Nick Comley
An adaptable Lead Business Analyst\Project Manager, having worked both large and small projects within many industry sectors including Financial, Utilities and Retail, specialist knowledge of retail banking, credit card transactions, data analysis, payment transmission and collection and Process Re-engineering. In-depth technical knowledge, LEAN Value Stream Manager, Microsoft Certified Programmer. Self-motivated and determined individual, driven by results. Very able to communicate at all levels. Applies lateral thinking to solving problems.
KEY SKILLS
- Business Analysis
- Project Management
- Agile & Waterfall
- Retail (bricks and clicks)
- eCommerce
- Payments
- Credit/Debit Cards
- Alternative Payment Methods
- Klarna
- Process re-engineering
- Target Operating Models
- Content Management Systems
- “as-is” to “to be”
- Vendor Selection
- Requests For Proposal (RFP)
- RUP, UML
- Pensions
- Document Management
- Document Scanning and Storage
- Finance\credit card systems
- Gap Analysis
- Direct Debit expert
- Technical systems analysis
- Negotiation\drafting of contracts
- PCI-DSS
- Mortgage Application Processing
- Use Case preparation.
- Intelligent Character Recognition
- Statistical Data Analysis
- BACS
- Prepaid Cards
CAREER HISTORY
Selco Builders Warehouse
June 2019 to present Contract Role
Lead/Senior BA acting as Product Owner for Selco’s “trade only” website (also consulting on legacy waterfall projects)
o Agile product ownership for
o Magento 2 transition
o PSP integration (Adyen)
o All customer facing initiatives (Real Time Stock, Home branch, Recommended Products. Emarsys integration, Cookie Compliance, Account Management, Security, Checkout)
o Integration with Selco’s new ERP system
o Waterfall business analysis on an eReceipt/tilling project
o RFP and vendor selection for PSP and various others
Summit (Automotive Platform)
Sept 2018 to June 2019 Contract Role
Lead/Senior BA working on requirements and design of an Automotive eCommerce platform within an exceptionally fast paced environment.
o Requirements, functional and technical design for multi-brand Car Configurator
o Requirements, functional and technical design for Customer facing and Back-Office screens for vehicle offers
o Design/analysis of technical integration between Summit and various 3rd Parties including PSA (Peugeot, Citroen, DS)
ASOS
Jan 2017 to Aug 2018 Contract Role
Lead Agile BA working as Product Owner for an agile team delivering new Payment Methods for ASOS (app and web).
o Delivered ApplePay (backend integration with Datacash and frontend integration with ASOS Checkout, Orders and Fraud) for both App and Web across multiple territories
o Delivered GooglePay/AndroidPay (backend integration with Datacash and frontend integration with ASOS Checkout, Orders and Fraud) for both App and Web across multiple territories
o Delivered a “Buy Now Pay Later” solution from Klarna (backend integration with Klarna and frontend integration with ASOS Checkout, Orders and Fraud) for both App and web in the UK
o Delivered Yandex.Money (backend integration with Worldpay PSP and frontend integration with ASOS Checkout, Orders and Fraud) for app in Russia.
o Extensively involved in Customer Journey/Experience design for all payment methods
o Owned and administered product backlog
o Organised and ran all of the various scrum ceremonies particularly story grooming/refining
o Authored various business cases
o Mentored other BAs and helped author standards documents for the creation of User Stories etc.
West Bromwich Building Society
November 2015 to December 2016
Contract Role
Lead BA working primarily on an upgrade to WBBS’ core banking system, UFSS, but also consulting on a company-wide process and system/application mapping exercise.
