(905) 321 2291
philcheevers@hotmail.com

A Customer-Focused Executive with strong executive operations and
business development experience.

Executive Summary

Mr. Cheevers brings over twenty years of project management in business development, operations and technology arenas.  For the last ten years he has been delivering strategic consulting projects around order management and fulfilment in large private and quasi-public sector industries and international business development.

Representative Accomplishments

• Developed business in soft commodities between Asia and South and North America.
• Developed soft commodity supply chains among Asia, South and North America
• Opened up Russia for sales of Canadian Icewine.  VinoCanada was the first Icewine enjoyed  in the Kremlin
• Design and delivery of supply chain processes and systems support (Sears, Union Energy, PortalZone)
• Strategic design and delivery of large scale facilities rationalization and reorganization (Sears, Union Energy)
• Strategic design and delivery of large scale IM/IT initiatives (Sears, Union Energy)
• Strategic analysis of large scale IM/IT divisions (Best Buy, Union Gas)
• Design-build of call centre, data entry, office, and retail facilities.   (Union Energy)
• Design and delivery of scheduling and routing systems (Sears, The Bay)
• Delivered a number of customer relationship management applications (CRM) and processes, including Vantive (now PeopleSoft) (Union Energy, 300 seats), Act (PortalZone, 4 seats; HireTopTalent 4 seats), Gold Mine (Union Energy 25 seats), Proprietary (Sears, 3000 users; Sears, 1000 users)

Mr. Cheevers is comfortable communicating at all levels of an organization, from first line to executive management and is noted for achieving on time, below budget, and fully scoped deliverables without surprises to his clients.  Mr. Cheevers maintains an open culture and ensures that all participants on a project understand their and other’s roles, importance and expectations.

Professional Employment History

 Media Published

• THE Restaurant Companion for Icewine 
• The Essential Icewine Companion
• www.icewinetales.com
• Making Contact: Building a Strong Local Call Centre Pursuit Team;Municipal World Magazine
• Third Party Logistics: Ensuring the Best Fit between Customer and Provider; Canadian Transportation & Logistics Magazine
• Third Party Logistics: The Importance of Day One; Materials and Management & Distribution Magazine
• Help for a Faltering Teams; EDIWORLD
• The Grim Reaper Gripes: Outsourcing and Downsizing from Both Sides; Enterprise Reengineering
• What To Do Before the Restructuring Axe Falls; The Toronto Star
• Tracking Our Way Through the Universe; GAM magazine:
• Overboard!  Lake Sailor
• Buffett Fans Sail In Sailing magazine

Education

Brock University, St. Catharines, Ontario.
Public and Business Administration

Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois.
Archaeology and Anthropology

1       VinoCanada Inc

January 1996-Present

VinoCanada was formed to create business opportunities between Canada and Russia in the wine industry.  VinoCanada’s scope was later increased to include soft commodities like edible oils and poultry products.

1.1      Director of Wine Sales

Sold Icewine into  Russia.  VinoCanada’s Icewine was the first to be enjoyed (and remains enjoyed) in the Kremlin.

1.2      Director of soft commodities

Business development of soft commodities like edible oils and poultry products between Asia and South and North America

2       MC Maxwell Group Inc.

January 1996-Present

2.1      Chief Consultant

Maxwell is a consulting firm formed in 1996 to deliver consulting projects in the systems, logistics, and facilities management sectors.  Maxwell focuses on customer contact and customer order management processes.  Sold and delivered project based engagements

Selected Engagements include:

2.1.1       Best Buy Inc., Minneapolis, MN

Developed strategic plan for customer order management systems developing order fulfillment strategies for over $200 billion in planned sales. This involved integrating core processes and business objects with I2, Retek, Clarify, and dot com initiatives with legacy systems.  Also performed a market assessment of core order management products. The result of the project was that an enterprise wide order management software was selected, and appropriate corporate buy-in at all levels was achieved within 4 months.

