Ross Ferris Email & Phone Number

Newcastle, Australia

Manage the Stamina Software business, which forms a pillar of the broader Vertical Markets portfolio within Pentana Solutions . Oversee & drive ongoing product development and innovation, customer service and business development, high level customer engagement & develop strategic growth plan for the next 3-5 years.Growing international distribution channel with a pure SaaS model for ERP & BI solutions that can be delivered via cloud, or on-premise in regions lacking necessary infrastructure.

Newcastle, Australia

Software & Solutions Architect, technical & strategic product development strategies and design, with day to day management of product development, maintenance, project & customer support teams, lead business consultant .and sales manager.Proven ability to turn ideas into reality. leveraging technology for strategic business advantage. Accomplished Project Manager with MANY major installations and migrations. Trusted technology & management consultant to customers across a broad swathe of industries, and de-facto CIO to many of our clients.Our primary products are:R5 - a "broad spectrum"​ ERP solution built from the ground up that covers Wholesale, Distribution, Job & Project Costing, Manufacturing, Service, Retail, Point of Sale, Payroll and General AccountingPROMISE - Born & Bred for fashion retail covering full product supply lifecycle, optimised for minimal data entry & to concurrently manage core & seasonal lines with size/colour matrix across style, story management, open to buy etcVisage - an integrated application development framework for delivering thin-client, Web 2+ Business Intelligence and Reporting solutions to the NoSQL database environment, including disaster recovery tools, data replication, release management & much, MUCH more.Overseeing Visage toolset product development, and migration of our R5 product from "Green Screen" to Visage environment, moving from traditional on premise to cloud based platform.As well as the technical aspects of this position, I was also responsible for product sales & marketing, which saw our products installed in markets across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, South Africa, USA & the UK.Operational management responsibility for PMO, and given complexity & diversity of concurrent projects, this function within a software house is easily as demanding as an EPMO in a mid-sized multi-national enterprise

Newcastle, Australia

Company was established to sell advertisiting in shopping centers, where we installed "Decker DayStar" projector enclosurers with a short throw lens on a Kodak Slide projector on a 30 second timer for add rotation. Looked to develop custom video kiosk that would double as coin operated Video Juke Box & display ads between playing paid for songs. Unfortunately Ian "Molly" Meldrum had virtual monopoly of all music video assets coming into Australia and we were unable to reach arrangement that made commercial sense for our business model. Saw writing on the wall for business without access to new media and reluctantly closed operation, though I've kept active in marketing offering advice & developing marketing programs, campaigns & initiatives for many of my later clients at Stamina Software.

During my time at Tomago I got to develop large portions of the environmental monitoring and laboratory management systems (which involved playing around with realtime data collection from "stack sniffers"​, X-ray diffraction & other test equipment), spec an overhaul to the Annode Production System, and peripheral involvement with the casthouse production system.I also gained valuable insight into the operation of a larger industrial manufacturing facility, and was also introduced to the politics that can plague an organization where people become more interested in building their own empire rather than solving problems.The environment was PR1ME Information, and I had "discovered" the power of the multi-valued data model!

Newcastle

Formed boutique consulting company to realise possibilities presented by 1st generation micro-computers like the TRS-80 and Apple. Co-authored libraries written in BASIC for engineering stress analysis & hydraulics that were marketed to engineering companies as inhouse altrnative to mini-computer based systems or timeshare services, and also a simple terminal emulator process that could connect to DEC & Data General Mini-computers. Also developed a database system for the Apple II that was used to develop a simple accounting system for tradesmen.

Newcastle

Back in the days when a BIG DISK was 10Mb (and that was 5Mb fixed, with a 5Mb removeable platter, which meant a backup required 3x disk copies!!), and computers cost a fortune, I started my career in the computer industry with NovoCom.I started out as a programmer, developing software from scratch (like Retail Merchandising systems) and doing development/enhancement on a product written in Extended Basic on Data General Computers and originally sourced from MCBA (Mini-Computer Business Associates) in the USA.Eventually I managed the timeshare bureau (which had grown from an old DG Nova 3D to include a DG Eclipse which eventually had 3 x 94Mb drive cabinets, each larger than a decent sized washing machine!), and oversaw 3 other programmers.When I left NovoCom I was an Associate Director, and had a great grounding in a wide variety of business systems

Hard Knocks

Bachelor Of Commerce (B.Com.)

Bachelor Of Computer Science (B Comp Sci)

Bachelor Of Science (B.S.)