Project & Program Management
Product Management

Company

Tantia Technologies, Inc,
was: Harbor Systems Management
now: Beta Systems Canada
Calgary, Canada, and Boulder, Colorado

Domain

Independent Software Vendor; Storage Management Software; products: enterprise backup & recovery (Harbor NSM – Network Storage Manager on OS/390 and Windows) and data movement (Harbor HFT – High-Speed File Transfer between OS/390 and Open Systems); customers: Global 10,000; channels: Hitachi Data Systems, Hewlett-Packard Company, misc. smaller resellers in NA and EMEA.

Project
Define, implement and maintain Product Management function. Direct and monitor development of all Tantia product lines, manage a total of more than forty clients and agents for two product families. Work directly with customers, sales and marketing, and industry analysts, as well as maintain market overview to establish product deliverables. Implement and maintain product specific budgeting.
Result
Introduced Product Management process using streamlined Stage-Gate™ approach. Delivered MRDs based on customer, field, analyst and industry input. Development plans for 2002/1H and 2002/2H were widely accepted by customers, sales/marketing, and development; products were developed on time and with the planned scope – for the first time in the 12 year history of that company and its predecessors. Held weekly meetings for each concurrent development project, progress was monitored and, where necessary, corrective steps were decided upon, based on trade-off costs and benefits. Evaluated and eventually cancelled project though it had originally been strongly requested by sales/marketing; after double-checking with customers it had become clear that there was no business case (would have been a ‘nice to have’).
Project
Implemented and managed product launch across all corporate functions for Harbor NSM product suite, the successor to Tantia’s original core product, Harbor BR.
Result
Tantia Harbor NSM product suite was introduced on time and complete with sales kit, training courses, positioning and other marketing material, customer targeted collateral, etc.
Project
Managed certification of Harbor NSM backup client for Windows on the Microsoft Datacenter Server platform – Microsoft guarantees 99.999% availability for this platform if customers use certified products only. Certification involved requirements from both the end user organization (large financial institution) and Microsoft (represented by VeriTest). Personally delivered all process descriptions required by VeriTest.
Result
The certified product exceeded customers’ expectations and passed certification at first try. It was delivered on schedule, within budget.

Company

Beta Systems Software AG,
Berlin, Germany

Domain

Independent Software Vendor in the enterprise mainframe data center space. Main product lines include solutions for output management and system optimization and management. High profile in Europe with significant market shares in many countries for the output management solution.

Project
Managed the implementation and successful growth of Beta’s consulting organization. Defined, developed, and oversaw production of all marketing collateral for consulting organization, including positioning, pricing, services definition, USP presentation.
Result
Grew consulting revenue from approx. DEM 150 K to DEM 3.6 M in 18 months.
Project
Migration of all customers world-wide from old to new version of BETA 93 before Y2K, i.e. multi-project managing more than 1250 installations in Global 5000 companies.
Result
Implemented and documented standard procedure for migration; this repeatable, step-by-step approach was then implemented by internal system engineers and external contractors, working with the different Beta Systems organizations around the globe.
Project
Supported the management board of Beta Systems as internal consultant in numerous workshops and internal seminars in defining the core positioning, USP, value-add to customers as well as developing market entry strategies, product life cycle processes and new product development activities.
Result

Developed the new product development process (similar to stage-gate process) which Beta then used to define the successor to their main cash-cow product. Appointed by management board as Manager Business Development because of input to and impact on strategic and corporate development.
Project
Internal project to dramatically increase product quality and, simultaneously, decrease personnel fluctuation in the development organization for Beta’s core product.
Result
Successfully implemented software development procedures (including standards for software design and documentation). Worked closely with developers to remove obstacles to their success, e.g. plan for personnel development.
Project
Responsible for Business Development within Beta Systems; identification and definition of core strengths (and weaknesses) yielded the strategic target of entering the enterprise storage management software domain, which in turn resulted in the acquisition of Harbor Systems Management, Calgary, Canada. As part of the business development activities, numerous presentations were given to analysts, potential business and M&A partners, and, eg corporate finance advisors like KPMG.
Result
Successfully managed the acquisition of Harbor, which raised Beta’s market capitalization by 50% within 48 hour of the press release.

Company

DETECON Deutsche Telepost Consulting GmbH,
now: Detecon, a T-Systems Company
Bonn and Berlin, Germany

Domain

Telecommunications consultancy, subsidiary of Deutsche Telekom, DETECON managed the DEM 1.8 Bn implementation of the first GSM based cell phone network in Germany — this DETECON project became the core of T-Mobile. Other domains include consulting to governmental agencies in Germany and world-wide, commercial joint ventures in telecommunications operations projects, and identifying and prototyping new business opportunities for Deutsche Telekom.

Project
Developed a new business line for DETECON and presented the concept to the management board: Internet and Internet Services consulting; this area now generates a substantial part of DETECON’s revenue. The original concept was focused on the successful operation of a communications network for small and mid-sized businesses in a specific part of Germany, for which I developed the positioning, pricing structure, benefits argumentation, collateral and presentations of this business line for communication with potential partners and end users.
Result
Six companies committed to fund a joint venture with DETECON to commercialize this business – DETECON management eventually decided against a partnership with shared ownership.