With a sales background I started a career in information technology in mid 80s. Through various job positions along my career I have gathered a significant experience on sales, finance, budgeting, logistics and purchasing. My working history gives me a wide vision extending beyond the IT perspective.
Over the years services provided by NCO have evolved away from end user support and towards working with business intelligence functions. The knowledge and experience accumulated working in various projects has modified my services accordingly.
Usually I work with a client based on a regular day contract. It guarantees the client a certain amount of availability. I also have clients based on single task assignments. NCO provides services for companies only.
Project manager or specialist
This is perhaps the most popular service. There are numerous projects especially in multinational corporations that require crossfunctional knowledge. It is also beneficial for a wider perspective and planning to have an outsider commitment that is free of personal intrests within the organisation and yet is familiar with the business and local environment.
Very often my clients utilize my wide experience by having me attend meetings unrelated to IT projects. On those occasions I provide a fresh perspective and help in areas not directly within the core competence of the main participants.
Application solutions
NCO is not in essence a software provider nor does it sell third party software. All applications are tailor-made to a specific purpose. The maintenance and upgrading are handled by contracted hourly billing. The tools used depend on the purpose but end used applications are most often made using Microsoft Excel VBA. Automation utilities are made with either AutoIt or Windows Scripting Host scripts. Also some small web-applications have been made with PHP.
Samples of Excel-applications most if which are multi-user solutions utilizing consolidation:
- data imports from legacy systems for easier reporting (several)
- dynamic forms for data collection (several)
- calculation and consolidation of annual bonuses
- budget based salary raise calculation in a multi-layer corporation
- holiday and sick leave monitoring applications
- application for unified price management and offer construction
- event log with user identification and automated encrypted backups
- inventory management
Miscellaneous utilities. Some of these work scheduled in servers without user interaction:
- file transfers and format translations between systems (several)
- text to html
- printed report format to database format
- tasks performed at user logon to domain
- automated software installations and upgrades
- setting and/or monitoring workstation settings
- digital image retrieval from camera memory card and preprocessing
- automated backup to a USB memory stick
Second level support
Direct end user support often requires a second level invisible to the end user to solve particularly problematic cases. I have ample experience in end user support, various IT systems, communications and networks. This combined with a wast experience in acquiring information helps the end user support personnel to provide better service.
Training
There are several highly qualified providers for computer related training services. Typically however the availability of courses is not actively offered to employees or the challenges of routine operations seem too specific. NCO can map the need for required training and in the absence of matching predefined training it is possible to tailor a specific session content.
The training may consist of familiarizing the users to a new spreadsheet application added with generic instructions on how to work spreadsheets and build calculation models. The audience can be either end users or first level support people. I can also train selected end users to become the first level support for specific applications.
Other services
Unifying the infrastructure as to the workstations, servers and software is commonplace in large corporations. It is just as important in small business because maintaining a highly varied environment is very costly. I have extensive experience in managing local and wide area networks as well as Notes/Domino environments. This has often included working with people managing AS/400, unix and IBM Mainframe networks among others.
I provide unbiased support for my client in all parts of IT acquisitions and management. This is particularly useful in multi-vendor environments where the lines of responsability are hard to draw. Often the end users of a new system do not have sufficient IT knowledge to be comfortable in participating in the IT project. This is where I provide them with the IT knowledge they need so they can focus on their own core competence. As a general example this service will cover support all the way from purchasing LAN components up to setting up services (file and print shares along with communications etc.).