Senior Business Advisor with business insight and technical depth

I understand the decisions customers face

When a company considers a new solution, technology is only part of the decision. The investment needs to fit the budget. Employees need to be able to use the solution. Existing systems need to keep up, and someone needs to take responsibility for operations afterwards.

As a business owner, I have faced those considerations myself. At Modified Solutions, I was responsible for customers, employees, priorities and delivery. With avecdo, I followed a SaaS product from idea to daily use at around 1,500 webshops. That has given me respect for the difference between a good idea and a solution that a company can actually benefit from.

In customer conversations, I use that experience to bring out the key questions. Which problem wastes time or causes errors? Who will be affected by a change? What is urgent, and what can wait? That provides a better basis for choosing where to start.

From customer needs to a useful basis for decisions

My experience includes projects where a customer needed to improve a workflow. The task was to understand the need with the people responsible on the customer side and make it clear enough for specialists to take forward.

In a Senior Business Advisor role, I would use that approach in conversations, workshops and preliminary analysis. A workshop should end with something the customer can use: a shared understanding of the problem, the main options and an agreement on the next step.

A sound basis for decisions should show what the customer can do, what the solution depends on and where knowledge is still missing. A prioritised plan should also make clear who owns the next decisions. The customer can then make an informed choice, and the specialists involved know what they need to contribute.

Read about my experience with needs analysis and software delivery.

Processes, data and systems need to work together

A challenge in one department may have its cause elsewhere. Missing information in the finance system may originate in the webshop. A slow service process may result from employees having to enter the same information several times.

I have worked on integrations between webshops, finance and ERP systems and customers' other platforms, including Microsoft Dynamics, Business Central, SAP and e-conomic. I start with the workflow: where does data originate, who uses it and what needs to happen to it along the way?

That makes it possible to assess whether the need is best met through a process change, an existing standard feature, an integration or development. That choice needs to be made with the relevant specialists, considering the total cost of using and maintaining the solution.

Read more about ERP, APIs and system integrations.

AI needs to work in everyday tasks

I have introduced AI into developers' work and helped them use the tools for analysis, breaking down tasks, implementation and review. That experience has made me interested in how a new possibility becomes a way of working that people can use and take responsibility for.

When a customer considers AI, I would start with the specific task. What information is involved? How can the result be checked? Who will use it? And what should a limited trial demonstrate before it makes sense to proceed?

That leaves room to explore possibilities and learn from them. Quality, confidentiality and responsibility need to be part of the assessment from the start.

Read about my practical experience with AI in business and organisations.

The recommendation needs to hold up when the solution goes live

My background includes hosting, server operations, capacity, backup and redundancy. That is why I also take an interest in the foundations a new solution needs.

Which integrations are necessary? Can operations support the need? Who is responsible if something fails? I would clarify those questions with infrastructure and solution specialists, so the customer's plan fits together across disciplines.

I have been used to working between the customer and the people responsible for delivery. That has taught me to be careful about expectations, scope and the decisions needed along the way. Working with sales and delivery, I can help ensure that what the customer is promised can also be delivered.

Read about my customer responsibility in IT delivery.

A permanent role with responsibility for customers and advisory work

I want to apply my experience within one company over time. A Senior Business Advisor role is relevant because customer dialogue, business understanding and collaboration with specialists have been a substantial part of my work for many years.

I can contribute a business owner's perspective on finances and priorities, technical understanding and experience helping people work together on a solution. I enjoy asking questions, making options understandable and following up so that an agreement turns into action.

If you need a Senior Business Advisor who can understand the customer's business and take the conversation forward with specialists, I would welcome a discussion about the role. Contact me about a Senior Business Advisor role.

Cases and experience behind the role

• Case

  From paper forms to an integrated mobile service app

  I clarified customer needs and led development of a mobile service workflow that transferred data into the customer's system. An anonymised case.

• Case

  Order flow from webshop to finance system and suppliers

  An anonymised case about order flow between a webshop, finance system and suppliers, connecting the business workflow with technical integrations.

• Case

  avecdo SaaS: from idea to operation at scale

  I founded avecdo and took it from idea to daily operation: around 3,000 users, 1,500 webshops and 15 million products processed each day.

• Experience

  Turning business needs into clear software work

  From business need to clear software requirements: I work with users and decision-makers to define the problem before developers build a solution.

• Experience

  Hosting and IT operations with end-to-end responsibility

  CTO experience with VMware hosting, Linux, capacity, backups, redundancy and incident response for customer-facing systems.

• Delivery

  IT project portfolio with capacity and costs in view

  IT project portfolio in practice: how I prioritised customer projects, product work, capacity and finances as a business owner.