Simon Marshall – Launch Manager

Simon has worked within a customer service / recruitment environment for his entire working career, for both local and national organisations. In 1997 Simon was recruited into Ford to work as a staffing specialist in one of their largest design and development sites in Europe. Within a year Simon was running the support into the site looking after some 100 end users and 850 contractors.

This was Europe’s first managed service platform for temporary and contract labour resource.

During this period Simon was notable for establishing strong client relationships with very high levels of customer satisfaction. This experience, servicing the Ford Group for seven years and the subsequent launch into Land Rover, provides Italic with a strong insight into the challenges of launch. Crucially, this experience demonstrated how to manage the expectations of the end user to ensure excellence in service delivery.

"The launch process involves a key working party. This is a fundamental part of ensuring the managed service process becomes an integral part of the client’s operations. It is imperative that the correct questions are asked at the initial stages to understand what the client is really looking for.

"Fail to prepare and you prepare to fail"

A major advantage of getting the launch correct is the shift from a cautious end user to a keen end user. This evolves as they see the process work because of their involvement from the beginning. I believe that adopting the correct launch process ensures a smooth transition from old to new working practices."