Alem Abate, PMP

Experience

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  American Express

  Dec 1991 - Apr 1997

  Operations Analyst, Team Leader

  Operations Analyst • Managed service levels through problem identification and resolution and the allocation of call volume for 4 call centers in North America. Also, monitored and reported on enterprise routing effectiveness of new GeoTel (Cisco ICM) implementation. • Ensured the accuracy of scheduling, staffing, and employee work files using TCS (Aspect eWFM). • Created an online tutorial of the system architecture that supports the American Express revenue stream.Team Leader / Supervisor• Implemented new processes that accurately assessed and improved department staffing and productivity. Ensured proper scheduling and data integrity with the Centralized Call Management organization.• Managed all aspects of department training. Performed Quality Monitoring and provided coaching and development of new resources.• Managed department relationship with two temporary agencies and their workforce of over 100 employees. Show less

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  Deluxe Corporation

  Apr 1997 - Aug 1998

  Network Operations Leader

  • Provided strategic direction towards the successful integration and daily management of a centralized functional department responsible for network-level routing configuration, GeoTel (Cisco ICM) application design, contingency planning and execution, real-time load leveling of call volume via AT&T Route-It software and service level management. • Established new processes to document, report and analyze Virtual call center performance and modifications to call delivery strategies.

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  Capital One

  Aug 1998 - Feb 2000

  Telephony Specialist

  • Provided centralized engineering support and consultant services to internal partners to develop and refine call delivery strategies and derive optimal solutions to business challenges. • Effectively leveraged contact center technology to implement and support call routing structures based on business requirements and user call flow documents.• Responsible for the administration of the GeoTel ICR platform (Cisco ICM) which included configuration and scripting within a dynamic, multi-site, virtual call center environment comprised of Pre/Post routing, Translation Routing, MCI carrier Enhanced Voice Services (EVS), conditional routing techniques, attribute-based and skills-based routing.• Supported dual Aspect Telecommunications 6.2/7.2 (Unix and NT based) ACD environment with periodic design and maintenance of Call Control Tables and configuration of new sites.• Provided 24hr on-call support in a regular rotation schedule to continuously support production environment. Show less

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  CSC

  Feb 2000 - Oct 2001

  Senior IT Consultant / Contractor

  Applications Development Team• Provided critical technical leadership and telephony support during the design, development, test and deployment phases of a government contact center modernization project encompassing new Aspect CSS platform, new IVR applications, new network screening application and significant modifications to the existing Aspect ACD and Cisco ICM platforms• Instrumental to the development effort of several 5,000+ node PSTN routing plans via AT&T Route-It software.• Effectively coordinated the Cisco ICM integration to and successful deployment of the AT&T network screening application involving multiple AT&T NICs/CRP IDs, ICM labels/CRP tables and contingency routing strategies. Call Management Team• Successfully partnered with Prime Contractor’s federal client to establish customer-focused processes and procedures to insure minimal impact to service delivery during the development effort within a production environment.• Leveraged expertise and knowledge of call center operations, contingency planning and telephony software to provide valuable support to the Applications Development, Systems Engineering, UAT and Deployment teams. Show less

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  Accenture

  Oct 2001 - Feb 2007

  Senior IT Consultant / Contractor

  Deployment & Operations Support Team • Provided primary operations support and systems administration for a dual IVR vendor environment with systems geographically dispersed across 17 locations. • Performed root cause analyses of production issues, documented findings to Prime Contractor’s federal client and resolved issues impacting 42 Intervoice (version 3.5) Windows servers and 35 Aspect CSS (version 4.5) Unix Servers that processed over 60 million calls annually.• Effectively partnered with AT&T, Aspect, Intervoice, IVR application developers and various technical resources to troubleshoot service-impacting problems.• Coordinated deployment activities with Operations personnel to minimize customer impact of IVR code modifications implemented into the production environment.Applications Development & Architecture Teams• Leveraged extensive telephony and operations expertise to develop lab requirements and effectively coordinate the resolution of various lab and production integration issues with the Cisco ICM platform (Prime Contractor’s federal client was the largest Cisco ICM implementation in North America).• Performed modifications to the PSTN network screening application and supported integration test efforts for 3 distinct lab environments.• Provided valuable input to client on telephony environment considerations and potential impacts of various vendor proposals. Show less