o Organised multiple work streams to impact asses more than 200 external change requests to be incorporated at system upgrade
o Facilitated workshops to assist in the detailed assessment of “in-scope” changes
o Defined a consistent Business Impact Assessment process adopted by the wider change department
o Gathered and documented requirements to support RFP for process repository tool
o Provided consultancy input into review of business wide review of IT and Process Architecture
Wesleyan Assurance Society
December 2014 – October 2015
Contract Role
Lead BA on various Life & Pensions projects including product migrations( WPISA) and Pension Freedom changes
o Facilitated process mapping workshops with 3rd party supplier relating to the migration of Wesleyan’s With Profits ISA to new platform
o Defined and documented Target Operating Model for new policy admin system
o Mentored junior BAs
o Gathered and documented Business Requirements and Business Processes
o Involved in technical solution design
o Authored best practices guides for requirements gathering
o Provided mini-business cases for 3rd party Change Requests
The Phoenix Group (Formally Pearl Assurance)
April 2014 – Oct 2014
Contract Role
Lead BA on project to migrate user accounts, data and Business Processes from one outsourced platform to another
o Lead information gathering workshops across 25 departments and 650 plus staff
- Identified data and process owners
- Documented processes with cross-platform dependencies
- Liaised with IT to determine best practise for identifying potential issues
- Represented Phoenix in external meetings to identify candidate partners for data trawling exercise
- Coded complicated VBA macros to identify files with links that would be broken in migration
- Managed data gathering across multiple teams
Deutsche Bank
Oct 2013 – April 2014
Contract Role
Lead BA on a project to overhaul and rationalise DB’s global Risk and Control Reporting as a result of Regulator review
· Business Analyst\Consultant on project to review and rationalise DB’s Risk and Control reporting.
o Lead full scale review of existing reporting to determine whether fit for purpose\compliant with FCA, FED and BaFin regulation.
o Definition of success metrics
o Analysis and documentation of “as-is” processes and technology, circa 270 systems, several hundred processes and approximately 400 unique data feeds.
o Definition of Target Operation Model (TOM) for new Reporting Centre of Excellence
o Documented “to be” model
o Reviewed existing data model and assisted in the definition of new Data Dictionary and Data Standard
o Production of spreadsheet-based analysis tools to measure progress of migration of a complicated matrix of data feeds
o Provided support and guidance to junior Bas
Signet (parent company of H Samuel and Ernest Jones)
Sept 2010 – Sept 2013
Contract Role (various projects)
Feb 2012 to Sept 2013 - Working on tender and implementation of new processing partner for Signet’s plastic card payments (for PCI-DSS compliance) – Includes, credit\debit, pre-paid, stored value etc cards.
· Business Analyst\Consultant on project to select new payments service.
o Analysis and documentation of as-is processes and technology.
o Authored comprehensive RFI and then RFP packs including circa 200 individual requirements..
o Reviewed responses and addressed technical\process questions.
o Reviewed bids in order to produce common point of reference.
o Attended reference site meetings on behalf of Signet.
o Authored final proposal to board with recommended option.
o Designed new processes for both stores and back-office
o Authored and issued specification documents
Jan 2012 to June 2012 - Working within Signet’s IT\Business Change function with specific focus on migrating Signet’s Interest Free offering from Santander to Hitachi.
· Business Analyst\Consultant on project to change IFC provider.
o Analysis and documentation of “as-is” processes and technology.
o Design of new selling\till process.
o Solution design for changes to legacy systems, data flows and new build
o Designing financial settlement and reconciliation processes which involved the redevelopment of a number of VBA\excel reconciliation processes.
o Management of testing team (in house and out sourced)
o Created and managed implementation plan across 550 stores
o Designed user training
June 2011 to Jan 2012 - Working within Signet’s IT\Business Change function with specific focus on implementing Role Based Computing at Signet.
· Business Analyst\Consultant on project to implement Role Based Computing at Signet.
o Analysis and documentation of roles.
o Impact assessment of implementation of Office 2010 on existing spreadsheet-based processes, including rewrite of macros (VBA)
o Design of migration process.
o Design of user experience including user communications.
o Created Active Directory (AD) scripts in VBA to automate the migration process (Signet did not have these skills in-house).
Sept 2010 to May 2011- Working within Signet’s IT\Business Change function with specific focus on migrating Signet’s back-end Gift Card platform from RBS to Barclays (Card Commerce)
· Business Analyst\Consultant with card migration expertise
o Analysis and documentation of “as-is” and “to-be” business processes
o Analysis and documentation of “as-is” and “to-be” technical interface
o Development of new technical architecture and new business processes
o Documented Data Dictionary for both source and target systems
o Created mappings for migration of circa 1m sets of existing card data.
o Design and development of new reconciliation processes
o Over saw the specification, design and encoding of a new batch of Gift Cards
Homeserve
Jan 2009 – August 2010
Contract Role
Business Analyst and part time Project Manager
Working within HomeServe’s Business Change team providing analysis and PM resource within small, medium and large business and systems change projects.
