Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Summary Twitter @HotpixUk | T: 07092-182899 | E: contact.tony.smith[at]gmail.com Tony has decades of IT process experience spanning business and process in Housing, manufacturing, retail, transport and medical, public & private sectors. He blogs as http://tonysmiththathousingitguy.blogspot.co.uk/ Recent years have seen him work with key players in housing and with key technologies, large housing groups, contractors to housing, all sizes of registered social landlords For the last three years, he now brings his considerable experience and knowledge of the social housing marketplace, adding value to procurements, processes and existing IT system applications. As MD at MIS-AMS, until 2011, over five years he has contributed to a return to profitability and a dramatic increase in company turnover. In his final two years, MIS-AMS was the best performing company within the MIS Group of companies. Tony has strong housing knowledge, management and IT business skills. His commitment and honesty to providing good customer service and his belief in Social Housing enables him to be trusted to ensure that his customers have the right IT housing management systems and procedures. Staff, customers and others cite him as appreciable, able to boil complicated concepts down to plain English and having a ‘can-do’ attitude. He is genuinely interested in whatever or whoever he is working with, otherwise I believe he would not be involved with it. Specialties: Housing Management Systems Housing Process Review; Assets/repairs, Rents, CRM, Case Management, Channel Shift, mobile working Procurement process (Soft Tender, evaluation, PQQ, ITT, Framework purchases) Software Development Management PRINCE2 Practitioner Project Management Pre/Post Housing System Implementation Projects Benefits of integration, organisation system mergers Customer Relationships and trouble-shooting Business planning and IT strategy Critical friend; business and commercial experience Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Experience Independent Consultant The Acutance Consultancy October 2011 – Present (3 years 1 month) UK Wide The Acutance Consultancy was created to provide a unique service primarily to social landlords and associated organisations, such as system/application and service suppliers. The 'poacher turned gamekeeper' experience of Tony Smith, with intimate knowledge of the housing software industry is matchless in the sector and a true asset to his clients. Coupled with his drive and enthusiasm for better neighbourhoods, relaxed, affable but forceful nature, he has turned around many business change projects and directed successful procurements. On a practical level too, Tony is not afraid to drive more technical elements forward to completion, as part of project work or in conjunction with client staff. That might include SQL Server, other databases, Pick, Excel, Access, proprietary workflow, reporting in SAP Crystal Reports and other environments. Example projects over the last three years have included -Asset/repairs process review for 19,000 home Midlands housing group -Full HMS procurement for 11,000 home housing group in Somerset -IT Strategy and review for care & support RSL -KPI reporting for housing group performance and quality team -Housing module design for large HMS players -Reporting solution for inspirational restaurant mobile booking app' LiveRes -Financials system procurement for CEL/PfH (Procurement For Housing) -Completed personal care budgets project for Essex based organisation -Web intelligence/data analysis for NW based retail giant JD Williams -Housing system training and coaching -CRM and housing arrears process reviews for Midlands based housing group -Implementation of multiple cyclical maintenance processes, providing efficiencies -Preparation for external asset surveys and reception of data with external surveyors Tony has the respect of his (previous) peer suppliers and quickly works with his clients to earn respect at all levels, as he has for a couple of decades, by delivering solid results to tight deadlines. Contributing Photographer Alamy Privately Held; 51-200 employees; Photography industry 1 of 6 Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy y 04/10/2014 22:07 October 2011 – Present (3 years 1 month) Photographer & Publicity Grappenhall Community Library Community, band and freelance photography 1994 – Present (20 years) North West England A keen Photographer working mainly in portraiture and music live stage images in particular. I am keen to use my skills to benefit the wider community on a not for profit basis. I have a live music photography website at www.hotpix.org.uk and have been covering live bands since 1995 with Cheshire based BANNED! network, at cost of materials only. This is part of DAN (Development of the Arts in Northwich) and encourages youth to develop musical talent as a positive activity. I have been involved with a number of community projects through the years. This has included documenting the Warrington winter homeless night shelter. This resulted in sponsorship from Ilford imaging and an exhibition in Warrington to publicise the plight of the homeless in the area. Levenshulme was also documented for the Manchester Irish Festival. This showed a changing area of Manchester and its current neighbourhoods and people. This was exhibited as part of the festival. As publicity secretary of Warrington District Camera Club, I also am responsible for their website at www.thewdcc.org.uk . Selections of my pictures have been featured in local exhibitions and I possess an LRPS from the Royal Photographic Society as well as a City & Guilds certificate in photography. As part of the camera club, for the last 15 years, I have been involved in documenting the Warrington DAD ( see http://www.disabilityawarenessday.org.uk/ ), which has grown to one of the largest events of its kind in Europe. From 2011 I have been involved with the campaign to re-open my local library and community hub, handling social media and acting as a critical friend for IT and system related matters -see http://grappenhall.org.uk I am now a board director, in this now