Consultant Profiles

Richard, Principal Consultant BSc Management Sciences, Loughborough University "I'm from a business background, but I'm glad that didn't put me off applying to Customer Systems! It isn't about having loads of programming in your background: if you can break a problem down and solve it, there's no reason you can't be as successful here as someone with a Masters in Computing. The training was tough, as I'd never seen some of the technologies before, but you get to dig around in the application and really build your understanding. I learn best when I get to do a lot of my own investigation, so it was just what I was looking for. Having been here for a while now, I get to do requirements gathering and business meetings with stakeholders, but I also still get to do the technical stuff I really enjoy. I think I have a nice mix, and my advancement shows that the clients are happy with my work. Clients often come to me as a first point of contact on other problems, because they really trust me as an expert, which is satisfying. I’ve recently been made Principal Consultant, so obviously the next step is Managing Consultant. At the moment I’m really focussed on my current project, and I want to see it through to completion, but it’s great to know that the opportunity is there for me to strive for in future. When I’m at clients’ sites, I notice that the roles and levels I’m dealing with on a daily basis are much higher than graduates of my age that I’ve come across. As a consultant at Customer Systems there is much higher responsibility and with it much higher respect. It’s brilliant- a job that gets you straight in there."

Lawrence, Principal Consultant MSc Computer Science, UCL "My first degree was in Mathematics, and I did a Masters in Computer Science at UCL to get a formal qualification in computing. I love working with programming languages, but hadn’t used Siebel before I joined Customer Systems. I was also trained in OBIEE. Like many computer science courses, mine didn’t really cover the use of business application software so that’s been a big education for me. I’ve really enjoyed the challenge of combining my programming skills with my problem-solving abilities to come up with solutions for my customers. At Customer Systems, you’re thrown in at the deep end. The training gets you to provide practical solutions to user problems – and usually to identify the problem to start with! As soon as I arrived at my first customer site I realised how effectively the training prepared me for what was needed on site, and how confident I was that I could do it. My first assignment was 8 weeks as part of a relatively large Customer Systems team at a major client; my next two assignments have been of longer duration, and I’ve also taken on the leadership of a small team at each. I’m constantly learning new skills and things have happened much faster than I had expected. "