· Principal Analyst and SME on business-wide (circa 1800 users) deployment of CDC Respond’s complaint\feedback management software suite within HomeServe, including: -
o Analysis of “as-is” model and mapping of CDC solution around it
o Definition\specification of significant system integration including automation of gratuity cheque production and bespoke customer data look-ups
o Managed System and User Testing
o Designed user training material
o 3rd line support for all system related issues.
· Project managed HomeServe’s parallel re-brand of internal Norwich Union products to Aviva
· Managed re-engineering of data import process for Nikon Warranties
· Managed and consulted within a project to replace existing Customer Relations reports including regulatory reporting.
· Represented HomeServe in off-site client-facing meetings.
· Ran various requirements gathering workshops and documented output.
- Performed both systems and operational gap-analysis.
Egg Banking PLC (Citigroup)
Oct 2008 – Jan 2009
Contract Role
Lead Business Analyst & Work Stream Leader
Lead small team of BAs in requirements gathering and GAP analysis to support the migration of Egg’s credit card accounts across to Citi’s card platform (FDI Equasion to ECS)
· Gathered requirements in one to one interviews
· Led requirements gathering and process mapping workshops
· Documented “as-is” and “to-be” technical and Target Operating Models (TOMs)
· Performed both operational and technical gap-analysis
· Assisted in designing and implementing a suite “standard” project documents
· Liaised with all levels including senior management and exec.
· 2nd contract at Egg – working with same team of people
Barclays Bank – Coventry
Mar 2007 – Sept 2008
Contract Role
Lean Value Stream Manager - Business\Systems Analyst & Project Manager
Complaints Management Information across Barclays Group including Barclaycard, Wealth, General Insurance and Retail Bank.
· Project managed “Roadmap” project to standardise and optimise Complaints MI.
· LEAN Value Stream Manager Group-wide review of Barclays’ complaint classifications (leading team of approximately 25)
· Organised and facilitated LEAN workshops with groups of up to 25 team members
· Mapped “as-is” and developed their Target Operating Model.
· Completed statistical analysis of complaint volume\distribution within complaint code frame to support re-engineering.
· Liaised with stakeholders at all levels (including exec, Barclaycard etc)
· Successfully reduced Barclays Complaint Categories from in excess of 4500 to a more manageable 2500 allowing much more accurate Process Improvement.
· Project managed a team responsible for standardising, optimising and automating a suite of Complaints data MI reports with a view to moving them into a production environment including the re-specification of the complaints data Cognos cube.
· Completed full end-to-end audit of complaint data, from front-end logging of complaints via the Data Warehouse, DataMarts and Cognos Cubes to Management Information Dashboards
· Created new documentation in order to “proof” complaint capture and reporting process.
· Re-engineered, developed and implemented new, semi-automated, monthly reporting process for Barclays’ Complaints Analysis and Planning Department.
· Developed Excel\Access\VBA solution to semi-automate collation and distribution of monthly complaints MI.
· Provided Excel\Access\VBA training and support to Complaints Analysis and Planning department.
· Liaised directly with Data Warehouse (DWS) Team.
HBoS Personal Lending – Cardiff
Jan 2006 – Mar 2007
Contract Role
Business\Systems Analyst
· Lead Business Analyst responsible defining the business and systems processes required to migrate in excess of 5 million Credit Card accounts across card scheme.
· Gathered, defined and collated business requirements by means of workshops and face-to-face meetings with all key stakeholders.
· Liaised with both technical (Certegy, Base2000) and business solution providers to ensure full understanding of requirements.
· Provided input into technical specification phase by means of review and amendment cycle.
· Responsible for delivering the correct “Customer Experience” as defined by business.
· Managed “Change Proposal” process to ensure enduring requirement “best fit”.
· Provided detailed Management Information reports covering call handling, card processing and financial data.
· Responsible for definition of complaint resolution processes and systems.
