Meet our associates... Dave Nussey

Meet Dave Nussey, a long term associate of Iridium who brings over 30 years of experience to the table. In this blog, Dave explains how his first programmes were written on coding paper, why working in partnership with clients, and not simply as a supplier, brings added, all-round value, and that, despite three decades in the business, every engagement still brings exciting new challenges. 

 

"I joined the IT fraternity in 1988, as a Trainee Programmer for British Gas North Eastern… I was working in Debt Recovery at the time, and there were always these ‘super hero’ guys walking round the offices with floppy disks fixing things. I was determined to become a programmer since I was also a keen hobbyist coder working at home on my Sinclair ZX Spectrum. 

 

"Following an internal recruitment drive, I was successfully appointed as a trainee programmer working on the ICL COBOL Mainframe… My first programmes were written on coding paper, sent to the Data Prep room and returned to me on punched cards. Those were the days. 

 

"I like the constant challenges my job brings… Every engagement, every project, every colleague brings new opportunities to learn something new about IT, our industry or, ourselves. 

 

"When collaborating with clients, I think working in partnership is one of the most important things… I see every engagement from the client’s perspective and make every effort to ensure that what we do together delivers sustainable value. I think it’s essential that we look at a problem holistically and seek to ensure the solution delivers the best long-term value for the client and its customers. This may mean changing our approach from time to time, and working to do things differently, and that’s where I find my experience or working in IT for over 30 years provides significant value. 

 

"I believe Iridium’s approach of working with specialists based on the client’s requirements is a refreshing alternative to some of the traditional consultancy ‘body shop’ offerings… Iridium’s approach is much more of a partnership relationship as opposed to a supplier. In my experience, supplier relationships tend to be tactical, sales oriented and cost focused. They deliver widgets. 

However, working in partnership with a client organisation is very different. 

 

"A true partner aims to understand the client’s business and ways of working… They are strategic in nature, service oriented, have shared values and objectives, deliver added value and are considered part of the client’s broader delivery team. This is how Iridium, and its model of engagement, is enabling clients to successfully deliver transformational change across a number of technology areas and business sectors. 

 

"I’m an avid F1 fan and I recently read an article on how the impact of COVID-19 had impacted their processes and procedures for developing, building and then running the cars… This is an environment that is 100% dependent upon innovation, efficiency and performance. The teams have had to completely re-think how they work remotely, to the point that now with the upcoming season the majority of team staff that would normally travel to each race, will be working remotely – even to the point of remote telemetry from the vehicles on track, in a race, being managed and changed from someone’s home office. The analogies across the rest of the wider working environment are there to see, with many organisations maintaining the ability for employees to work more flexibly going forward. 

 

"My family and I have been very lucky not to have been personally impacted by the pandemic, and for this I count my blessings… From a work perspective, the isolation brought on by lockdown can be frustrating at times. I’m a very animated individual and find that I work best when stood in front of a white board working through problems with a team of people. Trying to do this over Teams / Zoom can be a challenge 

 

"A key challenge off the back of the pandemic for the entire IT industry is the loss of the ‘working together’ element.. The technology available enables us to work, do our tasks and meet our goals. Yet, many are missing that tangible personal, or emotional element to their day-to-day interactions with colleagues and friends that makes going to work an enjoyable, challenging and supportive environment. 

 

"On the plus side, I believe the impact of the pandemic has opened up many opportunities to work with clients across a much broader geographic area... Prior to the pandemic a consultants client base was restricted to how far they were willing to commute on a daily basis. Following the change to working practices, and the ability to work remotely becoming the norm, there are greater levels of flexibility and opportunity to work with clients nationally and internationally. 

 

"Following the pandemic, the exploitation of Cloud-First technologies for Infrastructure modernisation will see a greater move towards Hybrid services and solutions... This will make businesses more agile, flexible, secure, and robust in the long term.Because of the ever-increasing consumption of cloud services, with more digital services and actions being completed by consumers, there will be a demand for more stringent data protection."