1998

Roles

• • Brown Brothers IT Manager

  • Brown Brothers Project Leader - Leap

  • Brown Brothers Board invitee

  • Father

Achievements

• • Installed a well architected core IT infrastructure at Brown Brothers

  • Successfully lead a multidiciplinary strategy team at Brown Brothers.

Major Activities

1998 saw the implementation of a fully redundant TCP/IP 100MB/s Cisco based network at the Milawa site. The physical wiring extended to 6 buildings and included a fireproof data centre with UPS and backup faculities. Approx 80 fully secured and standardised desktop based on Microsoft Windows NT, Office, Outlook, Internet Explorer and Acrobat Reader were deployed. The intial network services were File/Print share and a comprehensive implementation of Microsoft Exchange. All were delivered on time and on budget

An external email feed and WWW browsing were added later in the year.

The "Leap" Project ran for the duration of 1999 with the objective of establishing the impact the Information Technology was likely to have on Brown Brothers' business environment and the opportunities that Information Technology presented. John A Brown lead a team of the "best and brightest" from Brown Brothers including one person each from Finance, Operations and Marketing. The first phase was an intense period of information gathering from formal training, Industry peers, Customers, Technology Vendors and Technology implementers. It culminated in the development of an "Environment Document" and strategy. The second phase saw the selection, negotiation and contract development for the implementation of and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system from a field of 11 contendors.

Training

Training

Performance Management - Australian Institute of Management

Influential reading

Strategic Thinking for Information Technology - Bernard H. Boar - Wiley Computer Publishing - ISBN 0-471-15881-X

New Work Habits forr a Rapidly Changing World - Price Pritchett - Pritchett & Associates