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  Orbitz Worldwide

  Nov 2007 - Nov 2008

  Senior Engineer

  • Provided leadership to technical resources and management team to significantly improve vendor’s focus and performance for addressing core issues impacting a critical call delivery/CTI platform.• Effectively collaborated with international and domestic contact center outsourcers and various internal teams to drive swift resolution of technical issues impacting customer experience. • Leveraged functional ICM/ACD/IVR integration and Incident/Problem Management experience to appropriately raise expectations and effectively track and report vendor performance.• Defined and documented a structured process for administering Cisco ICM application modifications to fulfill business requirements and yield accurate design artifacts, clear requirements traceability and a defect tracking method to improve overall quality.• Proactively conducted post implementation analyses of assignments/projects and identified Cisco ICM script refinement opportunities to reduce code complexity, number of errors and level of effort to fulfill future requirements. Show less

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  ShoreGroup

  Sept 2010 - Jun 2011

  Account Manager

  • Provided valuable support services as the primary liaison and customer advocate to clients that generated $2 million in annual revenue.• Effectively leveraged internal engineering resources to manage customer expectations and CSAT and to fulfill requirements.• Accurately tracked and reported on Cisco IP Telephony and Monitoring Appliance issues and addressed incident management process and product performance concerns. • Presented biweekly status, monthly metric and ad hoc reports to customers and also provided regular updates to both management and outsource partners – Cisco and IBM. Show less

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  ShoreGroup

  Sept 2011 - Aug 2013

  Business Analyst

  Project Management• Successfully managed a critical thread of Customer's $286M federal project aimed at replacing a US Government Agency's (end-client) enterprise contact center infrastructure that supports 80 million calls annually, 35+ sites and 4,000+ CSRs.• Partnered with the incumbent Interexchange Carrier (IXC) and various Customer and Agency stakeholder organizations to define and document requirements, test plans, test cases, risks and issues to effectively plan the Carrier Network Transition and validate the IXC technical readiness for the phased implementation to a new integrated solution.• Coordinated the execution of functional and load testing activities, documented and reported results to all constituents and also tracked trouble tickets to closure.• Provided regular updates to Customer and Agency management personnel on the status of prioritized action items, proactively managed risks and issues (and documented root causes) and the impacts to overall project schedule and quality.Quality Management• Collaborated with internal technical resources to facilitate and drive a disciplined approach towards the resolution of defects logged by 3 distinct testing teams and the prioritization of work performed, which reduced the impact of process inefficiencies and improved the accuracy and clarity of status updates reported to the Customer (Prime Contractor) and the Agency (end-client). • Provided regular updates to management regarding the results of ad hoc analyses, defect and release management performance, risks and issues.• Developed a quality assessment and improvement plan for product training of an MI Reporting platform delivered to 750+ managers across 35+ government contact center locations.• Defined a process to compile documented user feedback, quantify evaluation results and track performance to identify any trends that represented specific opportunities for improvement to the learning process and training effectiveness. Show less

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  STG International, Inc.

  Feb 2014 - Oct 2018

  Senior Business Consultant / Contractor

  • Developed strong relationships with internal federal clients of a US Government Agency’s shared services organization that provides an extensive portfolio of services including outsourced contact center/help desk support.• Successfully balanced competing priorities across multiple programs and effectively managed client expectations.• Provided direction and managed the productivity and performance of team members performing various functions in support of a key client.• Proactively identified and tracked vendor performance and reporting deficiencies through diligent analyses to effectively manage and improve the service delivery provided by the vendor to federal clients.• Effectively delivered client presentations/reports on KPIs, areas of opportunity for improvement and the status/impact of system issues and knowledge base deficiencies.• Generated detailed business requirements and forecasts for cost proposals to support project start-up, multiple contract modifications and decommissioning efforts. • Championed the resolution of software defects for vendor-hosted application migration project. Show less

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  General Dynamics Information Technology

  Oct 2018 - Feb 2019

  Operations Manager

  • Provided operational oversight and management of new contact center and supported the rapid ramp-up of a multi-site customer service operation dedicated to assisting survivors of natural disasters. • Established performance objectives and set direction for management team.• Created tools, processes and reports to provide operational awareness of performance improvement opportunities.• Appropriately prioritized areas of operational focus for management team to drive improvements to the customer experience and agent productivity. • Provided coaching and development to management team to help achieve overall site objectives. • Effectively addressed a myriad of technical, logistical and personnel issues at the new site. Show less