ISBAN (Abbey) – Milton Keynes
July 2005 – Nov 2005
Contract Role pd)
Business\Systems Analyst
· Business and system analysis of operational and IT infrastructure to facilitate migration from existing software platform to completely new software platform post Santander’s take-over of Abbey.
· Mapped operational process, including all aspects of plastic card processing (application, usage, administration, fund reconciliation and settlement).
· Mapped systems architecture and systems processes.
· Created detailed “as-is” documentation to facilitate low-level “gap” analysis.
· Made recommendations as to process improvement.
· Facilitated and chaired various workshops to determine “as-is” processing
Prudential – Reading
Oct 2004 – May 2005
Contract Role
Business Analyst\Project Manager
· Business analysis of operational and IT infrastructure changes required to facilitate external companies to offer Prudential annuities directly to their pension holders.
· Liaised with both internal and external Actuarial departments to assist with “tender” process and in contract definition.
· Represented Prudential at external client meetings.
· Gathered, defined and documented business requirements, liased with all areas to secure sign-off.
· Project managed team of six technical authors and analysts within a project to re-specify all annuity output documents.
· Communicated directly with design agencies and industry organisations (PPIAB) to ensure that new documents were technically accurate, compliant, in plain English and offered a serious increase in user friendliness over current output.
The Principality Building Society – Cardiff
June 2004 – Oct 2004
Contract Role
Business Analyst\Process Engineer.
· Re-engineered mortgage processing process to be benchmarked as “best in class” with regard to both cost of and time taken in processing a mortgage application
· Chaired workshops and liaised with operational and senior supervisory staff to “map” processes for paper-based Mortgage applications including doc scanning, storage and management.
· Defined optimal process and resource model.
· Investigated and documented issues relating to operational risk
· Analysed areas for potential improvement and generated documentation to illustrate new “proposed” re-engineered process flows.
· Drew up rules and requirements to support and automated mortgage underwriting system.
· Reviewed existing Management Information to determine areas for improvement. Recommended changes.
· Used existing MI to determine cost effectiveness of proposed changes.
· Presented proposed changes and business and benefit cases to the board.
· Drew up detailed business requirements to be taken through to system development.
Egg Plc – Derby
April 2003 - June 2004
Contract Role
Business Analyst\Process Engineer “Fix Moving Money” project (8 months)
· Ran workshops in order to liase with operational staff to “map” processes, including all aspects of Direct Debit and card payments in and out, chargebacks and fraud prevention.
· Analysed processes and re-engineered to maximize efficiency, to improve the customer experience and to meet the Target Operating Model.
· Key contractor appointed to re-engineer Egg’s Direct Debit and BACS processes.
· Identified and recommended wholesale changes to Egg’s AUDDIS and ADDACS (BACS processes) and general DD exception processes to achieve a 25% reduction in unpaid DD’s and a £25 million saving debt provision.
· Developed an expert knowledge of Retail Banking including Cheque Clearing, BACS, CHAPS and Debit\Credit card authorisation and Fraud management and prevention.
· Designed and personally developed a “management information” website used to: -
§ Track the success of process changes implemented
§ Provide a focus for prioritisation of future work.
§ Track business performance
· Communicated and liaised with senior management and Board.
· Produced process and all other related documentation.
· Acted as technical\process advisor for egg’s MasterCard project.
· Recommended changes to egg’s online card authorisation processes.
Business\Technical Analyst “Egg Money Services” project (6 months)
· Created a Subscription business model to service a number of business areas.
· Investigated Fraud and money laundering implications and made recommendations to Board.
· Created project plan and business requirements for Content Management System (CMS) migration (Story Server to bespoke system)
· Researched “Build or Buy” options and produced and presented “options” paper to Board.
· Generated Business Requirements Documents and Technical Specifications.
· Analysed and improved Customer Interaction Design.
· Acted as “agile” programming “Truth”.
· Investigated the legal issues facing companies wishing to provide online account aggregation services.
· Represented Egg in meetings with the country’s leading “computer misuse” specialist Law Firm.
· Investigated using implementing HBSC’s SolveSE online auth tools to collect debit card payments.
