Roy Charles

Roy joined the IT industry in 1978 as an apprentice Computer Operator for one of the main UK Gas corporations prior to its unification as British Gas. Those were the days of mainframe computers that would fill an air conditioned Computer Room with many floor to ceiling cabinets holding less memory than a modern day mobile phone! The mainframe was ICL, the operating system “George”, discs were the size of small flying saucers and back ups completed on tape reels you see in the background of the puppet versions of Thunderbirds. Roy made it to Shift Leader when in 1984 he was selected to transfer to development and bring his operational experience to the programming teams. The language was COBOL, and the methodology was that of Michael A Jackson ( not the singer, but a Computer Scientist ) or Jackson Structured Programming – a programming design methodology. Roy worked on the Computerised Personnel Systems ( note; not on-line, but in the system ) and then in development support on the Data Dictionary Service which was defining a collection of data objects or items for other programmers to refer to an bring about uniformity. Those were the days when the IT Department ( or Management Services ) fully controlled access to data via a dumb terminal which had a dark green screen, with near fluorescent bordered fields for the input of data. So no room for user intervention or innovation..hence not “on line” and prior to the internet anyway. In 1987 with the advent of the PC, Roy was headhunted into the City to bring his IT knowledge capital to a large photocopier and fax reseller group of Companies to penetrate their Client base with IT solutions, Sectors included Finance, Media, Hospitality, Food Service and many more with applications covering accounting, database and office systems which included the then “revolutionary” 4 hour on site engineering response ( 360ict offers an instant remote desktop response and 2 hour on site if needed ! ) In 1992 Roy set up his own Company providing IT services and support, which with the convergence of Voice with Data he purchased a telco Company in 2002. Roy sold his interest in ASAS plc in 2005 taking a brief sojourn into the world of social media until setting up 360ict in 2007. Projects Roy has personally led have included all aspects of financials, customer relationship management, fulfilment, migration, risk mitigation, change control, disaster planning and more recently proximity contact tracing via WIFI and Bluetooth. One of Roys mantra’s is “We have two ears and one mouth and one should use them in that ratio”. So really listen to the customers needs and predicament, understand the priorities to be able to translate that not only into an appropriate service plan , but also to eliminate any single points of exposure and making contingency for any failures that would impact on production systems. Roy likes to offer a one stop shop for all voice and data services along with instant access to technical support via phone or alternatively desktop chat when needed, wherever in the world you maybe, or what time of day or night.https://uk.linkedin.com/in/roycharles360ict