CIO Expert Witness

A pragmatic, business-minded, Information Technology executive with a solid business foundation, and international experience. A 25-year career in assisting companies to recognize the business improvements brought by Information Technology, and the proactive management of its implementation. These efforts consistently delivered enhancements to profitability, efficiency, and/or market position. A work history that includes 10 years of global systems responsibilities and international postings in a Fortune 500 company, and 15 years in positions as CIO and/or CFO for, multi-location/state financial retail service, and multi-national manufacturing, companies.

The scope of the systems that Mr. Blitch has designed, built, managed the implementation of, and/or qualified as an expert witness on includes:

·          Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) Systems (such as Oracle, JD Edwards, Peoplesoft, or SAP)

·          Fortune 500 class legacy mainframe systems

·          Client/Server architecture systems for financial services companies

·          Distributed systems and databases

·          National/International scale Wide Area Networks of PCs

·          Web-based information delivery systems

·          XML-based e-commerce systems

Areas of Expertise

Business Counseling and Management:

·          Managed a cross-functional technical and user team on the project definition and planning of a 25,000-man-hour global systems project for a Fortune 500 company.

·          Directed an on-schedule and budget, 6-month “ASAP” implementation of a full scope SAP R/3 ERP system to replace an existing legacy accounting, manufacturing, inventory, and transportation systems.

·          Managed an aggressively scheduled business process and programming project to broaden the implementation of a company-wide labor cost system for a Fortune 500 company. This on-schedule effort delivered major cash flow benefits.

·          Designed and developed an application to perform on-site financial analysis of complex real estate development projects for one of the country's largest builders of new homes.

·          Lead an organization’s management team in identifying and defining management requirements to develop a multi-year IT plan that included a complete overhaul of the communication and computing infrastructure, and a full operational requirements definition and ERP software selection project.

·          Managed needs analysis, programming and/or implementation projects for a Fortune 500 company in major operations centers in Houston TX, Chicago IL, Greenville SC, Düsseldorf, Germany, Camberley, England and Haarlem, The Netherlands.

Systems Solutions and Innovation:

·          Conceived, and managed the development of, a fast-track project to replace an outsourced business-critical revenue and activity tracking system. This project cut operational costs 60+ percent, creating a project payback of less than 6 months.

·          Conceived and implemented a revenue analysis system with links to external vendors that lead to a revenue enhancement program achieving over a 5% increase in revenue, on the same level of base transactional activity, by its third month. This resulted in over $800K in increased profitability within the first year.

·          Developed a revenue analysis system that identified in excess of $130K monthly in additional revenue. In the first two months of the project, targeted revenue rose more than 6%.

·          Initiated an analysis to identify opportunities in a product loading and transportation process. This project identified in excess of $290K in potential annual profit impact.

·          Conceived, and managed the development of, a GIS based market analysis tool. Combined a cross-functional team’s input with internal and external data sets to identify, by specific potential customer, new revenue opportunities.

Litigation Expertise:

·          CIO Expert Witness in a 9-figure dispute between a multi-billion dollar national retail chain and their implementation partner over allegations surrounding an SAP implementation.

Experience

Tessenderlo Kerley Inc. (Phoenix, AZ) - 1997 to Present

Chief Information Officer

Impact Consulting (San Juan Capistrano, CA) - 1995 to 1997

Principal

Victoria Mortgage Corporation (Irvine, CA) - Jan 1996 to Jul 1996

Chief Information Officer

The Spring Mountain Group (Irvine, CA) - 1990 to 1995

Chief Financial Officer, Chief Operations Officer

The Fluor Corporation (North America, Saudi Arabia, Japan, various EU countries) - 1980 to 1990

Project Group Leader - Finance Systems

Education

B.S. in Business Administration - 1979, College of Charleston, Charleston, SC

Affiliations and Appearances

·          The CIO Peer Group Roundtable – Member of a forum for senior Information Technology executives to exchange ideas with their peers on key issues of interest.

·          The Agricultural CIO Roundtable – Founding member of a peer group forum for the top-level technology policy makers from business segments serving the Agriculture industry to gather and discuss technologies, priorities, and strategies.

·          “Enterprise-Wide Software for Medium-Sized Firms” - Speaker at Cal State Fullerton Dean’s technology symposium on ERP for the Faculty of The School of Business Administration & Economics.

·          “Turning Good Chemistry into Equipment Sales and Maintenance Revenue” - Speaker at The America’s SAP Users Group (ASUG) Annual Conference – ASUG is the world's largest independent, not-for-profit, organization of SAP customer companies and partners.

·          “The Industry’s Use of E-Commerce” - Speaker at The Fertilizer Institute‘s Outlook Conference – Speaker at the fertilizer industry’s premier forecasting conference. The annual event is intended for financial experts, economists, bankers, and investor relations professionals who follow the world fertilizer market.

·          “Computer Disasters – Lessons Learned in Getting the Facts before the Court – An Experts’ Panel” – Speaker at Southwestern Law School’s International IT Law Conference – The conference brings together national and international experts, and those who litigate, arbitrate or mediate IT-related disputes, to share their experiences with an audience of lawyers, computer industry executives and government representatives from the Americas, Asia and Europe.

·          “Talk to your Plants – Enterprise systems yearn to know what’s happening on the factory floor.” – CIO Magazine

·          “On The Hot Seat - An IT Project Goes South, What Do You Do?” – Computerworld

·          “Measuring Alignment - Business and Technology” – Computerworld

·          “The Readiness Gap – Change Management and Staff Development” – CIO Insight

·          “Striking a Balance – Procurement and Implementation Strategies”– Computerworld

·          “CFOs demanding detailed IT project info - Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002” – Computerworld“

· Supply Chain ROI: 'Big Bang' Works Best - Bold improvements yield bigger ROI than incrementalism.” – Computerworld