2.1.2       HireTopTalent, Director, Professional Services

Mr. Cheevers is responsible for developing a professional services division within HireTopTalent. HireTopTalent Inc. is a leading recruiting firm providing Human Capital Solutions for the worldwide technology industry. In this role, Mr. Cheevers builds and manages teams of high technology professionals under contract to a number of private and public organizations.

2.1.3       Hudson’s Bay Company, Toronto, Ontario.

Mr. Cheevers delivered design documentation (‘how to’ develop) of a home delivery system that included scheduling and routing algorithms, methods, and database design.

2.1.4       Contract Executive, Hire Level Technologies Inc.  Chief Operating Officer

Hire Level Technologies builds next generation recruiting systems.

Mr. Cheevers’ role as Chief Operating Officer was to build systems delivery infrastructure and corporate infrastructure, including supply chain relationships, customer care and perform key business development  activities.

2.1.5       Contract Executive, PortalZone Inc. Chief Operating Officer

PortalZone builds Internet search engine products for Internet vertical portals.

Mr. Cheevers’ role as Chief Operating Officer was to build service delivery infrastructure and corporate infrastructure, including customer care, accounting, and training that was scaleable and affordable.  He also acted as custodian of the business plan and operations planning and was shared significant responsibilities with the CEO in raising second round investment.

2.1.6       Contract Executive, PortalZone Inc. VP Business Development

PortalZone builds Internet search engine products for Internet vertical portals.

As Vice President, Business Development Mr. Cheevers built the sales methodology, sales operations and marketing for PortalZone and managed development of the sales force.  He also served as head coach for the teams developing emerging business.

2.1.7       Capital leasing company, Burlington, Ontario.

Mr. Cheevers managed a redesign of leasing marketing programs and coached sales operations methodologies with the sales force.

2.1.8       Manager, Customer Relationship Management Practice

While at Deloitte Consulting, Mr. Cheevers worked with the Customer Relationship Management (CRM) practice in the retail and energy practice lines.  During that time he developed and delivered proposals for Deloitte Consulting, consulted for utility and call centre initiatives and developed relationships with technology companies in retail and CRM marketspaces

Mr. Cheevers also developed interactive voice response requirements for a provincial electrical utility to support enhanced customer care requirements expected through future energy deregulation.

3       Union Energy Inc.

1997 – 1999

Union Energy is the deregulated sister company of Union Gas, Ontario’s natural gas distribution company. Mr. Cheevers was the third person to join Union Energy and after 2 years had lead corporate growth to support over 1 million customers in 31 locations, with over 1000 employees managing almost $500 million in assets.

3.1      Director, Business Development, 1999

In his role as Director, Business Development, Mr. Cheevers developed a strategic business development model to build customer relationship management (CRM) systems to sell into deregulating municipal electric utility energy markets which included help desk call centre, billing systems and break/fix service products. He then assembled a sales team that began the process of selling CRM systems into municipal electric utilities in Ontario in preparation for deregulation of electricity.

Mr. Cheevers was the executive responsible for building the infrastructure and future business development for consumer divisions of Union Energy.

In this role Mr. Cheevers negotiated and delivered corporate head office, call centre space, and a data entry centre.  He also built 16 Union Energy retail stores across Ontario over 4 months, and was responsible for store design, site selection, lease negotiation, and construction project management.

Following the facilities buildout, he retained responsibility for management of the corporate facilities, which included lease negotiations and landlord relations.

As Director of Business Development, he also worked with the Business Markets division to develop over  $30 million in leads for Business Markets sales force.

3.2      Director, Customer Care: Information technology, Call Centre & Service Operations, 1997-1999

Mr. Cheevers was the executive responsible for developing the information technologies, call centre and service operations strategies.

