Divisional Operations Manager at Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR)

About the job:

The CSIR has a vacancy for a Divisional Operations Manager within the Advanced Production and Security Division. The incumbent will be responsible for co-ordinating the Divisional Strategy development, including formulation of business objectives and business plans, that cascades from Division into Clusters, Impact Areas and Centres. The role will also be accountable for execution of Divisional Strategy and monitoring progress on implementation at Division, Cluster, Impact Area and Centre levels. This includes the Divisional planning function, which prioritises business imperatives, customer, employee, and organisational requirements. This position is based in Pretoria.

Key responsibilities:

• Co-ordination of Divisional Strategy development (including formulation of business objectives and business plans) that cascades from Division into Clusters, Impact Areas and Centres;
• Ensures alignment and congruence of Divisional objectives with Cluster and Impact Area objectives;
•  Accountable for execution of Divisional Strategy and ongoing monitoring of strategy implementation as well as reporting thereof;
• Identify and manage risks associated with the implementation of the Divisional strategy, together with Divisional Team;
•  Responsible for the Division planning function, which prioritises achievement of critical business objectives, customer, employee, and organisational requirements over non-critical requirements;
• Accountable for securing the revenue targets and diversification of income streams of the cluster;
• Facilitate strategic investment of parliamentary grant to leverage further income from industry and other funding sources;
• Accountable for market/business intelligence to inform the cluster’s RDI agenda, facilitate development of technologies for current and future competitiveness and ensure collaboration with industry and relevant parties locally and internationally;
• Lead and maintain in-depth stakeholder engagement in industry and the public sector at large;
• Lead technical teams in client interactions and account for all key client relationships, represent client interests and be responsible for client satisfaction;
• 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 and Executive Clusters Managers;
•  Establish a system financial model for the Division to understand distribution of overhead costs and cost optimisation to optimise profit;
• 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; a management domain qualification would be an advantage;

At least ten years’ experience in a complex engineering system based, technology-oriented, contract R&D, multi-project and matrix type environment, with a solid track record in the following:  

• Extensive technical experience within an engineering based environment;
• Extensive knowledge of the business, including working knowledge in the intensive engineering environment that is characterised in at least one of the clusters within this division (Mining, Manufacturing, Defence and Security);
• Technology development and exposure to Business Development and Commercialisation
• Strategic and 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

Closing date: 24 August 2023