An opportunity opened up at Future Business Systems (FBS), which is one of the business group operating under the Vela Software. I had an opportunity to go and work as the General Manager at FBS. To bring my operational experience to the business.

As Apparel21 expanded with more clients, the opportunity to focus on existing customer and providing them with information on new enhancements was a huge factor in maintaining our customer base.Apparel21 is focused on evolving with market change and ensuring our customer are able to scale their business. It is important to us to ensure that our customer always stay ahead of the game.The role of a Customer Relationship Manager is to ensure our customer stays in the know on enhancements and available functionalities to assist with their business growth.It is easily to get lost on the day to day operation. Sometimes it just takes a chat over coffee or frequent catch up to stay in the know. Ascertaining customer feedback face to face is also extremely important. Understanding pain points and how this can be resolved with a small update to the system, or training for staff.At times, there is a need to be involved in large role out of projects. Such as our customers acquiring new business, or a large logistic integration projects. We get involved in Project Managing this for our customers, working along side our consultants and development team. Helping our customer to coordinate with 3rd party partners, mitigating risks, ensuring project is on time and within budget.

Took a 9 month maternity break before coming back to a slightly different role.Extending to the Retail Application Consultant role, I moved to a different area of the system. This provided me to more exposure of the system.I worked with the BDM in presales in demonstrating the functionality on part of the system. Especially around the Retail and POS side of the software.Apparel21 is a large system, an all round knowledge is required to guide the customer through some of the features. Being intimate with the Retail, POS, Sales, Stock and Warehousing modules is definitely advantageous.Part of being the specialist in these areas meant that we are involved with conducting monthly user group training sessions for our customers. These training sessions were conducted from basic to advanced users.

After taking a year off on maternity leave, I started back part time to perform customer site audits.Once I returned full time, an opportunity opened up for a Retail Application Consultant.I had the opportunity to work with the Apparel21 Software whilst it was at it's infant stage of development and enhancement.My role involved in scope gathering, configuration, training, system role out. I worked as part of the implementation team as well as on individual projects for part of the modules I specialise in. There were lots to learn and challenges faced. However, overall, the experience in rolling out the software and see the success and the ROI from our customer is very rewarding.The relationship built during the 3 to 6 months of close engagement on the deployment of the system stays with you for a very long time. Pleasure of working with great people with similar view of goals is a fantastic feeling.

With my background in the clothing manufacturing space, I was hired to the Help Desk Support Role of the Bass Software Systems.I was a user of the system with great interest in problem solving, which provided me an entry into the software application realm. It was a steep learning curve, but with knowledge in the industry, it served me well to clearly understand the customer concerns and issues to help them translate and apply this the the software application.I thoroughly enjoyed the customer interactions and the human connections. To this date, there are customers I still have contact with.

Sales Order Reporting and analysing requirements and ensuring order fulfillment for seasonal releases as well as basic stock line replenishment.

Office management to payroll to managing the production of the cutting room.