Summary:

Under the direction of the VP IT, MWI Animal Health, the Sr Director, IT Product Lead is responsible for the products defined in their product portfolio and group. This role has overall accountability for defining the product(s) and ensuring that the product services are delivered in accordance with business priorities, business goals, and customer requirements to meet or exceed expectations and ensuring service levels are met. The IT Product Manager will collaborate with business resources to consistently evaluate the value being delivered by the products while driving continuous improvement of the products offerings. This role will establish product plans, technical roadmaps, and collaborate with business and IT leaders on the long-term strategies to maintain and enhancement the product(s).

The Sr Director, IT Product Lead is expected to demonstrate general knowledge and capabilities in all areas of the operating model and application lifecycle management. This role will manage a cross-functional team and must have a general understanding of product design, product ownership, continuous delivery, lean practices, agile practices and execution, operations, and development/engineering. This role is accountable for maintaining service costing and resources budgets for their product(s). This role supports highly complex business processes that require cross-team support outside of their immediate product team and will require managing and leveraging resources from architecture, release/change management, infrastructure, network, and other systems in support of their product.  

Primary Responsibilities:

Strategy/Planning

• Plans for future changes to the product(s) to meet customer and business priorities needs
• Works collaboratively with others:  product owners, customer relationship managers and capacity planners to forecast demand
• Partners with IT and business leaders to define opportunities to identify and prioritize items based on business needs and timetables
• Maintains liaison relationship with business partners and IT partners to provide effective technical solutions
• Drives continuous improvement in all areas impacting product(s)
• Develops business-focused concepts, including risk, cost-benefit, strategic initiatives, task/defect fix prioritization
• Aligns with 3rd party vendor and IT strategy and architecture teams to understand the long-term product strategy roadmap
• Fosters an environment of design thinking
• Develops and maintains product roadmaps; plans for product end of life or retirement
• Interfaces with customers regarding product offerings, costs, value propositions, and on boarding processes
• In conjunction with product owners develops customer communications strategy that facilitates and promotes awareness of significant events for the product(s)
• Benchmark and manage the IT metrics established for the product team

Product Definition/Risk Mgmt.

• Plans for future changes to the service to meet customer needs
• Works with the business product owner(s) to prioritize continuous improvement, pay down of technical debt, and manage defect resolution
• Develops business-focused concepts including: risk management, cost-benefit, strategic initiatives, innovative solutions, and success measurements
• Oversees the development of metrics that are aligned to and support the established business Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) for product
• Oversees the development of and negotiates service-level agreements (SLAs) and Operational Level Agreements (OLAs) in support of their products
• Assesses and evaluates risk as part of the life cycle analysis of the product; communicates risk to appropriate IT and business leadership providing clarity into the situation and recommends risk mitigation options/plans
• Defines and directs interaction with governance, audit, and quality teams
• Removes technical and functional roadblocks of the product team, including coordination with other product teams, Centers of Competence and Enterprise Services

Service Cost

• Working with financial analysts, analyzes the costs associated with delivering the product and identifying opportunities for improvement
• May perform profit and loss analysis
• Negotiates with other product groups, enterprise services, and centers of competence resources about the allocation of costs from infrastructure components or services that are shared among multiple products
• Working with financial analysts, defines cost allocation, cost recovery and pricing plan within the overall context of the IT chargeback or pricing model
• Ensures cost effectiveness of products 

Procurement Planning

• Identifies and/or approves needs for procurement of new assets to better deliver product capability
• Identifies assets that are or will become obsolete and need of retiring
• Documents improvement plans based on current asset deployment and need to replace/retire older/non-performing assets
• Product Performance and Support
• Defines attributes such as performance, availability, security, etc.
• Drives internal product continuous improvement review meetings
• Ensures that performance meets the requirements of  KPIs, SLAs and OLAs
• Regularly reviews the product to ensure the value realization is in line with the business and IT strategy
• First point of contact in communications regarding high severity issues of the product(s).  Coordinates recovery and resolution to these high severity issues, and ensure a root cause analysis is provided to the business for the issue

