IT Change Management Specialist II at Santam Insurance

Job Description

• Become a trusted advisor to, and influence decision making of stakeholders by providing an advisory service, guidance and support on business process, digital and technology offerings and practices
• Facilitate collaboration between stakeholders by identifying and addressing conflict issues to ensure optimal solutions and supporting practices are implemented across stakeholder groups
• Stay informed and continuously improve understanding and knowledge of what the internal platforms offer as well as the future roadmap and opportunities for each, in order to provide advice to stakeholders as well as identify technical enablers that may be involved when a new initiative is conceptualized
• Maintain information to track and monitor progress across Direct business initiatives
• Regularly scan the market for latest developments in the insurance industry as well as similar direct players in other industries and advise on new business opportunities
• Collaborate and maintain relationships internally by communicating business demand and assist in the buy-in and usage of products and services to enhance efficiencies and improve delivery to stakeholders
• Identify opportunities to influence the improvement or enhancement of business processes and methodologies by researching and recommending improvement initiatives and effective ways to operate and add value to Santam
• Responsible for managing the business demand for a wide range of solutions and services to be prioritised and included in the Direct portfolio and roadmap and evolve the Direct business portfolio with the CPO/PO
• Be aware of the demand and priorities across the larger Santam portfolio and identify how interdependencies may impact the Direct demand list and priorities, or to identify where reuse of functionality may be beneficial to Direct
• Facilitate and remove business delivery impediments and continuously increase user satisfaction and client experience through driving adoption and utilisation of implemented solutions
• Be consulted for input on Direct strategy, priorities and roadmap, and be informed of, digital and other technology solutions and applications in the business units that may be beneficial to Direct
• Share knowledge, resources and practices with team and stakeholders during formal and informal interaction to enable up-skilling in the organization
• Obtain buy-in for developing new and/or enhanced solutions (e.g., operational processes) that will improve the functioning of stakeholder’s businesses by highlighting benefits in support of the implementation of recommendations and ensure that all tools and resources are in place to drive successful implementation and adoption by the business
• Actively drive the agile way of working, based on the Santam scaled agile framework e.g. involve correct role players in inception to support backlog creation
• Support the business units in their adoption of agile ways of working and maintain close relationships with the product owners in the business
• Actively participate and contribute to the the community of BCM’s in BITS
• Manage conflict from time to time between Direct vs Intermediated business priorities, and identify synergies and opportunities across
• Comply with company policies and procedures, standards, frameworks, and methodologies. Participate in the relevant forums as identified by, and use the tools selected to supporting the procedures, frameworks, and methodologies

Primary Responsibilities

The Santam Direct BCM will provide the following key services:

Portfolio Consulting

• Support portfolio alignment and prioritisation with strategy / business objectives
• Facilitate development of future initiative roadmap in support of the business strategy/objectives
• Facilitate concept designs across individual business units
• Support and assist in preparing business cases with product owners or other relevant stakeholders in the business units
• Initiate projects and assist contracting of appropriate resources
• Be involved and/or consulted in pre-inception and inception phases of projects to ensure business requirements are well understood by the development teams
• Support estimate formulation and securing of appropriate funding

Solution Delivery

• Work with platform BCM’s to ensure appropriateness and completeness of solutions (meeting business requirements)
• Ensure project/scope alignment with business case / business objectives
• Support appropriate governance (appropriate Steerco and relevant forums)
• Support change management and give input to approach and strategy to ensure adoption
• Build strong partnerships with business owners, product owners, project managers, other IT development managers
• Support and assist with BU Portfolio budget

Business Readiness & Benefits Realisation

• Support transition of project to operations/BAU and ensure business stakeholders are comfortable to sign-off and adopt the deliverables
• Provide support required to embed new and changed processes and solutions to become BAU
• Support benefits realisation & monitoring

Qualifications, Knowledge And Experience

• Bachelor’s Degree preferred with applicable major (Management Information Systems, Computer Science, Business Management, Project Management, Process Engineering, Statistics/Applied Math)
• 3+ years’ experience in a contact centre environment with an understanding of productivity and efficiency measures
• Strong Management and consulting or experience will be advantageous
• Consulting experience will be advantageous
• Experienced in dealing with external suppliers and offshore business partners will be advantageous
• Programming background as well as solid understanding of SDLC will be advantageous
• Experience in working with multiple projects and different stages of its life cycle simultaneously, as well as large multi-year projects with its budgets and estimations, in a corporate environment will be advantageous
• Solid experience in dealing with customers at various levels, including C-level

KNOWLEDGE

• Knowledge of Digital and technology solutions, operating model design and digital transformation concepts
• Strong project management skills
• Sound business acumen
• Understand the senior leaders’ agenda and provide trusted advice and suggestions to support the business strategy
• Working knowledge in portfolio/programme/project management methods and tools such as Agile.

Skills

• Outstanding influencing and negotiating skills. Ability to influence thinking at an executive and senior management level
• Excellent decision making & organising skills
• Persuasive with excellent oral & written communication skills: concise, impactful and appropriate with good track record
• Strategic thinker who can also work at detail level
• Ability to understand and interpret business strategy from definition into execution; (think holistically as well as at a detailed level)
• Strong analytical, interpretative, and problem-solving skills: creative analytical thinking, systems thinking, planning, challenging assumptions, turning concepts and big picture into detailed actions and targets and ability to look across the business to identify opportunities
• Behavioral characteristics: ethics, listening, trustworthiness, ability to execute, energetic, proactive, and positive thinking
• Interaction skills: facilitation, mentoring, leadership and influencing, negotiation, teamwork, and building relationships
• Be comfortable engaging with senior stakeholders and executives.
• Produce creative solutions to business problems
• Performs under pressure
• Self-motivator
• Challenge current assumptions and beliefs
• Communicate complex concepts in an easy-to-understand manner
• Strong conflict handling skills
• Organized and methodical

COMPETENCIES

• Collaborative
• Client focused
• Results oriented
• Flexible and adaptable
• Cultivates innovation
• Decisive and initiate action
• Leadership
• Human Capital Development
• Build networks and good relationships
• Enterprising and thinks commercially