After a business requirements and functional requirements process, Mr. Cheevers developed the Union Energy Customer Care strategy, which supports processes that managed relationships with 1.3 million customers through call centre and contact centre customer touch points

Mr. Cheevers developed the Union Energy information technology strategy, which supported processes through which 1,000 associates manage $550 million in assets and $210 million in sales.

Mr. Cheevers led the recruitment and orientation of the Call Centre and IT management teams.

Mr. Cheevers performed market assessments and selected customer care application software. Final selection included Vantive, W-6, SCT Banner, Oracle and SAP. Candidates included Scopus, Seibel, SAP, PeopleSoft and Lawson.

Mr. Cheevers performed market assessments and selected the integration consultant for implementation. Candidates included Cambridge Technology Partners, TSC, IBM, Deloitte Consulting, and Daedalian.

Mr. Cheevers was the executive responsible for developing the technical infrastructure for Union Energy, outsourced through ISMBC and SHL

Through patient advocacy, Mr. Cheevers was able to add “Customer Relationship Management” to the parent company’s (West Coast Energy) corporate strategy.

Mr. Cheevers also developed strategic alliances and strong relationships with partner and source firms, to the level where team selling and joint projects were conceived and delivered.

4       Sears Canada Inc.

1977 – 1996

4.1      Senior Business Analyst, Information Technology, 1995-1996

Mr. Cheevers was responsible for identifying and translating business requirements of retail, catalog, distribution, finance, parts and service, and clearance operations divisions servicing 110 retail stores and 850 catalog units across Canada.

As a senior business analyst, he optimized the flow of customer-owned merchandise in Southern Ontario and Quebec to significantly improve customer service levels and redesigned national process of handling 80,000 per year big-ticket returns to fully automate process from inception to disposition.  Estimated annual savings: $820 thousand.

Mr. Cheevers created and delivered a strategy on process redesign to the break / fix parts and service operations senior management.  This was adopted as part of their 1996 renewal planning process, which managed the planning of over 1000 service technicians across Canada.

Mr. Cheevers also designed a new fixed asset utilization measurement method that allows plant expense to be considered in Activity Based Costing (ABC) evaluations.

4.2      Manager, Sears Metro Home Delivery Systems, 1991 – 1995

Mr. Cheevers was directly responsible for line management of Sears heavy delivery operations in Southern Ontario, including a flow of merchandise worth $300 million per year, contract management with 3 carriers, a fleet of 40 trucks, 55 call centre associates and warehouse personnel reporting through 5 managers, and Metro Delivery systems development and support.

Mr. Cheevers designed both the systems application and business processes for, developed, installed trained and supported on-line delivery reservation and operations system that supports over 3,000 users and manages 60% of Sears deliveries. In addition to managing the customer care process and supporting the call centre, the system identified the nonconformance that developed during the supply chain process, generated trouble tickets and routed the tickets to the appropriate agents to initiate the customer recovery action.

As part of the deployment of the proprietary system, Mr. Cheevers designed the database and tables, and the back end handling programs and rules that were tested to be five times faster than IBM’s SQL/DS, managing over 25,000 requests of a database with tables that contained over 40 million records.

Mr. Cheevers designed the functionality that automatically developed the knowledgebase that enabled root cause analysis and problem determination procedures to enhance customer satisfaction rates.
The system was integrated with email and paging management systems so that triggers would generate emailed tickets, escalations and reports as per the rules mechanisms.

Mr. Cheevers also implemented and coached customer response methods that focused on empowerment, coaching, motivating and training, and grew customer “perfect perception” rate from 65% to 98%.

Mr. Cheevers designed and deployed a check fraud management system that saved the company over $100,000 in check frauds in the first year of use.

Mr. Cheevers planned, designed, and implemented the Central Customer Service Team (CCST) call centre and help desk, and established service level objectives for the project to handle all big ticket customer inquiries in the Southern Ontario and Quebec regions.  In doing so, Mr. Cheevers business process analysis and established services levels at all points of the core business process, including customer service, fleet operations, and financial responsibility.