Vendor Management

• In coordination with the VMO, manages and reviews vendor contracts for alignment with desired results
• Provides input to the VMO with regards to decision-making and contract development processes
• Regularly reviews service provider performance to identify and confirm performance problems; notifies Vendor and VMO management of issues and escalates to business and IT leaders with regards to vendor performance issues and improvement plans
• Contractor Management: Oversight of contractor work and performance, including coordinating with Centers of Competence in identifying, onboarding and evaluating vendor performance
• Works closely with 3rd party solution providers to understand product roadmaps, provide feedback on critical business needs and overall roadmap

Associate Management 

• Responsible for the human resource management of the cross-functional product team members
• In collaboration with the appropriate Centers of Competence, manage and evaluate goals, skills and training for associates on the team
• Coaches and mentors product team associates, modeling the ideal behavior in communications, conflict resolution and sense of urgency.
• Directly contributes to the team’s success by helping to execute when necessary including but not limited to user enhancement definition, story creation, technical architecture and coaching, code reviews or acceptance criteria creation.
• Other duties as assigned.

Education:

• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Information Systems or another related field, or equivalent work experience

Work Experience & Desired Skillsets:

• Preferably seven (7) or more years in Information Technology in progressive levels of responsibility and leadership  

• High level understanding of several components of IT such as: Product Management, Technical Architecture, Business Analysis, Testing or Operations and Support. 

• Three (3) or more years of budgetary responsibility preferred

• Excellent written and verbal skills, including the ability to respond well under pressure  

• Strong leadership skills

• Self-motivated and self-directed

• Demonstrated ability to partner and collaborate across organizations to optimize outcomes

• Demonstrates working knowledge of product management methodology

• Understanding of basic SAFe Agile principles and methodology

• Ability to prioritize work load and consistently meet commitments

• Ability to work across multiple groups within IT to ensure end to end performance

• Excellent interpersonal skills, must be comfortable working continually on a team with daily accountability for keeping commitments

• Excellent written and oral communication, listening and presentation skills

• In-depth knowledge of business operations

• Good organizational skills

• Ability to use good judgment in conveying status and problem escalation 

• Provides coaching and mentoring to team members 

• Knowledge of the cost basis for the service

What Cencora offers

We provide compensation, benefits, and resources that enable a highly inclusive culture and support our team members’ ability to live with purpose every day. In addition to traditional offerings like medical, dental, and vision care, we also provide a comprehensive suite of benefits that focus on the physical, emotional, financial, and social aspects of wellness. This encompasses support for working families, which may include backup dependent care, adoption assistance, infertility coverage, family building support, behavioral health solutions, paid parental leave, and paid caregiver leave. To encourage your personal growth, we also offer a variety of training programs, professional development resources, and opportunities to participate in mentorship programs, employee resource groups, volunteer activities, and much more. For details, visit https://www.virtualfairhub.com/cencora

*This Salary Range reflects a National Average for this job. The actual range may vary based on your locale. Ranges in Colorado/California/Washington/New York/Hawaii/Vermont/Minnesota/Massachusetts/Illinois State-specific locations may be up to 10% lower than the minimum salary range, and 12% higher than the maximum salary range.

Equal Employment Opportunity

Cencora is committed to providing equal employment opportunity without regard to race, color, religion, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, genetic information, national origin, age, disability, veteran status or membership in any other class protected by federal, state or local law.

The company’s continued success depends on the full and effective utilization of qualified individuals. Therefore, harassment is prohibited and all matters related to recruiting, training, compensation, benefits, promotions and transfers comply with equal opportunity principles and are non-discriminatory.

Cencora is committed to providing reasonable accommodations to individuals with disabilities during the employment process which are consistent with legal requirements. If you wish to request an accommodation while seeking employment, please call 888.692.2272 or email hrsc@cencora.com. We will make accommodation determinations on a request-by-request basis. Messages and emails regarding anything other than accommodations requests will not be returned

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