Surya Durai

• Strategically planned technical projects, including tracking and managing project timelines.
• Defined project scope in collaboration with key stakeholders.
• Worked with different stakeholders to estimate and prepare project costs and ongoing budget management.
• Managed end-to-end delivery and day-to-day operational aspects of IT and business projects.
• Plan and track testing and implementation activities with the relevant teams.
• Vendor management, including negotiations, monitoring deliverables, and maintaining strong relationships.
• Worked with business unit leaders, cross-functional team members, vendors, and third parties to ensure that technology projects were planned, managed, and delivered through all phases of the project life cycle.
• Managed projects across multiple technologies, including Salesforce, MarkLogic, Azure, and bespoke applications.

• Adobe Business Practitioner with hands on experience is managing Adobe commerce platforms.
• Manage day to day operations of client retainers, resourcing, scheduling, task coordination and prioritization
• Collaborate with the development, marketing and creative teams to ensure deliverables are achieved
• Undertake production and maintenance of project documentation such as Statements of Work, specifications, status reports, and client internal presentations
• Expert in using tools such as Jira, confluence and Smartsheet for reporting and visibility
• Skilled in converting Functional Spec Docs into Epics and User stories with Mandatory Original estimates and Acceptance criteria agreed by the client.
• Kept project teams on-task with proactive control of budgets, schedules and scopes.
• Evaluated, determined and delegated tasks to staff based on client needs, capacity planning and project-specific initiatives.
• Oversaw budgets for project, tracked expenses and timelines and communicated with key stakeholders on milestones.
• Assessed project risks and devised mitigation strategies to avoid potential roadblocks.
• Implemented change management processes when issues arose to keep project moving forward and adjust to shifted priorities.
• Self-manages workload against multiple competing priorities and deadlines
• Anticipates, embraces, and responds appropriately to changes in project scope
• Maintained financial control of retainer clients and provide accurate financial forecasts
• Grown retainers through identification of additional opportunities
  and serve as a general resource to support cross-functional efforts of the Project Manager, development, creative, and marketing teams.

Key Achievements:

• Spearheaded end-to-end delivery of a major e-commerce with a global budget of $1.2M.
• Delivered a total of 28 websites, 31 store views operating in USA, Canada, Australia, UK and 22 other countries in mainland Europe, supporting multiple currencies, languages, catalogues. All accessible via single URL.
• Divided into three regions NALA, EMEA and APAC with specific ERP integrations, CRM integration, data privacy laws and other local requirements in each region; delivered using a Global Reference Architecture solution(GRA)
• Discovery started in June 2022, solution design in July, provisioning in August. Dev commenced in September; APAC region launched in Oct, NALA in Dec and EMEA in Feb.
• Also managed other retainer projects in parallel.
  

• Supervised Website and Marketing retainer projects with a focus on Budget reporting, Status reports and Resource planning.
• Experienced in defining programs, writing detailed functional documentation and successfully delivered projects.
• Responsible for bringing a project or campaign to a successful conclusion and coordinating the execution of deliverables with the customer and the team
• Managed client marketing strategies and product promotion campaigns.
• Facilitated growth and increased brand awareness by working with sales team to build and maintain key business relationships.
• Performed research to analyze customer behavior, purchasing habits, trends and preferences.
• Collaborated with sales teams to strengthen client relationships and generate new revenue opportunities.
• Assessed company website and implemented improvements to drive traffic and revenue.

• Responsible for end-to-end project management and successful delivery of complex websites, CRM, System Integrations and other digital projects across the business.
• Maintained project schedules by managing deadlines and adjusting workflow as needed.
• Kept project teams on-task with proactive control of budgets, schedules and scopes.
• Worked closely with sales teams to ensure client satisfaction from acquisition to proposal phases.
• Secured continuous project scope alignment with business objectives and made modifications to enhance effectiveness toward intended result.
• Oversaw on-site and off-site DEV teams of up to 8 professionals working on diverse IT projects.
• Used well-organized and implemented Agile and Scrum methodologies to efficiently manage project needs.
• Created project plans and resource plans to track project milestones and manage the day-to-day delivery of projects accordingly.
• Identified and forecasted risks that may impact budget, scope, or the timely delivery of projects.
• Created weekly/monthly management reports to manage, action and report project progress to the leadership team.

Key Achievements:

• Developed and maintained a Resource/Capacity management tool for the organization to book resources in advance and to have a high-level view of capacity.
• Successfully migrated from Asana to Jira, introduced Agile and scrum methodology for Medium to large medium Integration projects.
• Helped in creating SoW based on the DEV estimates/deliverables and made sure they are converted into JIRA tasks ensuring the estimated hours are entered and assigned to the responsible team member.
• Successfully created weekly/monthly reports for the management team to track budgets against Estimated hours vs Actual hours spent on each project, thereby making sure the budget is kept on track.
• Conducted regular stand-ups with the DEV team to manage workload, resource planning and receive their input for better DEV management (GitHub).
• Setup KPI's for team members to create a healthy and competitive workspace, thereby providing quality service to the stakeholders.
• Implemented Tempo and Everhour for time tracking, project reports and Cost tracking.

