| Residence
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Resident near Newport, South Wales.
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| Nationality
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English, but grateful for contributions from Wales, Italy and Russia.
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| Education
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- 8 'O' levels (1964).
- 4 'A' levels (1966).
- BSc. (Hons) Electronics (Southampton, 1969).
- Ph.D. in management research (University of Wales, Newport, 2007).
Also recent certificates for: Grade 1 Food Hygiene and Emergency First Aid at Work.
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| Research Background
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My research was stimulated by the need to understand why so many "favoured" organisations suddenly
failed, due to incipient but unrevealed terminal weaknesses. The research encompassed several distinct areas
of study, including organisational strategy, performance
management (which included quality systems), organisational learning, stakeholder theory and analytic modelling.
These studies and the associated field research were brought together in my thesis
A Stakeholder-Based Organisation Performance Model.
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Current
(2015-)
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Officially retired.
Like many other professionals, this simply means that I continue working for worthy causes in my areas of expertise but no longer expect to be paid for it!
Details of what I get up to are summarised on the Social Interests page.
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Career Experience
(2000-2015)
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Company director.
In 2000 I formed 2k Business Services Limited, incorporating the company previously trading as Grossi Business
Systems (detailed below). The purpose was partly to provide intrinsic value to the business itself, partly to
enable the involvement of other people either as employees or directors, and partly to provide greater security
of service to customers.
The company, building on the experience of other members of staff, provided a range of quality and management
services. It offered particular knowledge and experience in the fields of ISO9001, ISO14001, TQM, Lean, Kaizen,
SPC and Six Sigma.
I also provided programming services in Java to run on workstations under Windows or Linux, using PostgreSQL
database engines (servers) running under Linux. Until early 2009 I also provided a complete cradle-to-grave
support service for office networks running Windows or Linux applications. I later subcontracted that business to
people I trust to provide a high quality of service which allowed me to concentrate on the management services.
As the company director for 2k Business Services I was entirely responsible for all legal and financial aspects
of the company.
By 2015 the recession had penetrated strongly into my business sector, which severely restricted the funds
available in SMEs for business improvement initiatives. The opportunities for financial support, on which the
denizens of my market were strongly dependent, had also been cut back, which compounded the decline in business opportunities.
After several marketing efforts it became clear that my business model, of the independent expert without recent large
company experience, had become outdated. Thus
faced with the decision, whether to rebuild my business on a new model or quietly retire, and being by then beyond the
"normal" retirement age I took the opportunity to open a new and different phase of my life. I could then concentrate
on supporting worthy causes and re-establishing some sort of social life, which had been effectively denied for many years.
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Career Experience
(1989-2000)
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Self employed.
On leaving Ferranti I established a business, in the name of Grossi Business Systems, as an independent management
and technical advisor for companies in the south Wales area. I provided two main services based on my earlier
experience:
- Management support for quality and productivity, in particular BS5750. Clients comprised mainly
manufacturing, distribution, construction and printing companies.
- Total technical support for office computers and networks, including analysis, system design, product
selection, installation, configuration, training and through-life support. Clients included Newport Wafer-Fab,
British Steel, British Steel Industry Ltd., A.S.A.T.(U.K.), and a number of small and medium-sized companies
in the sectors of manufacturing, construction, distribution, accountancy and printing.
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Career Experience
(1986-1989)
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Ferranti Computer Systems.
Reporting to the I.T. Director, responsible for establishing the requirement for I.T. in the management
support role, specifying technical implementation and supervising deployment, user training and support.
It became clear by 1989 that the company was in terminal decline, so instead of accepting an offer of promotion
and relocation to the head office in Manchester I elected to take voluntary redundancy. By then I had
successfully re-deployed many of my staff to other departments, including design, software development and
project management. In responding to the obvious company situation by progressively reducing my staff budget
I was able to save them all from redundancy, at least for long enough for them to find employment elsewhere.
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Career Experience
(1979-1986)
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Ferranti Computer Systems.
In charge of a development group at Cwmbran, responsible for the design proving and installation of major
military contracts for the land-based and airborne environment. Also responsible for manufacturing test for
locally produced items (mainly first-off and early production equipment), a European training centre for expert
systems, and a technical transfer project for products designed in Canada for manufacture and distribution
in UK for Europe. This involved extensive liaison with the production department, project managers, customers'
support staff, design and software engineers, and frequently involved the design and production of special test
equipment and software. While retaining overall budgetary, timescale and technical responsibility, staff
included graduate engineers, ex-servicemen and civilian technicians, and clerical staff.
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Career Experience
(1969-1979)
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Ferranti Computer Systems.
A development engineer based at Bracknell and on various sites, working on military contracts, mainly for the
Royal Navy. Technically involved in weapons and navigation systems development in the works and on site,
including hardware and software involvement. Significant time was spent at sea, in home waters and abroad,
involving familiarity with radar, weapons and navigation equipment.
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