AveoMX – London
Jan 2003 - Feb 2003
Contract Role
Awarded contract to design, develop and build software to convert bitmap files for display on mobile phones.
· Analysis and investigation to determine third party requirements.
· Created programming algorithm to convert colour images to monochrome pixel by pixel.
· Pioneered VB bitmap manipulation.
· Evaluated “buy” solutions including Lead Tools.
Glass’s – Anglessey
Jan 2003
Contract Role
Visual Source Safe Auditor\Analyst
· Audited existing source control procedures.
· Recommended and documented changes to overall release process.
· Implemented Visual Source Safe as a version control tool.
· Training and tutoring of users.
Npower – Dudley
Jan 2002 – Sept 2002
Contract Role
Fulfilled role as Business Analyst and Lead Programmer on “Automated Dispute” system
· Lead team of four migrating industry critical workflow software from Yorkshire Electricity to npower.
· Conducted extensive analysis, redesign and development at both code and database level.
· Single stepped through raw code to derive functionality.
· Created code in VB6 and PL\SQL stored procedures.
· Automated Microsoft Outlook.
Eircom – Dublin
Feb 2001 – Dec 2001
Contract Role
Project Manager and Lead Developer
· Analysed Eircom’s requirements for a Customer Relationship Management tool.
· Designed, specified and developed ActiveX components to interact with an electronic telephony system.
· Created stored procedures within an Oracle database.
· Project managed a team of 10.
· Technical Lead to 4 programmers.
· Successfully delivered project within budget and timescales.
Pearl Assurance – Peterborough
Nov 2000 – Feb 2001
Contract Role
Analyst Programmer
· Coding and debugging a Life Assurance and Pensions sales tool.
· Developed a generic project upgrade tool in VB6.
· Created code to remotely alter XML documents held in a DB2 database.
· Coded against a 3rd party Java framework.
· Created XSL style sheets.
Experian – Nottingham
Sept 99 – Nov 2000
Permanent Role
Senior Analyst Programmer
· Responsible for the maintenance and support of a suite of Credit Reference products
· Analysed and created technical specifications.
· Coded in VB3, VB4, VB5 and VB6
· Created code to communicate with IBM mainframe.
· Created platform dependent installations
· Visited customer sites to make ad-hoc changes and environmental changes
Financial Objects
1999
Software Developer
Crisp Computing
1998
Software Developer
Sound and Vision Group
1997 - 1998
Sales consultant and Installation Engineer
West Midlands Audio
1997
Sales and Marketing Manager
Radford hi-fi Ltd
1995 - 1997
Sales Consultant and Installation Engineer
Cleartone hi-fi Ltd
1993 - 1997
Sales Consultant
Wakemans Quantity Surveyors
1990 - 1991
Trainee Quantity Surveyor
TECHNICAL EXPERIENCE & SKILLS
Microsoft certified Programmer in VB 6.0
Sequel Server (all versions)
Active Server Pages
Oracle (all versions)
VBScript\VBA
Access (all versions)
VB 3.0, 4.0, 5.0, 6.0
Microsoft multi-tier solutions
SQL PL\SQL
Web development
Visual Source Safe
TOAD
MS Office suite.
Visio
Component Object Model (COM)
ADO, DAO, RDO, ODBC.
Base 2000 (Certegy)
Excel (VBA)
Vocational Training & Qualifications: -
1998
KCT Computer Training Ltd
NVQ Software Design (‘C’ Programming)
Level II \ III
1998
ARIS Computer Training
Mastering Microsoft VB5.0 Fundamentals
1999
ARIS Computer Training
Mastering Microsoft VB6.0 Development
1999
Microsoft
Designing and implementing desktop applications with Microsoft VB6.0 exam
Passed
2001
Advanced HTML
Passed
Additional Information: -
Date of Birth: 03\07\73 Nationality: British
Marital Status: Married (2-kids!) Driving License: Full (nearly clean!)
Schools: -
1982-1986
Bluecoat School
Harborne
School Prefect and Head of House
1986-1990
Oldswinford Hospital School
Stourbridge
9 GCSE Passes
1995
Worcester Chamber of Commerce
NVQ in retail
Level II\III
