Ops Excellence - Senior Associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC)

Role Summary:

A career within PwC’s global operations practice where we connect clients’ strategies with execution. We start with the premise that operations can and should be a strategic asset, and we bring the industry, functional, and technology depth required to rapidly close the gap between ideas and results. Our focus is on transformation, by driving growth through productivity and performance improvement, strategically reducing costs, improving operational flexibility and improving capital efficiency. This role will provide you with the opportunity to help our clients optimise all elements of their operations, moving beyond the role of a cost effective business to become a source of competitive advantage.

Qualifications / Certifications required:

• Minimum Bachelor's Degree or equivalent level of work experience in a operational improvement role
• Bachelor’s degree in any of the following:
• Engineering (Industrial, Chemical, Mechanical, Aeronautical)
• Commerce
• Finance 
• Organisational / Industrial Psychology

Additional experience / certification will be an advantage: 

• Lean Six Sigma certification
• Scaled Agile Frameworks (SAFe) certification 
• Leading SAFe
• Implementing SAFe
• Scrum Master
• Kanban

Experience required:

• Minimum 2 years of experience in deploying operational improvement programmes or projects
• Experience of implementing agile, lean techniques, business optimisation and new ways of work in different organisational cultures and environments
• Strong ability to coach, influence thinking and build relationships (client and team)
• Strong problem solving and communication capabilities
• Strong Data analysis experience and presentation skills
• Proven track record in influencing change

Responsibilities of role:

As a Senior Associate, you’ll work as part of a team of problem solvers with extensive consulting and industry experience, helping our clients solve their complex business issues from strategy through to execution. 

We are looking for an experienced business transformation practitioner to join our Operational Excellence team. You will coach, mentor and guide our clients on implementing, enhancing and scaling new ways of work using lean and agile methodologies, and work with our team to design the best solutions for their specific industry and/or departmental challenges. 

You will work with project teams to analyse our clients’ current systems, processes, and people to design a strategy for the implementation and adoption of new ways of work and best practices. You will guide teams to help them stay on track, fine-tuning approaches as needed to ensure overall project success. 

Specific responsibilities include, but are not limited to:

• Effectively communicate principles and practices to drive new ways of work and the operating model across the Operational Excellence team
• Support the leadership team in maintaining operational principles and practices and ensure smooth project delivery
• Successfully lead workstreams within a client deployment
• Coach client management staff in a variety of operational frameworks and methods to ensure adoption of best practices, top-down
• Lead workshops for client teams, as well as their key stakeholders
• Drive cultural change (both internally and at clients) by championing a growth and innovation mindset
• Work as part of a team on projects related to operational improvement and optimisation 
• Analyse big data to support recommendations through the use of PowerBi, Alteryx, Celonis, PafNow, Tableau and other data / dashboarding tools 
• Establish effective working relationships directly with clients
• Proactively assist in the management of several clients, while reporting to Managers and above
• Contribute to the development of both your own and your team’s technical acumen
• Keep up to date with local and national business and economic issues
• Be actively involved in business development activities to help identify and research opportunities on new/existing clients 
• Contribute to enhancing our delivery assets through ongoing development of our methodology, and alignment with other Operations capabilities (e.g. operating model design, process redesign, etc.)
• Continue to develop internal relationships and your PwC brand

Skill sets required:

• Strong analytical skills
• Ability to effectively coach and improve team and individual performance through data driven insights and coaching conversations
• Ability to structure, interpret and challenge client data
• Ability to develop business / value cases 
• Demonstrate excellent communication and presentation skills, with the ability to synthesise the team’s work into recommendations presented to clients, and deliver oral and written reports to the client management 
• Possess a strong presence in a dynamic team, with the ability to foster team spirit
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to effect real change
• Stakeholder management and effective communication (at all levels - client and internally)
• Problem solving, innovation and critical thinking
• Process workshop facilitation and documentation (value stream mapping, BPMN)
• Process improvement
• Practical experience of Agile, Scrum, Kanban, and Scaled Agile Frameworks
• Lean transformation
• Business transformation 
• Strong experience in Microsoft Office 365 and Google Suite tools

Role related attributes:

• Self-starter and motivated, with a proactive optimistic mindset
• Flexibility, ability to work under pressure and willingness to travel when needed
• High level of emotional intelligence, with the ability to demonstrate empathy and humility
• Commercial awareness to understand a business area and its strategic outcomes