Dimension Data: Technical Architect Consultant

Posted on :

1 Dec, 2010

Category :

IT Jobs in South Africa, Vacancies South Africa

Dimension Data was founded in 1983 in South Africa and today operates in 49 countries on six continents. Our growth has been driven by our clients’ need to operate efficiently in an environment where collaborative partnerships and the intelligent network have emerged as the two most important business enablers. Our heritage in networking and deep understanding of network-related technologies differentiate us from our competitors. Moving forward into the future, our focus has evolved to adapting the design, management and development of business technology to be a better servant to the greater business and use it as a tool to drive innovation, enable market leadership and make companies tighter, better, more cost-effective and competitive.

Primary Location: MEA-ZA-Gauteng

Target Start Date: Jan 3, 2011

Number of Openings: 1

Job Description:

Position Summary and Primary Objectives
The Technical Architect Consultant consults with clients with complex information technology environments. They provide multi-technology consulting services to clients to analyse and provide strategies and solutions on all aspects

of infrastructure and related technology components.

Overall, they advise on the best design for information technology architectures in terms of:
• Unified Communications and Collaboration (primary focus)
• Cloud Computing
• Virtualisation
• Networking Infrastructure

The objective is to ensure the optimal functioning of an entity’s IT infrastructure, enable clients to maximise the value of the technology being used, reduce the total cost of ownership and construct a foundation for efficiency gains.
The Technical Architect Consultant has professional consulting ability and the ability to act as trusted advisors, mean that they create new and repeat business for the organisation. Their interventions result in up sell of Dimension Data business. They are required to spot opportunities for new and repeat services at client sites.

Main Duties / Key Accountabilities

Technology Expertise
• Expert knowledge on multi-technology infrastructure design best practice.
• Trusted advisors to clients on optimal infrastructure designs.
• Holistic views of such technology environments including hardware platforms, applications, databases, operating systems and storage.
• Use client requirements to advise on the design, deployment and operation of infrastructures.
• Have knowledge of all Dimension Data product, service and solution lines.

Specialisation Knowledge
• Technical Architect Consultants are required to specialise in a specific technology stream and to integrate this expertise with their holistic infrastructure architecture knowledge.
• This role specialises in Unified Communications and Collaboration.

Infrastructure Architecture Consulting (Consulting Delivery)
• Able to create strategies and solutions that define meta-architectural designs for complex solutions that will address issues such as styles, concepts, mechanisms and principles that combine to formulate the architectural

vision for a specific environment.
• Apply design methodology principles in a logical and scientific manner to perform a detailed analysis of client requirements to create designs for conceptual architectural designs. These designs provide holistic views, but also

contain the details of the components and interconnections between components.
• Knowledgeable on how specific infrastructures are deployed in line with the internal methodology frameworks and Dimension Data approved industry best practices. They will be able to apply these frameworks and best practices

to their designs and they will also be responsible to contribute advice on improving methodology.
• Able to leverage their knowledge of reference architectures during the whole consulting lifecycle.
• Have knowledge of project management principles and they ensure that projects with clients are executed accordingly.
• These employees are required to be experts in application and infrastructure architectures.  They communicate the technical architecture value to IT and business stakeholders.
• Lead consulting engagements & workshop activities in order to define client business requirements and map how these translate into IT infrastructure requirements.
• Overall accountability and ownership of all collateral (documentation, presentations) that is delivered as part a consulting implementation.
• Ability to define consulting programmes and consult on the requirements analysis and delivery of multiple DD Line of Business projects as part of a single programme.
• They act as trusted advisors in identifying risks in current application and associated infrastructure architectures in client organisations.
• Ability to travel and work in different MEA countries and time zones, as the work dictates.

Business Development
• Increase business opportunities for Dimension Data by acting as entrepreneurs and generating opportunities as trusted advisors to clients.
• Contribute to the process of selling solutions and services, including proposal generation.

Client Engagement
• Display a client service orientation and strive for client engagement.
• Good at preparing and presenting clients with their solutions and they can convince and persuade internal and external stakeholders of the right course of action.

Vendor Engagement
• Interact with vendors as required to obtain full knowledge of vendor roadmaps, new developments and new product offerings. Where required they will collaborate with Technology Managers to obtain deep insight into vendor offerings.
• Collaborate and include vendors in solution design when required, creating win-win scenarios for the different parties.

Practice Development
• Required to contribute to the development of new services to take to market, to contribute information on relevant vertical markets and to keep up to date on developments in specific technology domains.
• Act as experts in the Dimension Data organisation and they mentor younger consultants.
• Continuously contribute to the improvement of internal effectiveness by contributing to the improvement of current methodologies, processes and tools.
• Conduct research and generate white papers as relevant.
• Align to Group offering portfolio and go-to-market (GTM) to ensure consistency and IP share.
• Participate in global practice communities, sales reporting, and marketing initiatives.
• Leverage resources and activities in Group to support delivery.
• To engage with the MEA Chief Technology Office (CTO) to ensure that the Unified Communications and Collaboration consulting offerings dovetail with and support Dimension Data’s technology strategy.

Requirements: Education, Training and Experience
• First degree or Diploma with focus on technology
• Business degree (advantageous) & supporting financial/commercial courses.
• 10-15 years business / IT experience.
• 3-5 years Strategic IT Consulting experience in leading multiple concurrent projects with different clients.
• Should have in depth technical understanding in at least 3 DD Lines of Business (e.g. networking, converged communications, security, data centres and storage, contact centres, Microsoft infrastructure,

operations management, interactive media).
• Vendor certifications related to Unified Communications and Collaboration.
• ITSM training & foundation (e.g. ITIL V2,V3, CoBIT, Six Sigma etc).
• TOGAF V8/V9 Architecture Methodology
• Dimension Data Services knowledge.
• Business analysis, testing and software experience will be a plus.
• Systems knowledge: Microsoft Sharepoint (MOSS), Microsoft Office, Lotus Notes, SAP.

Personal Attributes and Skills Required
• Dynamic individual accountable for and driven to accomplish sales and commercial targets.
• Acts as democratic leader in required situation/co-leadership/situational leadership.
• Problem solving.
• Creativity.
• Analytical ability and capacity to deal with ambiguity.
• Versatilist with related in-depth subject matter expertise & ability to adapt to understand the client’s required deliverables.
• Logical and process orientated thinking.
• Ability to communicate at all levels, from CEO to junior staff.
• Ability to work under pressure.
• Must be a self starter who can work with little or no supervision.
• Negotiation skills.
• Conflict resolution / facilitation skills.
• Strong character / ability to match customer expectation and DD delivery.
• Ability to motivate and excite a programme team (Charisma)
• Good Business acumen and the ability to manage/coach a team of professionals.

How to apply:

Click on this link:

http://www.dimensiondata.com/AboutUs/Careers/JobOpportunities/Pages/Home.aspx

select basic search; then Location as Africa and apply.


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