Divisional Operation Manager (Five year contract) at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

About The Job

The CSIR has a vacancy for a Divisional Operations Manager in the Natural Resources, Enabling Infrastructure, Public and Professional Services division. The incumbent will be responsible for managing and guiding the implementation of the Divisional Strategy and Operational plans. This will be achieved by ensuring operational efficiency; creating an environment conducive for business delivery, analysing trends that affect the business; monitoring and evaluation of delivery against operational plans. Furthermore, the incumbent will be expected to report on progress against plans and suggest changes/interventions to enable achievement of performance measures. Monitoring of service level agreements with CSIR support functions. Support the Divisional Group Executives in the formulation of business objectives and business plans that cascades from Division into Clusters, Impact Areas and Centres. The role will also be accountable for Divisional planning, which prioritises business imperatives, customer, employee and organisational requirements. This position is based in Pretoria.

Key Responsibilities

• Facilitate divisional operations strategy development (including formulation of business objectives and business plans) that cascades from Division into Clusters, Impact Areas and Centres;
• Translate divisional strategies to effective and efficient operational plans in cooperation with the divisional management team;
• Ensures alignment and congruence of Cluster strategic objectives with CSIR and divisional objectives.
• Drive divisional level processes such as parliamentary grant investment, planning, monitoring and reporting.
• Accountable for execution of divisional operations, performance enhancement of processes as well as ongoing monitoring of strategy implementation and reporting thereof;
• Collect, consolidate and prepare operational plans, quarterly reports and business plans from Clusters;
• Responsible for the division planning function, which prioritises achievement of critical business objectives, customer, employee and organisational requirements over non-critical requirements;
• Establish and maintain a systems view of the business identifying its various value chains, systems, processes, constraints and the business support ecosystem within CSIR;
• Lead the development of a divisional management information system capturing appropriate critical performance metrics (including sales, finances, EHS, etc.) for various levels of management including Impact Area Managers, Executive Managers and the Divisional Group Executive;
• Support the budgeting process in collaboration with divisional finance & executive clusters Managers;
• Support the performance contracting of clusters and impact area as well for own team;
• Consolidate and prepare information for quarterly and year-end reports and presentations of progress against targets and submit timeously to Divisional Group Executive;
• Ensure implementation of and adherence to SHEQ practices and policies throughout the Division;
• Effective management of operations staff as well as drive strategic HCD for capacity development.

Qualifications, Skills And Experience

• A Master’s degree in relevant science or engineering with at least eight years’ of experience in Research Development and Innovation, that includes working experience on complex engineered systems, either in technology development, systems integration or testing and evaluation.
• A operations management domain qualification would be an advantage;
• The incumbent must have experience with large complex projects that are technology-based, exposure to complexities of managing large contract R&D projects including multi-year projects and experience in working in a matrix type environment, with a solid track record in the following:
  • Extensive technical experience within a science or engineering based environment;
  • Extensive knowledge of the business of the Division, including working knowledge in the intensive engineering environment that is characterised in at least one of the clusters within this division (Natural Resources, Enabling Infrastructure, Public and Professional Services);
  • Technology development and exposure to Business Development and Commercialisation;
  • Strategic & operational planning and implementation;
  • Advanced understanding of business planning and regulatory issues;
  • Thorough understating of the full life cycle of contract management and implementation of management practices;
  • A solid grasp of data analysis and performance metrics, for informed decision-making.