Meet Alex

What does your role at LAKE involve?

I have a varied role, but my primary focus is integrations. I manage the development of LAKE’s integration and orchestration platform known as Lake Integration Services, and I implement it regularly as part of customer integration projects.

In addition, I specialise in Infor EPM and the LAKE Infor EPM QuickStart Framework for SunSystems which is a powerful and versatile analytics platform.

I also get involved in Proactis and SunSystems implementations. I’m a bit of an all-rounder.

How long have you been with LAKE and what did you do before you joined?

I have been with LAKE since 2006 and before that I was a systems accountant where I had the opportunity to work on a project with the LAKE team. I enjoyed it so much I ended up coming to work at LAKE after that.

What do you enjoy most about the work you do?

I like making a difference and achieving something at the end of a project. Making something function exactly in line with a customer’s needs is a brilliant feeling.

If you had to pick out three achievements or pieces of work that you’re particularly proud of from your time at LAKE, what would they be?

I’m particularly proud of designing and building the Lake Integration Module (now Lake Integration Services). I’m definitely proud of that.

I’m also proud of the EPM implementation that we completed recently with one of our charity clients. It delivers everything they wanted, and more.

My third choice is an eCommerce integration I developed for one of our Proactis Marketplace customers. They wanted to receive invoices electronically from their main food supplier and process these into Proactis while matching them to purchase orders. The volume of invoices can be 100+ per day and each invoice can have a large number of product lines.

The standard package didn’t meet the customer’s requirements so I built a tailored integration solution using the Lake Integration Module (“LIM”) to download eInvoices from the supplier’s SFTP site. Once eInvoices are downloaded, LIM transforms them, imports them into Proactis and matches them against the original purchase order at line level. This is a really neat solution that’s still in use today and it saves our customer an enormous amount of processing time and reduces opportunities for error.

What does your background, experience and knowledge mean for customers?

Because I’ve come from an accountancy background, I understand the customers that I work with. Being able to understand their point of view really helps move the project along. I can also talk to somebody on the technical side too so having an understanding on both sides, helps me bridge the gap between the two.

What excites you most when you think about LAKE’s future plans and the future of business systems in general?

I think the management team at LAKE are great and they’re always thinking about how to steer the company in the right direction. Things are moving to the cloud and that’s also exciting from my point of view as this will only increase the opportunity for integration.

What do you do when you’re not working?

I have two young kids so most of my time is spent with them. I also like to keep fit so I try to make time for running and climbing.

What is one item on your bucket list?

I’d love to go diving in Australia, on the Great Barrier Reef.

What would your specialist Mastermind subject be?

I’m going to have to be boring and choose Microsoft SQL Server.