As the founder and Managing Director, Noel Gorvett provides leadership and the strategic direction for AMOSCA. He also works closely with the Operations Director with a close involvement in the core business function of the company: service delivery, and looks after the administration team. Noel subscribes to the ethos that no job is too small, if it needs doing, someone must do it. Building the brand, setting expectations with customers, vendors, competitors and the wider community and ensuring that trust and reputation are cared about, are important elements of Noel’s job. He believes this has been instrumental in the business being voted Hyperion Partner of the Year amongst other accolades by the UK Oracle User Group members and Oracle customers.
Noel describes himself as a simple person, leading by example and ensuring that those around him can take something from him, so as to help them achieve more and genuinely have significant job satisfaction and work life balance. Be it a graduate who is looking to develop a career; or a seasoned Finance or IT Director, Noel feels part of his role is to provide a bridge between what they are looking for and how they can get it.
Mission to deliver the Best Services
Having been a corporate employee for many years, the idea of setting up the business was borne of the fact that his team were more commonly educating the consultants and auditors who were being paid to do the job. In retrospect, the objective was to take the best ideas and simplest processes and ensure that customers would be treated as equals in a relationship, not purely as a transactional line item. The mission from the outset has been to deliver the best Services, Support, Software and Solutions that businesses could have, and change the way that businesses perceived consulting in the Enterprise Performance Management (EPM) community. Also, by providing transparency, agility and creativity in an ever increasing compliance and regulatory environment; it has been a refreshing approach for customers.
It was a timely co-incidence, that at almost the same time as AMOSCA was founded in 2006, Oracle acquired a ‘small’ business called Hyperion, which has become the company’s core knowledge and service offering. As Oracle has evolved the solutions more commonly known as Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), AMOSCA has also evolved, adapted and for the community, served as a pivotal provider in sometimes complex technologies.
Learning from the Obstacles
Having been a corporate employee for many years, and watching others consult made Noel aware of what could be done differently or better, but it did not provide the information on the effort and tenacity that it requires to deliver and succeed. Predominantly, all the back-office processes, information and time required has been a key learning for Noel; ensuring that the processes, checks and control was available, served to answer questions from prospective clients and partners. Ultimately, building a solid team to ensure a sustainable and quality service has been an ongoing process, without which the business would not have managed.
Speaking about people who helped him get through tough times, Noel says, “The opportunity that my former employers provided to start the business from within their comfort zone was an enormous help.” Having worked for a few large multi-national organizations, and deployed the Hyperion software for them, had enabled Noel to get an understanding not just of the software, but also the vendor, and the simple reality of why businesses needed the solutions. This has been instrumental in helping him to contribute to AMOSCA’s growth.
Customer Centric Services
Being involved from the customer side of EPM, and working closely with Hyperion and related consultants; Noel realized there was more value to the business community by establishing a viable knowledge based team than just turning from programme delivery to support mode for the company.
What sets AMOSCA apart from others in the industry, is that they look at business solutions from the customer’s perspective. Explaining briefly on AMOSCA’s services, Noel says, “Acting as an implementer only when the customer has selected the software, and not just selling them software we would like to implement for them, offering value added software that actually minimizes the need for customers to use consultants and having a team with a vested interest in shared knowledge rather than deploying large consulting teams ensures solutions with scalability and efficiency with proven cost effectiveness.”
A willingness to Learn
According to Noel, the most definitive lesson he has learned is that perseverance pays. By ensuring that the team (consultant, vendor, customer) has an open communication and trust, is paramount. It also means ensuring that every promise made is capable of being delivered. He further adds, tenacity and absolute faith in the bigger picture are imperative.
Noel says, “Learning is an ongoing process, and it can only be achieved by ensuring that you never think you know all the answers.” An invaluable tool is listening to others – irrespective of who they are, all inputs and feedback play an important part in Noel’s continued efforts.
Necessity is the mother of Invention
According to Noel the most important qualities that constitutes an entrepreneur are, “an absolute belief in ones abilities, the honesty of the human spirit, and a never say never attitude.”
There are many entrepeneurs who have the privilege of being backed either with funding or a pre-existing business, and this is not to say they have different challenges. Necessity is the mother of invention, and nothing beats preparation, honesty and effort. Everyone can be an entrepreneur, but people need to learn fast, the ability to take calculated risks, invest time in other people and be prepared for failure – but don’t let it put you off.
