Lead IT Business Partner Finance(FICO)

About our client:

My client is an American multinational food manufacturing company headquartered in United States. 

Responsibilities:

Business Partnership & IT Planning

• Establishes and maintains a relationship with key stakeholders in business and the IT organization.
• Setup and drive digital finance agenda, across process, people and technology collaborating with business stakeholders.
• Provide thought leadership around the use of technology to achieve business goals and objectives.
• Supports the development of a 3-5-year roadmap, providing annual reviews of status collaborating with business stakeholder and enterprise architects.
• Works with Architects in other areas to discuss potential solutions that match the business strategy with the technology strategy with integrated solutions.
• Define solutions and timelines with partner teams.
• Define and execute optimal project plans with partners and Business stakeholders.
• Proponent of Agile driving quicker and faster delivery with excellence
• Drive SAP Template design and delivery for Snacks in Finance, HR and Procurement domains
• Act as Leading change agent in delivering and embrace digital strategies. Influence the prioritization of Information Technology decisions for the Snacks businesses to ensure world class delivery and value for IT investment.
• Application Delivery – Define, analyze, and deliver business initiatives in accordance with business and IT priorities and annual budgets.
• Identify technology opportunities which provide strategic/tactical advantages in planning, managing, and conducting the business.
• Engage with key customers and other external business partners to deliver IT solutions in a high quality, globally conscious manner.
• Provides Business Technology thought leadership, bringing knowledge and solutions to drive business outcomes. Thinks ‘digital’ and embraces next generation ways of doing work.

Advocacy 

• Manage multiple 3rd party vendors ensuring high service level and optimal cost.
• Partner with Snacks Business stakeholders
• Supports service improvement and business-as-usual projects by working with various service owners and Architects.
• Negotiate agreements and commitments by facilitating communication between business stakeholders and IT from initial requirements to final implementation.
• Communicate business feedback to the IT community.
• Champions change management activities (i.e., frequent communication to staff and clients about the change and the impact of the change, advocacy, coaching, and mitigation of resistance) to minimize disruption and achieve desired results from initiatives that are triggered/enabled by technology.
• Keeps IT's technology and service managers/ Vendor teams aware of key Snacks business issues, identifying and resolving potential problems and conflicts.
• Collaborates with other IT functional areas to remain apprised of project status and inform leadership of progress.
• Work with program delivery and excellence guidelines and ensure that every project is executed consistently.

Consulting

• Provides strategic technology and process consultation to business.
• Performs assessments and provides recommendations on IT and business initiatives and solutions based on business relevance.
• May advise on options, risks, costs versus benefits, and impacts on products, business processes, and system priorities.
• Analyzes and advises on new business initiatives.
• Stays abreast of industry trends in the business and technology to determine impact to the achievement of organization(s) goals.
• May engage Architects/technology experts to gather information on technology trends.
• May recommends options, identifies risks and analyzes cost vs. benefits.
• Provides strategic consultation to assigned business stakeholders in defining or designing business processes, functions and organizational structures.

Business Case 

• Works with business teams to understand project requirements, shapes the initial project request, and provides a high-level estimate of the project effort and cost used in cost-benefit analysis. 
• Conducts feasibility studies and makes recommendations to stakeholders based on its alignment with the business strategy and roadmap. 
• Manages the business case development process.
• Contributes context to the business case such as recommending expenditures based on the size, scope, and cost of hardware and software components.
• Reviews and evaluates business cases to confirm identified financials and risks, validate value and business alignment, and recommend a course of action.
• Ensures anticipated benefits are realized and key process indicators and report card is measured, tracked and communicated.
• Facilitates agreement on organizational work models to meet business requirements.

Planning and Prioritization 

• Works with organization stakeholders and technical resources to create and implement a solution required to meet organization(s) business goals.
• Monitors business demand to enable appropriate planning of IT’s resources.
• Maintains awareness of changes to organization(s) strategy, goals and processes to ensure solutions/requirements/priorities appropriately reflect the needs of the organization(s). 
• Facilitates changes when necessary.

Risk Management

• Works with business stakeholders in the identification and evaluation of risks associated with business decisions.
• Identifies risks, outside of current project scope, that will impact the organization(s) such as business process or IT security, 
• May help in the development of risk mitigation plans.

Communications

• Manages business expectations.
• Stays informed on project(s) status to provide business with regular status.
• Communicates with organization’s stakeholders, project managers, and other to ensure awareness of progress, risks, and results.

Measurements

• Ensures that projects align with the technology that best provides maximum return on investment,
• Works with business and IT executives to define business and IT performance metrics.
• Measures, tracks and reports on benefits realization, IT performance, and customer satisfaction levels.
• Manages development and implementation of a plan(s) to improve client satisfaction.

Requirements:

• List the minimum amount of education and/or experience required to perform the job. Be specific in terms of the type of experience required.
• 5-15 years of relevant technical and business work experience.
• Good Knowledge of SAP ECC, Finance and Controlling, and manufacturing supply chain finance is a must.
• Knowledge in financial management consolidation and management reporting platforms like Hyperion/Anaplan would be an added advantage.
• Proven track record in Identifying opportunities for simplifications and digitization of various workflows across the organization, especially in a legacy setup (both process and technology)
• Ability to engage with functional business leaders, as well as with delivery teams at an operational level.
• Hands-on experience leading such areas end-to-end and track record of delivering results and business value.
• Requires experience/in-depth knowledge of business operations and IT processes, in a manufacturing context.
• Supervising quality assurance processes, integration, and system tests
• Manage multiple vendors.
• Has the experience and cultural awareness required to work effectively with a regional and global team.
• Excellent leadership, team building, and management skills
• Ability to Communicate and inspire confidence with technical and non-technical audiences.
• Good understanding and background on Procurement and HR digitization would be a plus.
• Experience with organizational change management preferred.
• Experience managing vendors and external project resources.
• Degree in Tech/ Information Systems from tier 1 college.
• Strong academic background
• Can do attitude; high say-do.
• Sees documentation and structure as a strong ally.
• Proficient in English Language (Writing, reading & speaking).