thriving project. Managing Director MIS-AMS MIS Active Management Systems Limited Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry October 2006 – October 2011 (5 years 1 month) Northwich / UK-Wide In October 2006 recognising the work I was involved with, beyond my previous position, I was promoted to the position of managing director. During this time I worked with my managers and 35+ staff, in order to organise and control new product development, enable smooth operation of implementation and support functions, including helpdesk and start to re-engage with new prospects and tenders. This was all controlled within the group ISO 9001 quality procedures and set realistic customer expectations as far as possible. I was involved in reconnecting MIS with UK wide consultants involved in new OJEU procurements, including Tribal (Sector) and others. I undertook a complete redesign of company website and I took an outward facing role at exhibitions and presentations. Building a successful new business team, I was a part of our success in winning additional customers through OJEU tenders, including Accent Group, Cluid HA, Golden Lane, Thomas Pocklington Trust, Berwickshire HA, Leathermarket TMO and the return of the 39,000 home Orbit Group to MIS-AMS ActiveH SQL based solutions A passionate believer in customer engagement, I led and promoted user groups, strategic IT Managers Group and annual conference. This enabled me to have close trusted relationships with customers, a thorough understanding of their housing needs and be in a position to shape MIS to support them better. This assisted in defining the MIS-AMS reputation for solid customer service in the social housing applications sector. New totally integrated SQL solutions and modules were designed and completed successfully in conjunction with a significant part of the user base; mobile working, strategic and drag’n’drop reporting, web and self-service portals, ASB, complaints and other case management modules. I was responsible for forging smooth relationships with partners and third party organisations, building links with best of breed application and service providers. Housing systems implementation manager MIS Active Management Systems Limited Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry September 2005 – September 2006 (1 year 1 month) UK-wide In 2005, during a period of great change within the company, I indicated that I would like to contribute further to the organisation and was appointed implementation manager. I was responsible for managing a team of five implementers/trainers. At the same time I was also implementing two major sites, one of which was the first to implement our full SQL Server based solution across all modules. I also completed a comprehensive set of online windows CHM style help for all of the MIS modules. This gave me an in-depth knowledge of all modules and greatly assisted in problem solving and process review with customers. The experience this provided was invaluable in later years when working with customers engaged in BPR or with new prospects looking to migrate to a fully integrated HMS. During this time, a backlog of implementations were cleared, I was instrumental in organising development priorities in order to support and manage customer expectations. I was also involved with specification, management and development of standard take-on routines, into the new SQL based products. Reporting was being developed at this time to match housing metrics for customers and I gained in-depth knowledge in this area at that time. This experience was used to great benefit later in the design of business intelligence and ad-hoc reporting modules Housing IT Consultant and Systems Implementer MIS Active Management Systems Limited Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry February 1999 – August 2005 (6 years 7 months) UK Wide From 1999 onwards, my role became much more customer facing and I worked with practically the entire MIS customer base of 40+ RSL’s for various projects. Size of organisation varied from just a few hundred properties to many tens of thousands, so I developed techniques adapted to customer needs and capabilities. I was involved with regular new implementations and migrations from competitor housing systems. Migrations from Informix, Oracle, Unidata/U2, SQL, Progress, Access and other database systems were successfully completed, with minimal external support. Often I handled two major projects simultaneously. All of these projects required good interpersonal skills and elements of business process review, in order to successfully move to a new housing solution. I gained the respect and confidence of customers and also my manager and colleagues at MIS. Decent Homes reporting in England and SHQS in Scotland were two areas that I was involved with. I developed a robust reporting regime within the MIS software and implemented it at most of the customer sites, across the UK. As housing consultant this was across all our sites in the UK and often involved working outside core hours, to do whatever was needed in order to meet deadlines and targets. At this time newer full windows and Microsoft SQL Server solutions were being rolled out, in particular CRM, Contractors/DLO and repair systems. I was involved in the first of these ‘big-bang’ rollouts and worked closely with key customers, playing my part to ensure specification/configuration closely 2 of 6 Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy y 04/10/2014 22:07 matched processes and to deliver on time. I developed in-depth housing systems knowledge in a number of areas including (but not limited to): • Housing Benefit payments & processing • Assured & Registered Rent Review • Allpay and other card payment services • Resident reward and tenant participation schemes • Housing Repairs w/w SORs, internal/external contractors • ASB/Complaints process & background • CRM & CTI, scripting Senior Housing IT Analyst/Developer MIS Active Management Systems Limited Privately Held; 11-50 employees; Computer Software industry February 1997 – January 1999 (2 years) Northwich I was heavily involved with development and maintenance of integrated housing solutions, including