• Responsible for the delivery of Asset and Fleet management software for DHHS - Department,.
• Managed a cross-functional DEV team of 9 located in the UK, which includes Developers, Implementers and QA analysts using Agile (Scrum) methodologies.
• Manage full project lifecycle (SDLC) including initiation, planning, execution and project closure.
• Delivery of the project according to the Price Methodology using defined project controls - Project Financials, Resource management, vendor and communication management.
• Update Project board with weekly status reports containing Burn-down charts and EVMS (Earned value management systems) with the project progress, risks and milestones.
• Use RAID (Risk, Actions, Issues and Dependencies) approach for all stakeholder meetings.
• Conduct pre-project and post-post project QA analysis and recommend/implement actions.

Key Achievements:

• Successfully delivered custom built Asset and Fleet management software for DHHS (Department of Health and Human services, Victoria) in 6 weeks.
• This was an on-going project with a budget of $800K including Change requests, Tranche 2 items and BAU tickets.
• Managed the Cloud migration and Data management using Amazon AWS with 0% downtime.

• Delivered medium and large-scale B2B and B2C solutions with a budget of over $5 million, for customers in the Asia-Pacific region (Thailand, Philippines, Singapore, New Zealand and Japan).
• Successfully completed end-to-end IT projects for some of the leading Travel companies in the world - Flight Centre, Hays Travel, Keith Prowse Travel, Habo cruise etc.,.
• Managed scrum team of 10 consisting of Front-End Developers, Website designers, UX\UI designers, QA analysts and Web content management located in UK and India.
• Collaborate with multiple stakeholders and managing in complex, highly matrixed environments.
• Be the point of contact for external communications from key stakeholders.
• Work with product owners to managed backlogs and new requests.
• Successfully resolved conflicts and removed obstacles that occur and help teams embrace changes efficiently and effectively.
• Forecasted project risks and issues by providing support for creation, implementation, improvement of processes and systems in system maturity projects to increase efficiencies of the project.
• Create Business cases, Project plans, Project Kick-off meetings and managing different stages of the project including Design, Implementation, Testing, Deployment and Maintenance.

Key Achievements:

• Responsible for successfully completing the "Cruise API" project for Flight Centre with a total budget of $1.5M and within a span of 4 months, during this project I filled in the shoes of Business analyst (Gathering business requirements) , Iteration manager (Planning and managing scrum team) and Project manager (Managing Day-to-Day activities and making sure the Project sticks to the deadline).
• Completed 8 End-to-End projects – 5 software implementation projects using CMS tools and 3 B2B/B2C web application projects.
• Handled all aspects of project management including Project Kick-off meeting, Development, Release and Maintenance.
• Implemented shortened processes of cruise bookings from weeks to minutes, increased customer traffic for Flight centre by 40% within 4 months of software launch.
• Enlisted in the “Top 10 Elite Club” for achieving the highest KPI and delivering 4 E2E projects within first 3 months of joining Traveltek.

• Completed over 300+ commercial IT and civil projects in the whole tenure.
• Supervised an offshore team of 40 in Manila consisting of junior project managers, systems administrators, and customer care specialists.
• Experienced in hardware installations, troubleshooting, and maintenance.
• Procuring quotes for tenders from suppliers and subcontractors.
• Creation of scope of works (SOW’s) and tracking variations.
• Sound knowledge in OHS and QMS standards and policies.
• Supervision of all vendors, contractors, and suppliers to make sure the project is on schedule.
• Delivered industry-leading civil projects to Brisbane City Council, Gold Coast City Council, and Logan Council, with a good understanding of their policies and standards.
• Conduct regular site audits to ensure the site team has completed all project-specific requirements according to the project budget and schedule.
• End-to-end operations in fiber management and overseeing projects in metro and rural regions.

Key Achievements:

• Successfully managed and delivered fibre roll-out for 8 Westfield shopping centres with a budget tolerance of $1.2M and a strict timeline of 3 months.
• Using excellent contractor management skills, I was able to save a total of $450K in civil construction charges.
• Awarded “Best Project Manager” during the annual event for completing 40 commercial and civil projects in one calendar month (July 2019).
• Successfully delivered E2E commercial Internet service (Fibre 400) for 80 Flight centre locations across Queensland with a total budget of $1.2M and managed to complete this within 3 months.

Key achievements:

• Planning and Designing next generation FTTx and HFC networks using GIS systems (QGIS, Mapinfo).
• Provide technical support for design services including FTTX ISP, OSP and HFC.
• Created project specification documents outlining detailed tasks for development team, timelines and goals to meet the client's requirements.
• Ensured project administration activities are undertaken in accordance with internal governance and compliance practices.