to where we wanted to be. - Facilitated group workshops to further build on the information collected from the one-to-one discussions and to allow people to consider other points of view. This helped to create consensus about the strategic plan. - Once all of the information has been gathered, analysed and structured into a strategic plan I wrote the business plan.- The business plan I wrote was presented to the bank and resulted in attaining the funding we required for the MBO.- Subsequently worked with the MBO team to successfully negotiate the purchase of the business.We had brought in an external financial consultant to help with the process. Having been through the Journey Making process he said, “The process that Ian uses is the most robust planning tool that I have come across in all my years of producing corporate plans”.Worked with a number of his client to help them create strategic plans for their business.

I worked as an Analyst/Programmer at Yarrows for two years. Initially I worked as a computer programmer. I was then given a role as project leader on the development of a new system for one of the departments in the organisation. This was my first experience of leading a team, as well as analysing and designing an IT system that would meet our client’s needs. I was also heavily involved in programming the new system. This experience was fairly pivotal in my career as I realised that while I was a good programmer, I enjoyed the systems analysis and design, as well as the project management elements of the job much more.

I started as an analyst/programmer with British Steel Corporation at their Ravenscraig works in Motherwell. Having worked there for a year as part of my sandwich course at university, I went back after I had completed my degree in Computing Science. The work was mainly programming but I gained some initial experience of systems and analysis and design, assisting some of my colleagues on projects where they were project leaders.

I worked as a programmer at British Steel Corporation at their Ravenscraig works in Motherwell as part of my sandwich course at university. This was effectively the third year of my degree and was one of the main reasons that I chose this BSc degree as I felt that having genuine work experience included as part of the course enabled me to put what I had learned into practice and gave me invaluable experience that made my final year much more relevant.