A huge congratulations to Matt Hawkes who recently celebrated his 20-year Long Service milestone.
We caught up with Matt to find out more about his time at OGL so far:
"My journey with OGL began in 1998 as part of a school work experience program. I spent most of the week in what was the technical side of the business, including the technical installation team, a day in the workshop, and had a day out visiting a customer. It was also my first real exposure to the internet and search engines, and it’s incredible to think how different the world is now compared to that relatively short(ish) time ago.
I officially started my career at OGL during my third-year university placement while studying computer science. My initial role involved working with Sue Bullock and another placement student on a new call logging system built on top of prof.ITplus, which eventually became the OTIS system. OTIS served various parts of the business until it was replaced by Sunrise. I continued to work part-time during my final year of university and then joined OGL full-time as a Junior Developer, continuing to enhance OTIS and then moving on to work on the core prof.ITplus system, focusing on bespoke projects like CCF and Walmsley’s.
In 2008, I transitioned to the Web Services Team, which at the time was quite small, consisting of just Andrew Davies, myself, and occasional support from Adrian James, who was our technical expert. Adrian had developed the original version of eShop, our in-house e-commerce framework. Joining the web team was a steep learning curve for me, as I had no prior experience building websites or developing software for public use. Despite the challenges, those early projects were incredibly rewarding, and they allowed me to grow my skills significantly. Over the years, the Web Services department has expanded into a much larger team, has offered multiple products and services, and I am proud to have been part of that growth.
One of my proudest achievements was leading the introduction of our eShop2 product, which introduced a responsive frontend theme, allowing smartphone users to enjoy a mobile-friendly version of our websites. While the change was relatively simple from a technical perspective, it had a significant impact and is now in use on around 100 websites, many of which have multi-million turnover directly from web sales.
More recently, I've had a stint in the Profit4 Development Team, where I introduced a web content management system to integrate with eShop2 websites. This enables prof.ITplus customers with an existing eShop2 website to be able to migrate to Profit4 and provides a web solution for new Profit4 customers who want to implement a website.
This year, I took on a new challenge by transitioning into a Product Manager role within the Profit4 team working alongside Matthew Walters. I’m looking forward to engaging more with our customers and helping to shape and execute the exciting plans we have for Profit4 now and in the future. It’s been an incredible journey so far, and I’m eager to see what the next chapter brings!"
Matt's manager, Andrew Davies, commented: "I can’t believe it’s been 20 years since Matt joined OGL! Matt was introduced to OGL by his father, Phil, while he was still at university. He shares his father's strong determination and passion, which is evident in all that he has achieved, including leading our web product development. While Neil Morris once nicknamed him 'Hawkes Junior', Matt is establishing his own legacy at OGL.
Matt joined OGL originally to work on our internal OTIS system as a software developer and soon became involved in developing our core ERP solution, prof.ITplus. When the opportunity presented to be part of the company's new web team, Matt embraced the challenge and became focused on web development.
His focus and dedication have been a key part in developing and growing the web team, and products, to what we see today. I couldn’t be happier to have the opportunity to work with Matt again as he starts his new role in product management. I know he will be a great asset to the product team and help us achieve more great things with Profit4.
During all the time I have worked with Matt, nothing has been too much trouble, and he has always been prepared to support and help grow the people he works with, which is what contributes to making OGL Software successful.
Congratulations Matt on an incredible milestone of 20 years, your commitment and loyalty is fantastic. Thank you, Matt, I know I speak for everyone in the web team when I say we couldn’t do it without you!"
