Job Description

The role of a Solution Manager for the Finance Systems team is to oversee the development and delivery of technology solutions that align with business needs and objectives. Ensure that solutions are not only technically sound and meet strategic goals. The role requires leadership across the demand of business requirements and the supply of skills and capacity from the technology teams. It also includes process refinements, collaborative integration guidance and mentorship to ensure that high-quality delivery and performance is maintained. The Solution Manager works closely with cross-functional teams facilitating and co-creating sustainable system driven controls, system optimization, automation, and best practice solutions. This role oversees, the choice of solutions, solution architecture and skills required for the applicable technologies to support that business function. Furthermore, the Solution Manager is accountable for providing technical and people leadership, managing, and coordinating the coherent activities needed to design, develop, and release changes into the Shoprite technology landscape.
Job Advert Details
Job Category IT
Job Objectives
1. Solution Development & Delivery

• Responsible for the portfolio of solutions and capacity and skills planning for the delivery of projects, enhancements and support for the capability. Ensure the solutions work together to meet Shoprite's goals, manage high level risks and report to senior management
• Collaborate with business stakeholders to gather, analyze, and prioritize requirements.
• Design and propose innovative solutions that meet both current and future business needs.
• Manage the end-to-end solution lifecycle, from ideation to deployment and post-implementation support.
• Understand the business requirement and map to a potential technology solution.
• Design best in class technology solutions that are scalable, cost effective and easily supportable
• Leads projects, enhancement and support, using appropriate tools and methodologies
• Leads hybrid or agile teams in delivering iteratively, using an appropriate agile methodology. Coaches and leads teams to deliver on committed backlog
• Using best practice methods and tools, ensures that risks and issues are appropriately identified, assessed and mitigated
• Manages communication to all internal and external stakeholders
• Manage resources, workloads, allocation, availability, and skills.
• Manages budgets, costs, and payments
• Manage the systems and technology life- cycle to ensure business continuity
• Ensure software development and implementation is managed as per the Business needs analysis.

2. Stakeholder Collaboration

• Act as the primary liaison between business teams and technical teams.
• Engages with senior stakeholders, business leaders, and project sponsors to align the portfolio with organizational needs.
• Manages expectations, communicates progress across the portfolio, and resolves conflicts.
• Facilitate workshops and discussions to ensure all stakeholders are aligned on objectives and deliverables.
• Manage stakeholder expectations and ensure timely communication on progress and challenges.

3. Technical Oversight

• Oversees various solutions within a portfolio and ensures alignment with business objectives.
• Focuses on strategic planning, and portfolio delivery for own solution stack and high-level stakeholder engagement.
• Define and oversee the architecture, design, and integration of solutions.
• Ensure solutions comply with organizational standards, scalability, and security requirements.
• Work closely with development teams to troubleshoot and resolve technical issues.

4. Strategic Alignment

• Strategic Focus
• Operates at a strategic level, ensuring that all solutions align with broader organizational goals.
• Balances priorities across multiple projects, managing trade-offs between time, cost, and scope
• Align solutions with the organization's business goals and technology strategy.
• Conduct market research and stay updated on emerging technologies to drive innovation.
• Evaluate and recommend tools, platforms, and methodologies to enhance solution delivery.

5. Team and Project Management

• Define project scope, timelines, and resource requirements.
• Ensure on-time delivery of solutions within budget.
• Track and report on solution performance metrics to stakeholders.
• Manage team capacity and skills requirements to support the technologies
• Oversee, and take ultimate accountability for a delivery unit, enabling it to effectively deliver through active sponsorship, leadership, and business involvement in specific initiatives to ensure they meet time, cost and quality requirements
• Accountable for providing leadership, managing, and coordinating the coherent activities needed to design, develop, and release services or service changes
• Leverages teams' expertise, and shares information and best practices to optimize work results. Encourages, empowers and enables the team to deliver on performance objectives. Works across teams, often overseeing Solution Leads and project managers to ensure alignment.
• Maintains a high-level overview of team performance and progress.

6. Continuous Improvement

• Identify opportunities for optimizing existing solutions and processes.
• Promote best practices in solution design and delivery.
• Drive post-implementation reviews to capture lessons learned and refine future approaches

Qualifications

• Degree in Information Systems / B.Sc Computer Science (preferred)

Experience

• 5 years' experience in an IT Manager or similar role in an IT delivery systems environment with demonstrable experience driving and delivering large-scale and complex IT initiatives - (essential).
• Solid experience in a team leadership
• Experience in IT in the retail industry
• 10 years' experience in IT

Knowledge and Skills

• Self-motivated and driven with strong integrity - take accountability for actions and mistakes.
• Independent problem solver and analytical thinker - ability to handle complexity.
• Collaborative partnering - build relationships both internally and externally. Open, honest and direct, is comfortable in giving and receiving constructive feedback. Think and act independently as well as collaboratively.
• Operational efficiency - someone who can spread themselves across multiple tasks simultaneously by working smartly, efficiently, and effectively. Diligently staying on top of the details and understanding how they fit into the big picture.
• Adapting and responding to change - drive change, deliver results and meet customer expectations.
• Team leadership and supervision - a positive leader and coach who serves the team and shows an appreciation for the development of team effectiveness and strong customer orientation.
• Time management - ability to prioritise a high volume of projects simultaneously in a fast-paced unpredictable environment. Identify the urgent & important tasks and priorities to ensure delivery to client and other stakeholders.
• Innovative and solution-orientated - creating and applying sound judgment and the ability to generate solutions that serve the flow of work and meeting deadlines. Curious, goal-oriented, and highly self motivated with a passion for driving transformative change.
• Exceptional communication - approachable with excellent listening skills, adopt a range of communication styles to facilitate successful outcomes within the team and cross-functionally in a matrix structure.

Skills Required