Skipp Merchant
770-967-3815
Skipp Merchant has developed software, managed teams and groups, and consulted in the Atlanta Georgia area for over 20 years. He integrates applications that interact with other software tools to improve business processes. Skipp is not the stereotypical software developer because of his understanding of business processes and because of his ability to communicate in both technical and non-technical terms.
I entered the business world during college by inadvertently taking a sales position that was disguised as something else. A few years later, I had a business with a network of U.S. manufactures and customers that I interacted with, and I needed software to create, understand, and automate business processes.
“Excel was my first love, but I soon saw the value of transforming data into a guiding light and the power of relating data in MS Access to replace lookups and perform business tasks faster through automation, and the value .”
One of the things that I offer to include with my business analysis is a “Break Even” analysis that charts when, in time, the improvements being considered will stop costing money and will begin saving you money. The “Break Even” analysis compares “As-Is” process costs provided by the business to the “To-Be” process costs that I will stand behind.
Many enterprises large and small are like a room filled with great musicians that fall short as a unit because no conductor is present to orchestrate them into a magnificent symphony. With a little respectful dialogue, with a little creativity, I can unlock your vision and connect your dormant legacy enterprise data to powerful applications such as Microsoft Power BI or MS Access and create new proactive automated business processes. Like a Sherpa is to a mountain climber, I will guide you, vault your dormant data to new heights, manage the changes, and deploy your vision.
Skipp develops in
His certifications are in
Skipp has developed production grade applications for UPS, The Home Depot, Cagle’s, Inc., Panasonic, and others.
“Being selected in singularity by a Fortune 50 company (UPS) to analyze, develop, and expedite important projects was a great honor. One such project was outside of my business group where I collaborated with the UPS security group to analyze the ability of UPS distribution centers to intercept shipments, per the Federal Government, that are of legal or national interest.
On another occasion, I was selected in singularity to design, develop, and deploy a new business process to automate and standardize tasks that a soon to retire employee had handled for many years. Time was of the essence, and a normal cycle involving a business analyst, developers, a project manager, change management, budget approval, etc. was not feasible… Every year software project proposals totaling several hundred million dollars are submitted by employees for being considered as additions to the enterprise software. UPS needed someone to analyze the needs, illicit the business requirements, and quickly develop a flawless process. I created the Enterprise Software Release Database and Status Dashboard application, put the data part was on a server, and then deployed 82 ODBC linked front-ends to users across North America. A management version output a paginated pdf file that went to the CIO, Sr. Vice Presidents, and others at the very top.”
The most difficult obstacle that Skipp encounters is when someone thinks that experience in specific industry or process is more important than his ability to analyze a business process and develop an excellent solution to improve that process.
“New concepts and terminology can be quickly assimilated. But being creative, understanding business and technology, and being able to empathetically communicate well with non-technical stakeholders about what they need is a part of what a person is.”
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