Mr. Cheevers also provided the design and coaching for the customer complaint (trouble ticket) system that was used nationally by the national Sears Catalog customer service program.

Mr. Cheevers served on the president’s special Task Force for Customer Service Initiatives.

As the operations manager responsible for all costs of home delivery operations, Mr. Cheevers was able to create expense reductions of $2.0 million, a 25% reduction.

Mr. Cheevers designed and introduced first Quality Program to Sears Canada in 1991.

Over the four years as Manager of Home Delivery Systems and Operations, Mr. Cheevers successfully negotiated and executed rules of engagement and built a strong relationship with third party providers for logistics and warehousing services.

Mr. Cheevers also managed the environmentally responsible disposal program for used white goods and mattresses returned through the delivery system. He created and managed the program through a third party disposal network that reused, recycled, and source separated the materials in an environmentally conscientious manner that was also a revenue generator.

4.3      Store Superintendent, 1987 – 1990

For three years, between 1987 and 1990, Mr. Cheevers fulfilled the role of Assistant Store Manager with responsibility for operations and personnel management functions.  This included managing sales support departments, selling payroll, and other expense control of a Sears store with 300 employees, revenue of $33 million and payroll of $5 million.

During this time he developed the ancillary revenue stream from concessions to top 5% in the Sears chain.  Mr. Cheevers also coached teams to excel in sales of maintenance agreements, sales of new credit applications, payroll control and maintenance of the highest standards in housekeeping in the Sears chain.

4.4      Office Systems Consultant, 1986 – 1987

As an office systems consultant with Sears head office, Mr. Cheevers served as second level support for user originated tickets and third level support for a number of IBM mainframe products, such as InfoCenter/1 Reporting System (IC/1), Virtual Machine Application System (VMAS), Sync Sort, Lotus 123/m, PROFS / OVVM email system, XEDIT and REXX, and the IBM VM/CMS mainframe operating system.

Mr Cheevers also consulted with the client community and coached end users in the selection and deployment of projects using the suite of IBM mainframe and PC based end user computing tools. Sample projects included sales reporting projects, donation management applications, and human resources reporting and analysis systems.

Mr. Cheevers was responsible for performing product testing, creating and delivering training to the end user community, and for coaching end users in the effective use of the products.  The maintenance agreement reporting application was responsible for increasing sales for Sears Canada by over $6 million in one year.

Mr. Cheevers also created quick directory lookup programs that became the standard lookup and search program for the head office, and the first vacation announcement program known (which was similar to the Outlook ‘rules’ program).

4.5      Sales Manager, Home Centre, 1983 – 1986

Mr. Cheevers, as the Sales Manager for the Home Centre in St. Catharines, took the division to the largest sales division in Canada, with the highest turnover and consistently better than average gross profit.  He built innovative merchandise programs and managed transition of the sales process to an inside/outside model with six outside home sales professionals, and six inside salespeople.  The total staff of over sixty delivered over $6 million per year in sales.

4.6      Merchandise Control/Advertising Manager, 1983

Mr Cheevers managed the nit buying control office for a $35 million Sears store (St. Catharines) where he was responsible for the open to buy controls, the overall inventory levels, and the purchase order creation and management processes.

Mr. Cheevers was also responsible for the local advertising budgets and provided leadership for the team  that generated the largest single sales day for a single store in the Sears chain.

4.7      Division Manager, 1977 – 1983

Mr. Cheevers was the division manager responsible for the men’s wear (annual sales $3.5 million) and house wares and lighting (annual sales $2.7 million) divisions.   As the division manager, Mr. Cheevers was responsible for the sales, gross profit, general management and merchandising of the divisions.

Mr. Cheevers’ Men’s Wear team won the Chairman’s Challenge for best Men’s Wear Division in Sears Canada in 1982.

Formal Skills Inventory

Training Delivered

Training Taken