rent accounting, repairs, lettings/applications, CORE/SCORE statistical returns, assets & planned maintenance, Front Desk Customer Relationship Management (CRM). During this time I was also part of a small customer facing team involved with training, set-up and implementation. I acquired an in-depth knowledge of housing needs and the best ways to adapt software to diverse requirements. I worked successfully with all levels of customer staff, right up to director / chief exec positions. One major project I was involved with was the enhancement of the Planned Maintenance, repairs and Assets solutions, including improved integration with mobile working; MS Office products, such as Word, Excel and Project. I worked independently with major customers such as The William Sutton Trust and Raglan Housing Association to re-specify and enhance these areas to support links with third party mobile working surveys, budget and financial modelling and payment links. IT Consultant ICS medical May 1994 – January 1997 (2 years 9 months) Stockport and UK-wide Reporting to the director in Stockport, my responsibilities included sales, support & installation of patient record, outpatient & waiting list systems for over 40 hospital/medical centre customers. These varied from single speciality units to hospital wide systems. The majority of ICS products are written in Advanced Revelation and make full use of the ENGLISH query language to provide customers with a full featured and flexible means of interrogating data. Much of my time was spent fitting products to customer’s needs and integrating with site PAS (Patient Administration) systems. This is done on-site or remotely via dial-in modem support software. Working to implement the TALK communication server product I developed excellent Word and Excel skills and also exposure to over 10 types of database and system integration environments. I developed skills working in a customer facing and often trouble-shooting role. I travelled right across the UK working with customers. IT Manager HUKTRA (UK) Ltd May 1989 – May 1994 (5 years 1 month) Widnes, Middlesbrough and Zeebrugge In May 1989 I moved to Huktra which is a European based, multi-site tank container operator. My brief was to flexibly computerise the existing (mostly) manual systems in the UK. Thus creating a well documented framework for acquisition of ISO9000 / BS/5750. An outline specification and data design had been drawn up by autumn of 1989. A hardware platform was selected together with a VAR (Value added reseller) to undertake most of the programming. The core software went fully live in January 1990 after intensive user training, program & system testing. The systems finally comprised Full Order Processing, Invoicing, Purchase Invoice authorisation / Budgeting, Depot Repairs and periodic maintenance. Integrated Fax/ Telex/E-Mail, BS/5750 Conformance monitoring, and management reports on demand. The flexible computer systems in place dominated work patterns thus enabling increases in efficiency and customer service level while still providing scope for staff/time savings. Much enthusiasm and attention to detail with the users was necessary on my part to enable smooth implementation of these systems. Regular reports and periodic procedures were put into place to ensure accuracy, relevance and integrity of company databases. The role included some supervision of Admin staff and liaison with external suppliers & customers. I reported directly to the Managing Director. Senior Analyst Programmer Group Management Services Dept Littlewoods Shop Direct Group Privately Held; 10,001+ employees; Retail industry January 1986 – May 1989 (3 years 5 months) Old Hall St, Liverpool I worked within the central IT team's Group Management Services department. Initially my involvement was with a mixture of Viewdata & accounting applications run on MDIS (McDonald Douglas) Sequoia hardware, as a Senior Programmer. I moved on to the Payroll & Personnel applications team, which had responsibility for maintenance of externally sourced ISIS (MDISL) packages. My role was to develop, test & specify changes to the system & its external interfaces, communicating effectively with users and the external software house. Occasional Viewdata work included maintenance of Littlewoods 'Shop TV' and an internal Management Information System (MIS). During my final two years, my time was split 60:40 across analysis / Programming functions. On a daily basis in a small team I dealt with user support at 10 country-wide sites. Contact with, and presentations to senior management (including members of the Moores family), were occasionally required. My final year Honours degree project was an equal opportunities human resources viewdata system. This was written in my own time & involving the Littlewoods E.O. Unit & John Moores (Jr). Technician Apprentice / IT Team GEC September 1979 – January 1985 (5 years 5 months) Higher Openshaw On leaving St Philip Howard Secondary school in Glossop, Derby’s, I joined GEC as a technician apprentice. After experiencing a number of departments I was assigned to the Data Processing area. Between June 1982 and November 1985 I worked in a close team of four as a programmer on a MDIS Sovereign Minicomputer. During this time I worked on a number of systems which were converted from running in a remote batch environment to being 'on-line'. These included Sales Ledger, Order Processing & Contract Monitoring systems. These systems were developed using Sovereign BASIC & A.L.L. (ProIV) version 1.0 from written specifications. It was my responsibility to write and fully test software. Occasionally at this time I was involved with user training. Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Projects Work with ActiveH Housing Management System February 2013 to Present Team Members: Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy, Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy 3 of 6 Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy y 04/10/2014 22:07 From February 2013 onwards, any legal & contract constraints, on my work with ActiveH customers expired. A variety of work has been undertaken since, with a wide variety of housing associations and groups, throughout the British Isles, using one or more Active-H HMS modules. This has included process & IT review, training, implementation, procurement, Workflow, BI (Business... more Procurement of full Housing Management System for Yarlington HG June 2013 to Present Team Members: Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy With the assistance of Tony Smith, Project Brunel enabled Yarlington Housing Group (YHG) to review the HMS marketplace and undertake a full OJEU procurement. The project team were impressed with the refreshing approach taken, and flexibility provided. Within very challenging time-scales, keeping strictly to OJEU timings, 11,000 home YHG were guided successfully through the process. YHG have... more Asset/Repair Review, Mobile & scheduling procurement at Walsall Housing Group November 2013 to Present Team Members: Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy Walsall Housing Group (whg) commissioned a full review of current mobile, scheduling, assets, planned/cyclical maintenance, complete repairs customer journey and reporting. Resulting gaps identified resulting in existing systems applications in this area to be reviewed in detail, in comparison with alternative packages. WHG management decided to move to an OJEU procurement for replacement... more New Member/Supplier Management System at PfH February 2012 to Present Team Members: Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy PfH (Procurement For Housing) are specialists in purchasing framework management for social housing and NHS care organisations throughout the UK. This project focused on turning around financial transformation project, to manage millions of pounds of transactions each month more efficiently and provide we portals for customer members and suppliers to interact smoothly. Although based on... more Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Volunteer Experience & Causes Publicity Lead and board member Grappenhall Community Library Social Services July 2011 – present (3 years 4 months) Instrumental in the role of publicising the project to gain handover of a much loved closed local library in South Warrington to community control. One year on, it is back at the centre of the community with enhanced facilities for younger and older members of the local community. Social media such as Twitter, Facebook and website has been a useful addition to more traditional methods of... more Causes I care about: Arts and Culture Civil Rights and Social Action Health Human Rights Poverty Alleviation Maintaining free library services Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Skills & Expertise CRM Integration Project Management Social Housing Microsoft SQL Server Databases Software Development Requirements Analysis Project Planning PRINCE2 Software Documentation Team Management Public Sector Consultants Business Strategy Change Management Software Project Management Help Desk Support Program Management Business Analysis View All (50) Skills Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Education Manchester polytechnic BSC(Hons), Applied Computing 1984 – 1989 Four years of part time study, one day a week while working in IT over two jobs. Final year dissertation was a working software project, built while at Littlewoods to monitor staff diversity from HR systems, accessible by senior managers, using live data from the MDISL ISIS (Northgate) application. It utilised Viewdata, (provided by a DISC view-base platform server) accessed with a special purpose terminal via telephone line, a late1980's 1200/75 baud access device, issued to all upper managers and Littlewood's board. The project tagged on the back of This project was entered for a BCS innovation award and was used by the Moores Family and business managers, across chain store, mail order and other business units. Viewdata was like an early version of providing internet type functionality and was actively used by UK travel agents until at least 2004 St Philip Howard Secondary School 1974 – 1979 Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy's Additional Information Interests: Photography, music, world travel Groups and Chartered Institute Of Housing (Associate) Associations: Business Analysis Networking Group 4 of 6 Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy 04/10/2014 22:07 Business Do's & Don'ts Business Improvement, Change Management and Performance CIH Housing 2014 - The UKs largest event for the social housing sector Campbell Tickell – Leadership in Social Housing and Care Capita's Capita's Software Services Software Services logo Real Public Sector Housing Division logo Chartered Institute of Housing (CIH) Cloud Hosting & Service Providers Forum Code Red Associates IT Recruitment Forum -For Consultants, Candidates, Clients Consultants Network Decision-Making in Business Digital Inclusion for social housing Housing Jobs Housing Management Systems -Best practice IT Strategy Consultants Managing Performance in Social Housing Northgate Housing Group PERFORMANCE: Measurement, Management, KPI, Balanced Scorecard, BusPositive Effects Procurement in Social Housing Project Manager Community -Best Group for Project Management Real Public Sector -Housing Division SFHA - Housing Policy Discussion Service Charge Social Housing Social Housing & Construction Group UK Social Housing IT Social Housing Updates Social Housing, Asset Management & Development The Affordable Housing Store The Project Manager Network -#1 Group for Project Managers UK Social Housing Professionals Universal Housing software Value For Money in Housing Associations Welfare Reform and Housing iness Intelligence, Analytics Honors and Awards: PRINCE2 Practitioner ACIH Associate membership of Chartered Institute of Housing since 2007 BSc (Hons) Applied Computing 5 of 6 Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy | LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/tonysmiththathousingitguy Royal Photography Society LRPS City & Guilds in Photography Contact Tony Smith BSc(Hons) for: AcutanceConsultingCoUK 04/10/2014 22:07 -- View Tony Smith BSc(Hons) ACIH ThatHousingITGuy’s full profile to... 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