Consultancy with broad horizons
Colin Bycroft - Profile
A highly driven professional with over fifteen years experience
providing, and managing the provision of, technical and business consultancy. Colin's expertise is built on a solid foundation acquired while managing large teams of
senior staff, founding and being director of a network systems integration company
and more recently a consultancy company.
Skills Summary
Colin has a proven track record providing business consultancy: analysing businesses, their structure and operation then developing, drafting and implementing relevant polices, processes and procedures.
Colin also has a successful background managing & developing
professional services departments (especially those delivering fee-earning
consultancy) within the IT and Communications sectors including: defining,
developing, documenting and introducing new services to be delivered on a
project or lifecycle basis.
Colin has the ITIL Foundation certificate for IT service delivery and is a certified ISO27001 Lead Auditor
Current Position
Managing Director of and Principal Consultant for Vita Fugit
Ltd. - providing certification programme management consultancy and interim
management for a number of high profile organisations, some recent projects include:
An Agile Software Consultancy and Training Organisation
Provided ISO27001 and ISO9001 certification project and managed the IMS through the bedding in phase until it could be managed internally.
A Voice Recording Product and Services Supplier
ISO27001 and ISO9001 certification and ongoing managed service.
A Leader in Online Backup and Disaster Recovery Services
Initial certification to both ISO27001 and ISO9001 and still provide an ongoing managed service.
The UK Arm of a Global Healthcare Consultancy
After initially taking a small business function through ISO27001 certification in 2010, I have continued to provide a managed service and the scope has now grown to the whole of the UK business (c400 staff).
A Secure Hosting Company
-
Delivered a full initial ISO27001 certification project.
-
ISO27001 managed service (undertaking: regular audits, risk
assessments, reviewing the Business Continuity Plan etc.
A National Communications Carrier
This FTSE listed carrier and service provider is going
through a major upgrade to their backbone network and needed the existing
ISO27001 scope extending to include the new Next Generation Network.
A Secure High-Volume Printing Organisation
Based in Cornwall,
this organisation prints documents such as the DVLA V5 document, National
Lottery blank tickets, confidential direct mail etc. They had previously
applied for ISO 27001 certification but were found to have a number of
non-conformities; Colin delivered the successful certification programme.
A Government Body on behalf of a System Integrator
Extending the scope of the existing certification to include
this RESTRICTED network.
Previous Career summary
Head of Consulting Services Affiniti (part of KCOM, ex
Kingston Communications) (2005 - 2006)
KCOM acquired Omnetica and merged it with its existing
integration arm to form Affiniti. Colin became Head of the new combined
Consulting Services department with a head count of 25 and 2.5m budget delivering:
- Fee earning consultancy for data, voice, storage, management
and security (technical and policy / certification);
-
Customer Training
-
Solutions Integration (Designing new services to be
delivered by the Managed Services Division)
-
Lifecycle Consultancy aligned with the Managed Services
Division
The Consulting Services Department, while under Colin's
captaincy, consistently met or exceeded budget.
Consultancy Services Manager - Omnetica (2002 - 2005)
Siemens sold SNSL to equity house KKR in 2002; Colin
continued to manage the fee earning consultants and was also given responsibility
for the Solutions Integration department. While in this role Colin created the
Lifecycle Consultancy team to provide enhanced services to customers via the
Managed Services Division; created technology specific consultancy practices
and introduced security policy / certification consultancy as an extension to
the technical consultancy the department had traditionally delivered.
In 2005 when KCOM acquired Omnetica, due to his success with
the fee earning consultants, Colin was asked to also manage the Customer
Training department when the previous manager was seconded into a group
responsible for merging the two companies.
Consultancy Services Manager Siemens Network Systems Ltd. (1997
- 2002)
Hired as an IT consultant, Colin was soon promoted to manage
the team of eleven consultants delivering technical consultancy in fields
relating to communications and networking.
Engineering & Development Team Leader Cray Systems Space
& Defence (1995 - 1996)
Colin was headhunted into the position of Network Consultant
at the European Space Agency Research & Technology Centre in Holland. The Engineering
& Development team were responsible for designing and developing the campus
wide network (approximately two thousand seats of multiple diverse protocols and
operating systems). Within five months Colin was promoted to Team Leader of the
four man team.
Joint founder and Director Zircomm Systems Ltd (1992 - 1994)
Zircomm Systems Ltd. was formed as a network system
integrator specialising in the (then) cutting edge areas of ISDN and wireless
LANs. Colin's technical and commercial skills helped create a turnover of
300,000 in the third year of trading from a starting point of zero.
Backpacking around the world (1989 - 1991)
SD Scicon (1985 - 1989)
Colin joined SD Scicon as an engineer providing pre and post
sales support for the Micom data switches / multiplexors and NetLAN
multiprotocol networking system.
In 1987 Colin moved into a sales position and was awarded
New-Salesman of the Year and, in the following year won Salesman of the Year.
Databit Ltd (1978 - 1985)
Colin undertook a number of roles starting as a test
technician and ultimately moving into the R&D department where he developed
real time assembly language code for embedded processors in telex switching and
routing equipment.
He attended day release at Northampton Technical
College and gained an
HTEC in Electronics and Communications.
Royal Signals (at the Army
Apprentices College,
Harrogate, and 21 Signals in Germany:
1972 - 1978)
Colin joined the Army as a boy soldier, attending the Royal
Signals Apprentice
College where he took an
ONC in Electronics and Communications. He was then posted to Germany for
three years where he provided communications support for the RAF.
Personal
Colin enjoys challenges and organising things in his
personal as well as working life, to this end - since 2004 - he has: cycled
from Land's End to John O' Groats, canoed the length of the Thames, swum the
Channel as part of a four man team, run the London Marathon, and completed various other challenges including, most recently, cycling singlehandedly round the coast of Britain (3,500 miles).
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