Logistics Product Manager – Operations (CoE)

PURPOSE STATEMENT:

As Product Manager, lead the relevant product(s) long term vision, strategy, roadmap and backlog ensuring alignment to Operations vision and goals and the Information and Digital Technology (IDT) strategy.  This is a cross functional role, working intimately with Manufacturing, Supply Chain Compliance and IDT.

The focus of this role is on set of solutions which are used to support warehouse management processes in the context of global track and trace solution.

CONTEXT

The Operations CoE is a cross-functional team being created in 2019, organised and implemented by Supply Chain Compliance and Factory Systems products. The goal is to support the ongoing deployments and ultimately extract maximum value from those products post-Hypercare.  This includes: 

• ‘Keeping the lights on’ in partnership with IT Services by resolving incidents, supporting issues and problems in live markets, maintenance, security, run costs, etc.
  
• ‘Evolving and improving’ the products – new features, innovation and changes for live markets, leveraging the platform, etc.
• ‘Governing and empowering’ – helping End Markets leverage the platform and building their capabilities, which might be re-used by others
• ‘Maximising usage’ – continue people change and adoption management to make the most of the platform’s capabilities
• ‘Retrofit’ – enabling new features built by the GMES/TPD programme to become live through testing, remediation, product change management, system training material updates and leveraging the global Super User Community 

PRINCIPAL ACCOUNTABILITIES:

Keeping the lights on:

• Support the Head of Operations CoE in prioritising, coordinating and communicating the resolution of live product issues within Service Level Agreements (SLAs)

Evolving and improving:

• Drive the evolution of the relevant product(s), where appropriate by delivering through central capabilities (internal team and System Integrator (SI))
• Defining the Product roadmap and release plan and planning of Program Increments (PIs) and Iterations
• Explain the customer and business need to the immediate team, and collaborate effectively with them to break down complex pieces of work into smaller deliverable pieces of value; work with the team to write user stories and acceptance tests, provide direction on short-term tasks/near-term priorities
• Support the Head of Operation CoE in defining any capital budget, developing the benefit/investment case(s) for the role’s product(s) and coordinate allocated capital to execute the roadmap and ensure the product(s) is delivering value for money 
• With the support the Head of Operations CoE, manage successful end-to-end delivery of product iterations, prioritising work and making appropriate trade-offs 
• Communicate progress, proactively manage risks and issues, escalating to the Head of Operations CoE where necessary 
• Collaborate effectively with Manufacturing/Supply Chain Compliance Business Owners, DRGs, engineers, architects, data scientists, Report Analysts, other product teams, across Group, DT and Divisional CDO’s, along with 3rd parties to launch new products - maximising re-use across the group 
• Understand and report progress against agreed outcomes and related success measures 
• Use data to drive analysis of new features / iterations and drive prioritisation of future work 
• Ensure that system training materials are amended to reflect new product iterations and published on the relevant Learning Management System (LMS), and deliver face-to-face training where required

Governing and empowering:

• Continually promote knowledge of the GMES & TPD platform across regions and markets

Maximising usage:

• When escalated by the relevant Subject Matter Expert (SME), support them in collaborating and influencing End Market SMEs and/or Leadership Team members to deploy initiatives to improve the End Market adoption and compliance metrics beyond benchmark/threshold within an acceptable timeframe
• Work with End Market Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) to identify the root causes of inadequate adoption or compliance metrics
• Coordinate post-launch activities to validate value realisation through post investment reviews

Retrofit:

• Coordinate and guarantee that new capabilities are delivered for current live markets with sufficient quality and testing
• Actively manage, contribute to and invigorate the Super User Community for relevant product(s), ensuring its sustained long term.  This includes ensuring factories and warehouse appoint new Super Users when needed
• Manage system training material development budget and ensure the relevant SME coordinates the creation and publishing of updated system training materials 

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

Knowledge, Skills & Experience

ia Skills required

• Degree educated IT professional with business-facing IT experience in a global environment
• Strong planning and prioritisation skills, with a working knowledge of agile practices
• Strong people skills with ability to communicate, engage, influence and inspire colleagues and stakeholders (including cross functional senior stakeholders, relying on strong leadership skills when outside of the incumbent’s career function)
• Ability to analyse processes and data to draw insight, and identify opportunities
• Proactivity and initiative, a ‘can-do’ attitude and the ability to work unsupported 
• Strong problem-solving skills
• Ability to recognise the concepts of shared responsibility and effective collaboration
• Willingness to learn, experiment and collaborate 
• Accountability for the delivery of the roadmap, working closely with cross-functional teams to achieve this 
• Ability to engage people around the roadmap for the product, effectively communicating and building trust 
• Commitment to ongoing personal development and the ability to recognise and celebrate effort and success of colleagues

ib Experience

• A seasoned T professional with, as a guideline 5 to 7 years’ experience in the field of IT Manufacturing/Supply Chain
• Multinational FMCG (ideally tobacco) and FTSE-100 experience
• Knowledge of at least two of the following: 
• Labelling Managements systems (ideally Nice Label)
• Warehouse Management Systems (ideally SAP WM)
• Movilizer Warehouse Site System (M-WSS)
• SAP Object Event Repository (OER)
• Experience of product/project management, especially SCRUM/ Prince 2 practitioner with agile work experience
• Experience of implementing Tobacco Product Directive and/or Warehouse Management System

Key Success Factors

• Resolution of live product issues within Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
• Continual evolution of the relevant product(s), successfully delivering through central capabilities and/or regions and other teams to deliver themselves
• End Market adoption management is pro-actively managed for the relevant product(s) and metrics beyond benchmark/threshold are delivered within an acceptable timeframe  
• DRG members and Global Manufacturing/Supply Chain Compliance and End Market LTs are regularly updated and consulted providing visibility and informing proper decision making
• SMEs in team are provided with the necessary support and coaching