Product Owner Financial Changes at Old Mutual South Africa

Job Description

• The Product Owner’s main responsibility is to work with the teams to ensure delivery of the agreed upon strategy.
• Working closely with the Product Manager and inputting into the consumer strategy, the Product Owner focuses efforts on the team to drive delivery that meets consumer needs.
• Working closely with the teams to take the requirements of the Product Manager in the form of Features, the Product Owner works with the team to break these into Stories with acceptance criteria that ultimately meet the features requirements.
• The Product Owner accepts all stories written by the team and ensures that the expectations of the Product Manager are managed effectively. To achieve this, Product Owner must have (or develop) deep technical knowledge on how products are built and designed as they are embedded within the teams.
• There is often overlap in roles between Product Managers and Product Owners – both can have input into Strategy, execution and customer insight. However, the Product Manager has overall responsibility for representing the customer, vision and strategy, whilst the Product Owner has overall responsibility to work with the teams to execute on the agreed plans.
• Ownership of Change Requests: Manage and prioritize financial change requests from customers and advisors, ensuring timely and accurate implementation.
• Process Improvement: Identify opportunities to enhance the administration processes for policy changes, improving efficiency and accuracy.
• Stakeholder Collaboration: Work closely with internal teams, including Customer Service, IT, and Compliance, to ensure seamless execution of change requests.
• Customer Focus: Maintain a customer-centric approach, ensuring that all changes enhance the customer experience and meet their financial needs.
• Regulatory Compliance: Ensure all process improvements comply with relevant financial regulations and company policies.
• Data Analysis: Analyse data to understand the impact of process changes on product performance and customer satisfaction.
• Documentation: Maintain detailed records of all change requests and their outcomes, providing transparency and accountability.
• Opportunity Identification: Scan internal and external environments to identify opportunities for improving the experience of customers, advisors, and internal staff.
• Backlog Management: Create and maintain a backlog of technical enhancements, facilitating and supporting the prioritization process.
• Feature Sizing and Business Value: Size features and assign business value to determine priorities effectively. 

Requirements:

• Education: Bachelor’s degree in Business, Finance, or a related field.
• 5 - 8 years’ experience in a Digital/self-service environment.
• Minimum of 3 - 5 years demonstrated, relevant experience in a large, complex organization preferably in the financial services industry.
• A postgraduate qualification is advantageous.
• Proven experience with several agile development methodologies, frameworks and concepts, including Kanban, Scrum, continuous delivery.
• Knowledge in Systems thinking is advantageous.
• Experience with customer journeys, demonstrated ability to synthesize data, and strong program/project management skills.
• Experience in defining and delivering successful products in the digital space is required.
• Good understanding of User Experience best practices.
• Experience working in a collaborative multi-disciplinary team within an interactive process and/or an Agile development methodology.
• Self-starter with outstanding organizational skills and ability to track multiple dependencies (3-5) going on all at once.
• Ability to thrive in a fast-paced environment, comfort in a dynamic and fast-moving work environment.
• Excellent communication skills; ability to communicate messages in simple language for better buy-in and tell a compelling story.
• Ability to build relationships and engage with various stakeholders to drive value proposition.

ADDITIONAL QUALIFICATIONS/EXPERIENCE (PREFERRED, NOT A REQUIREMENT)

• Project Management Tools: Proficiency in tools such as JIRA, Trello, or Asana for managing and tracking change requests.
• Data Analysis Tools: Experience with data analysis and visualization tools like Excel, Tableau, or Power BI.
• CRM Systems: Familiarity with Customer Relationship Management (CRM) systems such as Salesforce.
• Financial Software: Knowledge of financial software and systems used in the insurance industry.
• Agile Methodologies: Understanding and experience with Agile methodologies and frameworks like Scrum or Kanban.
• Technical Documentation: Ability to create and manage technical documentation related to product changes and requirements.

COMPETENCIES REQUIRED

• Detail-oriented with a strong focus on accuracy.
• Customer-focused with a commitment to delivering high-quality service.
• Proactive and able to manage multiple priorities in a fast-paced environment.
• Strong leadership skills with the ability to influence and drive change.

Education

• Bachelors Degree (B)  (Required)